CHARLES RICHARD VAN HISE. 



1857-1918. 



By T. C. Chamberlin. 



When the career of a leader in science happens to coincide with the rise of a new epoch 

 in the field of research which he cultivates, it is by no means easy to apportion the work of 

 the leader in creating the epoch and the influence of the epoch in developing the leader. But 

 it is always comforting to reflect that whatever may be a just apportionment of the reciprocal 

 influences, the association of a great worker with a great epoch at least bespeaks the genius of 

 the leader in seeing the possibilities of the opportunity and making common cause with them, 

 whether by gaining from them or contributing to them, or by both. 



The beginning of the scientific career of Charles Richard Van Hise fell in rather closely with 

 the rise and spread in America of the new art of microscopic petrology and the epoch-making 

 science that arose from it. The new art had begun to develop somewhat in the Old World 

 while young Van Hise was yet a student, but he was one of the first in America to recognize 

 its epoch-making power, and aid in its development; he was quite the first I think to bring its 

 resources to bear upon the study of the crystalline rocks of the interior. He was clearly one 

 of the leaders in realizing the higher and broader values of the new science in the interpretation 

 of the origin and history of the ancient metamorphic terranes. The new departure was one of 

 much moment in the history not only of petrology, but of geology. Up to this time the means 

 of determining the precise nature of the complex rocks formed of minutely intermixed crystals 

 were both limited and untrustworthy. The revelations made by scrutiny under the microscope 

 by the aid of polarized light and other appliances, formed a new epoch in this basal science. 

 To attempt to employ it at all in that early day, when its difficulties were so little known, made 

 demands on the courage of the young men who ventured to try it and called for the fullest 

 resources of their training in the basal sciences involved. The first official products of the 

 new art in America seem to have been the work of two young men — one at the east, Dr. George W. 

 Hawes, of the State Geological Survey of New Hampshire, whose early death was a sore loss to 

 science, and one in the interior, Dr. Charles R. Van Hise, of the Wisconsin Geological Survey, 

 who soon rose to eminence in the development of the new science. 



Dr. Van Hise's first contribution was entitled "The Crystalline Rocks of the Wisconsin 

 Valley," and formed the body of Part VII of Volume IV of the Wisconsin Survey of 1873-1879. 

 It was a joint report, the senior author of which was the lamented Irving, under whose guidance 

 and inspiration young Van Hise had pursued his geological studies in the University of Wisconsin. 

 This report indeed was a part of their joint labor as teacher and pupil. The story of the working 

 relations of Irving, the teacher, and Van Hise, the student, as they struggled together in the 

 laboratories of the old Science Hall of the University of Wisconsin, to bring to bear the light 

 of the new methods on the obscure old rocks of the Wisconsin Valley, is among the most 

 delightful reminiscences of those who were permitted to come into close touch with them at 

 this interesting stage of their mutual development. While Van Hise was working with the 

 microscope on these obscure old rocks he came upon what he thought was a new and diagnostic 

 characteristic in one of the constituents under his study, and he had the insight to see that, if 

 his impression was sustained, it would be a valuable contribution to the new penological science 

 as well as an aid in the practice of the new art. Naturally he was greatly elated; but the 

 conscientious Irving, who by instinct as it were always played the role of the cautious and 

 critical trainer, kept the young enthusiast's elation in curb by no end of objections while he 

 gave special piquancy to them by that brusque humor that was peculiarly Irving's own. Still, 



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