EDWARD HITCHCOCK. 691 



unusual date. Both clergymen and people denounced the almanac 

 because of this supposed misstatement. Defense was made that the 

 ordinary rules for determining this festival were useless for that 

 year, as it was a peculiar case, occurring only once in several 

 hundred years. Soon afterward the bishop of the diocese issued a 

 circular sustaining the almanac. 6. Classical training came in 

 connection with teaching. First came the ordinary labor of mak- 

 ing translations and grammatical construction. Then he kept a 

 note-book for putting down the most striking sentiments of an 

 author, such as would answer for mottoes and quotations. To 

 obtain the choicest sentiments he carefully looked up all the 

 references made from rare authors. Thus he became familiar 

 with the best thoughts of the classical authors, and by fixing them 

 in his memory obtained a fair substitute for the more extended 

 college training. 



Daring his connection with Deerfield Academy, Hitchcock be- 

 came interested in botany and mineralogy, through the influence 

 of Prof. Amos Eaton. With two associates, the list of plants and 

 minerals of the neighborhood was soon made exhaustive. He had 

 correspondence with the elder Prof. Silliman, of Yale College, re- 

 specting difficult questions, and the two maintained for each other 

 a lifelong friendship. It was probably this correspondence which 

 led Hitchcock to join the newly opened theological department at 

 New Haven. He furnished contributions to the first volume of 

 Silliman's American Journal of Science and Art, and to many 

 later issues. In all, his name is prefixed to fifty-two papers, no- 

 tices, and reviews on topics relating to geology, mineralogy, ich- 

 nology, surface geology, physics, meteorology, and botany, in this 

 journal. 



Hitchcock chose the ministry for his profession. He was set- 

 tled as a pastor over the Congregational Church in Conway, Mass., 

 from 1821 to 1825. While in this office he studied natural history 

 to some extent, for the benefit of his health. It was at this time 

 that he discovered and described that small but widely distributed 

 fern, Botrycliium simplex. In 1825 he was appointed Professor of 

 Chemistry and Natural History in Amherst College. Twenty 

 years afterward he became president of the same institution, and 

 continued in the office for nearly ten years. For the remainder of 

 his life nearly ten years he taught geology and natural the- 

 ology in the same institution. 



Like scientific men of his time, Dr. Hitchcock was familiar 

 with several departments of learning being an author, educator, 

 theologian, and explorer. His career as a geologist is the best 

 known. Starting as a student of the rocks of the Connecticut 

 Valley, his home, he is soon found at both extremities of the State 

 at Martha's Vineyard and Berkshire County. With larger op- 



