822 FIELDING BRADFORD MEEK. 



with seemingly no inherited instincts leading towards a scientific career, 

 we yet find him, after one or two unfortunate essays in business, which 

 deprived him of a small patrimony, taking to the study of nature as by 

 an instinct. Such inquiries as the writer of this notice has been able 

 to make of his lamented fellow-worker, in their infrequent meetings, 

 and of his narrow circle of early intimate friends, have failed to show 

 in any clear way the steps which led to his beginnings in science. 

 Much is, perhaps, to be attributed to the fact that his birthplace and 

 the scene of his last work was in the midst of a region richly stored 

 with fossil remains of an extinct and peculiar life ; remains that are so 

 captivating in their very strangeness that they cannot fail to gain the 

 attention of eyes not sealed to the great problems of the earth. His 

 body, naturally weak, — for he inherited a malady of the lungs that 

 made his life a long struggle with disease, — may have helped him to 

 that isolation of interests which readily drives a mind of acute percep- 

 tions into studious ways. 



It is no part of the purpose of this notice to consider his altogether 

 admirable personal life, — that must be left to other and fitter hands ; 

 but there is yet another circumstance of his labor which will interest 

 all those who are concerned with the question of the circumstances that 

 have surrounded those who have done great work in science : for the 

 greater part of his life, our late comrade was cut off by almost total 

 deafness from all ready contact with the world ; for all the later and 

 most studious years he was absolutely deaf to every sound. Yet it 

 should be told, as a part of his excellence, that this imprisonment 

 within himself never lessened his beautiful kindliness of spirit, nor 

 checked his ready sympathy with the life about him. 



It is Mr. Meek's paheontological labors which will remain his fittest 

 claim to the gratitude of scientific men. Extending, as they do, over a 

 long term of years, and concerning materials from all parts of the geo- 

 logical section, it is difficult to give them any general characterization. 

 To them all may be given the highest praise for painstaking labor and 

 perfect honesty of purpose. They nearly all belong to that class of 

 works which are done in the interests of historical geology, ratlier than 

 of biology. In this method in which his work was done, he but fol- 

 lowed the necessary course of all those who take part in the great work 

 of exploring a region unknown to science, describing facts as they are 

 successively ascertained without much reference to general conclusions. 

 His palajontological work was begun in connection with the surveys of 

 Dr. David Daleman iu Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, in 1848. 

 After the close of these labors, he remained unconnected with any 



