Hall Jackson Kelley 3

it was not laid down until I understood all its pages oould inform me. 'Neil's History of the Indians of New England/ the first ever published, and other histories of that benighted and oppressed people were read. While preparing for college I have more than once studied my Virgil lessons by moonlight ; in this way, often times I overstrained the optic nerves, the stress so often brought upon them caused near-sightedness and to be slow of apprehension. ...

"At the age of fourteen I first experienced a difiiculty in utterance. For one or two years I suffered an impediment in my speech ; in the presence of superiors was unable readily to begin utterance. About the time of entering college I dis- covered myself to be 'slow of speech' (of apprehension). . . ."•

Earnest, introspective, and difiident, he was also religious to the degree of fanaticism. "In my youth the Lord Jesus re- vealed to me in visions the lonely, laborious and eventful life I was to live; and gave at the time of the visions, and after- wards, untnistakable signs that the revelations were by Him."* In practical matters, however, he showed early in life a dis- position to get at the truth through actual experiment. Thus he said:

"A year or two prior to my entering college, much was said in the papers in regard to a perpettuU motion. I went into a workship determined- on knowing the reality of such a motion, spent several days in an attempt to find out the truth about it. After several days of study and mechanical labor, I was en- abled to demonstrate its impossibility. . . ."^

Of his college life little is known except that he enjoyed the respect of his fellow students as a young man who could be relied upon to meet the problems which presented themselves.

"When 'in college,' my class was put to the study of astron- omy. For the purpose of illustrating, I constructed an Orrery — z machine showing the pathways of the moon round

5 SettlftMnt ef Ortgon, 6, X3-4. 6nMd., xa4. 7 IWd, so.