19
He preferred to accept the Chair of Physics in the Virginia Military Institute. When the letter conveying this appointment expressed the belief that his master mind, turned to the land, would produce results as beneficial, as when penetrating the august mysteries of the Sea, his reply was worthy of the man. He wrote: "You have marked out a great field for me—much broader than one would imagine, I am willing to enter upon it."
Once more at home, on the soil of Virginia, surrounded by his family and warm friends, he bent his energies with the same vigor and enthusiasm which characterized those honor-reflecting labors of former days, to the renewal and increase of his country's prosperity.
The catholic breadth of his mind tolerated no partial dealing with the potent elements of progress which he was wont to wield, in forming those comprehensive plans worthy of the age and of the demand which calls for the generalization of the innumerable, but as yet uncombined, elements of general prosperity.The Physical Survey of Virginia, in connection with the establishment of through routes by rail, and of a great and free water line uniting the East and
