4 oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



as I know, to the derivation of English words and affixes. His text- 

 books on that subject are full of ingenious observation and careful 

 scientific deduction. He was also a great reader of old English books 

 in their early editions, and he treasured in his memory the curiosities 

 of spelling and pronunciation, the rhymes and puns and the like which 

 he found there. He busied himself also with the Pennsylvania Dutch, 

 as it is called, and traced it to its sources in Europe. He read largely 

 the German works on the science of language, but he was an independ- 

 ent observer, and more likely to be biased by his critical temper than 

 by absorption in any systems." 



Professor Haldeman was actively interested in education, and occu- 

 pied professorial chairs during a large part of his life. He was chosen 

 Professor of Zoology in the Franklin Institute in 1842, and afterward 

 filled the positions of chemist and geologist to the Pennsylvania State 

 Agricultural Society in 1852 ; Professor of Natural History in the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania, 1850 to 1853 ; professor in the chair of the 

 same name in Delaware College, Newark, 1855 to 1858 ; and Professor 

 of Comparative Philology in the University of Pennsylvania from 1869 

 till his death. He regularly attended the meetings of the Pennsylva- 

 nia State Teachers' Association. Professor Haldeman had in great 

 part been induced to change his studies from zoology mainly to lin- 

 guistics by the failing condition of his eye-sight ; in a similar manner 

 an order to take exercise for his health became the occasion of his en- 

 gaging in the study of archaeology in 1875. He proceeded to carry 

 out an intention he had long entertained of digging for aboriginal rel- 

 ics in the Chickies Rock retreat, a shallow cave on his own property. 

 Here he obtained the interesting collection which he presented to the 

 American Philosophical Society, and which he described in a mono- 

 graph " On the Contents of a Rock Retreat in Southeastern Pennsyl- 

 vania," published by the society since his death, with fifteen large 

 quarto plates. He also published archaeological papers in the " Smith- 

 sonian Report " for 1877, in the '' American Antiquarian " and " Ameri- 

 can Naturalist," and through the American Association. 



He was a prolific and successful writer on a curious variety of sub- 

 jects, some of which appear incongruous with each other. The list of 

 his scientific publications prepared by his daughter, Mrs. Eliza Figgel- 

 mery, includes ten titles in conchology, twenty-three in entomology, 

 two on arachnidae, five on Crustacea, six on annelides and worms, seven 

 in geology and chemistry, thirty-three in philology, seven in archae- 

 ology, and twenty-nine miscellaneous publications. Outside of the 

 immediate circle of subjects with which his name is most prominently 

 associated, he published one or two works of literary criticism, an essay 

 on the " Tours of a Chess-Knight," showing how the knight can pass 

 over the whole chess-board, touching each square but once ; a collec- 

 tion of "Rhymes of the Poets," by Felix Ago, containing specimens 

 of false rhymes from one hundred and fourteen prominent writers ; 



