IV.
In the absence of written records pertaining to Ran- dall's life prior to our acquaintance, I must rely on memory and a few letters, with some early journals of my own, for such poor pictures as I can make of the most gifted man I have ever known.
On January 12, 1850, Dr. Martin Gay died suddenly in Boston, where he was born on February 16, 1803. Dr. Gay was highly and widely esteemed in his native city, not only for his professional skill, but also for his many lovable traits of character. It is recorded of him that "he had a high reputation as an analytical chemist, and his fre- quent testimony as a witness in courts of justice, in cases of death by poisoning, marks an era in the history of medical jurisprudence in this country." An enthusiastic lover of knowledge, he had especially cultivated the sciences of geology and mineralogy throughout his life, and with the help of his noble and devoted wife, who shared his tastes, he had in the course of years accumu- lated a remarkably fine collection of minerals and fossils, which was considered to be of very great value, pecuniary as well as scientific. But, like Agassiz, he had " had no time to make money," and nearly all his savings had gone into this mineralogical collection. At his premature death, therefore, Mrs. Gay found herself obliged to offer it for sale. But some of Dr. Gay's friends, knowing how great a sacri- fice to her feelings it would be to part with a treasure so sacred to her as this, secretly conspired to purchase it at its full value, and then present it to her as a mark of their sym- pathy for herself and their regard for her husband's memory. Among those who volunteered to procure the subscriptions necessary to accomplish this labor of love was my own
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