694 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to a business man in New Brunswick, who was not regarded as 

 generous or liberal, and proposing a loan of one hundred dollars 

 on bis individual note. The proposal was accepted, and the 

 financier, taking young Lockwood's hand in his own, wished him 

 God speed. 



Immediately after this transaction the seminarian went into 

 a barber's shop, and, while waiting his turn, picked up a city 

 paper which offered a series of premiums for the four best stories 

 on a given subject. Reaching home, he told his wife what he had 

 read. She said, "You must write for the first prize ! " The story 

 was written, and won the first prize. It was called The Treasure 

 Hunters, and was written during the California gold fever, but 

 bears not even a remote relation to the Argonauts. 



Mr. Lockwood was graduated from the seminary and was 

 licensed to preach in 1850. He received a call to the church at 

 Cortlandtown, N. Y., where he remained only two years, employ- 

 ing for diversion his spare time in the pursuit of natural history, 

 collecting insects and studying animals. In 1852 he was called 

 to Gilboa, N. Y., where, located by the side of the Schoharie, he 

 became deeply impressed with the fossil richness of the region. 



A clerical agent for a benevolent society came to Gilboa, and 

 after having succeeded, with Mr. Lockwood's aid, in securing the 

 largest subscription ever given in the church for outside benevo- 

 lence, was taken by him for a stroll in the fields and by the fossil 

 beds. Mr. Lockwood spoke of the geological aspect of the region 

 and of the great age of the Catskills, when the agent responded 

 that it " was all the work of the flood." " Could the flood," asked 

 Mr. Lockwood, " build up these stony mountains filled with shells 

 for thousands of feet deep ? . . . We will let the rocks speak for 

 themselves." Picking up a soft stone from the stream, he dropped 

 it on the rock at the agent's feet, when it broke, revealing a mass 

 of Devonian trilobites. " Now," he said, " these fossils were de- 

 posited in quiet waters, and by no turbulent flood. So gently was 

 each one laid by Nature in its bed to die, that not one of the deli- 

 cate strise that beautify it was injured or disturbed. But then, 

 why should not the Creator have loved the beautiful before man 

 was made ? " " What ! what ! " exclaimed the agent ; " death in 

 the world before man was made ? I see ! You're an infidel ! " 

 The agent's society seems, however, to have overlooked this mat- 

 ter of infidelity, for it made Mr. Lockwood an honorary member 

 in recognition of his services to it. 



The young minister was soon reading other "sermons in 

 stones," 



Strolling one day along a high bank when the water of the 

 stream was low, he observed some carbonaceous markings. With 

 the aid of hammer and chisel these were proved to be relics of an 



