SKETCH OF PROF. J. S. NEWBERRY. 49 i 



The grandfather of J. S. Newberry, General Roger Newberry, an 

 officer in the army during the Revolutionary War, was for many years 

 a member of the Governor's Council ; he was also one of the directors 

 of the Connecticut Land Company, proprietors of a great part of the 

 " Western Reserve," in Northern Ohio. His son Henry, father of 

 the subject of this notice, in 1824, with his family, emigrated from 

 Windsor to the Western Reserve, and founded the town of Cuyahoga 

 Falls, in Summit County. 



Young Newberry received his academic education at the West- 

 ern Reserve College, from which institution he graduated in 1846. 

 Two years later he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine 

 from the Cleveland Medical College. The years 1849-'50 he spent 

 in study and in foreign travel, and in 1851 he began the practice 

 of medicine at Cleveland. But the life of a practising physician 

 was distasteful to Dr. Newberry, as affording but little opportunity 

 for scientific study, for which he had from boyhood evinced great 

 aptitude. Hence, in May, 1855, he accepted an appointment as assist- 

 ant surgeon and geologist to Lieutenant Williamson's expedition for 

 the exploration of the country lying between San Francisco and the 

 Columbia River. The results of this expedition are published in the 

 Pacific Railroad "Reports;" but Dr. Newberry's report on "The 

 Geology, Botany, and Zoology of Northern California and Oregon " 

 also appears in a separate quarto volume of 300 pages, with 48 plates. 



He next, in 1857-'58, was attached to an expedition under the 

 command of Lieutenant J. C. Ives, commissioned to explore and navi- 

 gate the Colorado River, so as to open a route of communication 

 with the army in Utah. An iron steamer, constructed in Philadel- 

 phia, was taken in sections to the Gulf of California, where it was put 

 together and launched. The expedition navigated the river for the 

 distance of 500 miles. Above the point reached by the steamer the 

 course of the river, for hundreds of miles, is through deep canons with 

 vertical walls, in some places over a mile in height. The report on 

 the Colorado region, drawn up conjointly by Lieutenant Ives and Dr. 

 Newberry, gives a graphic description of perhaps the most remark- 

 able portion of the earth's surface. In the preface to the report, Lieu- 

 tenant Ives speaks of Newberry's observations as constituting " the 

 most interesting material gathered by the expedition." 



The following year (1859) Dr. Newberry was ordered to join a 

 party sent out by the War Department, to report to Captain Ma- 

 comb, for the exploration of the San Juan and Upper Colorado Rivers. 

 The party traversed a large part of Southern Colorado, Utah, North- 

 ern Arizona, and New Mexico, adding greatly to the sum of geo- 

 graphical knowledge, and opening a region of singular interest and 

 of enormous mineral wealth. This expedition determined the point 

 of junction of the Grand and Green Rivers, forming the Colorado; 

 further, it explored the valley of the San Juan, a river whose banks 



