925.5 262 [October 



VI 

 James Hull 



IT has been given to few men to serve for upwards of sixty years 

 on the official staff of a public department in the Old World ; 

 and probably the late Dr Hall's sixty-two years of service in the 

 Geological Survey of New York State is unique in American annals. 

 James Hall was born on the 12th September 1811, at Hingham, 

 an old-fashioned New England town near Boston, which claims the 

 oldest occupied church in America. Early in the century it was 

 little more than a fishing village, and Hall received his scientific 

 education in the Rensselaer School at Troy, which has since grown 

 into the Troy Polytechnic Institute. He graduated there in 1832, 

 when he was appointed assistant professor of chemistry and natural 

 science. In 1836 he was transferred to the professorship of geology, 

 and in the same year was appointed to one of the posts of assistant 

 geologist on the newly established Geological Survey of New York 

 State. In the following year he was promoted to the rank of State 

 Geologist, and began field work during the same year. From 1838 

 until 1843 he was engaged on the survey of the western part of the 

 state, and began the study of the recession of the Niagara Falls, to 

 which he acted as Ly ell's guide in 1841. In 1843 he wrote his 

 last field report, and was appointed the State Palaeontologist. 

 Under his supervision systematic fossil collecting was undertaken in 

 the rich palaeozoic faunas of New York, resulting in the formation 

 of the magnificent collections in the Albany Museum. The faunas 

 were described in " The Palaeontology of New York," of which 

 thirteen huge imperial cpuarto volumes were issued between 1847 

 and 1894 at the estimated cost of about a million dollars. In 

 addition to writing and editing this great work, Hall contributed a 

 long series of reports to the annual volumes of the " Regents Reports 

 of the N&iv York State Museum" and a number of other papers in 

 the usual scientific serials. In 1848 he was elected a Foreign 

 Member of the Geological Society, and ten years later received from 

 the same society its Wollaston Medal, of which at his death he 

 was the senior recipient by no less than eleven years, while the 

 third medallist in seniority was elected twenty-three years later. 

 In 1855 he was offered the post of palaeontologist to the Canadian 

 Geological Survey, with a promise of the reversion of Sir William 

 Logan's position of Director. He declined the offer, but worked out 

 the collection of Canadian graptolites, which were described in a report 

 on "The Graptolites of the Quebec Group," published in 1865. 



In 1855 Hall accepted the post of State Geologist of Iowa. 



