264 NATURAL SCIENCE [October 1898 



is one of the most valuable contributions to these forms of 

 Arthropods. And Hall not only described fossils systematically ; 

 he carefully studied their anatomy and the microscopic structure of 

 their tissues, a work in which the magnificent preservation of the 

 North American palaeozoic fossils gave him exceptional oppor- 

 tunities. 



In 1872 Hall visited England to attend the meeting of the 

 British Association at Brighton, and read a paper " On the Clinton, 

 Niagara, and Upper Helderberg Formations in the United States." 

 Four years later he helped to found the International Congress of 

 Geologists, an institution in which he always took a keen interest. 

 In fact only last year, in spite of his 86 years of age, he visited 

 Eussia to attend the last meeting of the Congress and subsequently 

 accompanied it in a fatiguing excursion through the Ural Mountains. 

 In 1884 Hall was elected a corresponding member of the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences. 



During the last few years of his life Hall was greatly worried by 

 the friction with the literary departments of the New York State 

 service with which his own was associated. Originally the 

 scientific departments were under the control of the library and 

 literary branches of the service, which regarded the great cost of the 

 scientific departments with disfavour. At length in 1893 Hall 

 succeeded in getting a bill through the New York legislature, which 

 secured his freedom from literary control. An attack was then 

 made on his private character. Mr Melvil Dewey, the state libra- 

 rian, charged Hall with having sold for 65,000 dollars a collection 

 of fossils which he said were really the property of the State. A 

 legislative committee investigated the charges, Dr Hall was triumph- 

 antly acquitted, and the New York Geological Survey has continued 

 its work in peace. 



Hall's indomitable energy, unfailing courtesy and bright good 

 humour rendered him an universal favourite in American scientific 

 circles. His humour was keen, and though sometimes cynical, never 

 marred by any suspicion of unkindness. For example, his wife was 

 a Roman Catholic and had at one time converted Hall to her views. 

 Hall used to attribute his abandonment of Romanism to the breaking 

 of a pulley chain, whereby there were simultaneously smashed to 

 shivers one of his favourite fossils and his faith in providence. 

 After this Hall's relations with his wife were not so sympathetic ; 

 for she appeared a little jealous of his devotion to his scientific work. 

 So he built a house for his wife in his park, and they lived together 

 for years on terms of friendly neighbourship. She died some years 

 ago, and Hall keenly felt her loss. He himself passed away rather 

 suddenly on August 7 th, at a quiet resort in the White Mountains, 

 where he had gone for his usual summer's rest. 



