260 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The most pleasant feature of the whole of it, however, to me was 

 the thought that I had succeeded where the English had failed, and 

 on their own ground. The people were nevertheless very pleasant to 

 me, and at my instance have continued the exploration and made 

 some new discoveries. — Translated for the Popular Science Monthly 

 from the Revue Scientifique. 



SKETCH OF CHAKLES HENRY HITCHCOCK. 



THE name of Prof. Charles H. Hitchcock is closely associated 

 with the progress of New England geology, especially with the 

 discovery of the great terminal glacial moraine, and, in connection 

 with the name of his father, Dr. Edward Hitchcock, with the study 

 of the fossil bird tracks of the Connecticut River Valley. 



Charles Henry Hitchcock was born in Amherst, Massachu- 

 setts, August 23, 1836, the son of Prof. Edward Hitchcock, the 

 eminent geologist, who was afterward president of Amherst College. 

 The family is of English origin, and was planted in America by two 

 brothers who came over at nearly the same time and made homes 

 for themselves in New Haven, removing later to towns near by. 

 Luke Hitchcock, the ancestor of the subject of this sketch, came in 

 1695, and finally settled at Wethersfield, Connecticut. His de- 

 scendants in the direct line lived at Springfield, Granville, Deer- 

 field, and Amherst, Massachusetts. Professor Hitchcock is in the 

 seventh generation from Luke, and is equally removed from Elder 

 John White, his maternal ancestor, who came to Canton, Massachu- 

 setts, toward the end of the seventeenth century, and removed thence 

 to the Connecticut Valley. Both lines of ancestry were purely Eng- 

 lish, and all the progenitors were men of integrity, regarded in 

 their times as worthy to fill offices of trust in church and town. 

 Two of them served in the Revolutionary army. 



The father of Professor Hitchcock was one of the most distin- 

 guished geologists and educators of his time, and his services, espe- 

 cially as State Geologist of Massachusetts, have already been de- 

 scribed in the Popular Science Monthly.* His mother was the 

 daughter of Jacob White, a well-to-do farmer of Amherst, who, be- 

 lieving in the education of women, had given her the best oppor- 

 tunities for study available at the time. She could read the Greek 

 Testament and calculate eclipses, and was a gifted artist with pencil 

 and brush. She prepared with her own hands many of the numerous 

 illustrations in her husband's reports, and also diagrams for the 



* Vol. xlvii, September, 1895. 



