SKETCH OF ALEXANDER WINCH ELL. 839 



On the Importance of the Study of Natural History, read be- 

 fore the State Teachers' Association in 1856, he advocated the in- 

 troduction of that subject into the Union schools and the lower 

 classes of the colleges. In the fall of 1857 he opened a class in 

 comparative osteology. A geological survey of the State of 

 Michigan having been ordered, he was commissioned as its 

 director, and began, in 1859, with one assistant, the examination 

 of the southern part of the lower peninsula. He fixed the posi- 

 tion of the salt waters of East Saginaw to within two feet of their 

 actual level, and in his report, published in August, 18G1, fully 

 anticipated the vast development of the salt interest in the Sagi- 

 naw Valley. The official survey was suspended by the breaking 

 out of the civil war, but the paleontological investigations were 

 carried on privately. Prof. Winchell pointed out the gypsum 

 bed near Tawas, which had been pronounced barren, but has 

 proved marvelously rich ; studied the " Marshall group " and its 

 relations with the Chemung ; investigated the cherry slug and 

 currant worm ; published numerous geological papers and an ad- 

 dress on the soils and subsoils of Michigan, in which he insisted 

 on the agricultural value of the pine lands ; studied the oil-pro- 

 ducing regions of the United States and Canada ; and published a 

 report on the Grand Traverse region, and a paper on the fruit- 

 bearing belt of Michigan, in which attention was first called to 

 the influence of Lake Michigan in ameliorating the climate of the 

 State and prolonging the growing period. The Geological Sur- 

 vey of Michigan was reorganized in 1869, and Prof. Winchell was 

 again appointed its director. He had learned much during the 

 interval since the survey was suspended, as our enumeration 

 shows, in his private travels for economical surveys, of the rock 

 structure and physical features of the State. In 1871 he had pre- 

 pared a preliminary report ; but hostile political and personal in- 

 fluences had been working against him, and the appropriation for 

 printing the report failed to pass the Legislature. He resigned 

 his position, and the report, embodying the results of two seasons 

 of field work in the lower peninsula, largely remains unpublished. 

 A part of the material intended for it was condensed for Walling's 

 Atlas of Michigan, and these memoirs were afterward collected 

 in a volume, accompanied by topographical, geological, and iso- 

 thermal charts. 



In 1873 Prof. Winchell was called to the position of Chan- 

 cellor of Syracuse University. He held it only for about one year, 

 when the anticipated financial resources of the institution having 

 shrunken considerably in the actuality, and he having been asked 

 to take part in public efforts to augment the endowment, he 

 resigned it. He had been told that the authorities of the in- 

 stitution had been attracted to him by his scientific reputation, 



