342 • THOMAS TRACY BOUV]^. 



again the next day and the next, for half an hour or an hour in the morn- 

 ing and as long as daylight lasted in the afternoon, making this work, 

 which he loved so well and called his recreation, a part of his daily 

 routine. Thus month by month, without haste or faltering, important 

 and enduring results were accomplished. 



Although specially interested, as his published papers and the records 

 show, in several branches of natural history, Mr. Bouve's first love 

 among the natural sciences was mineralogy. In the mineralogical annals 

 of the Society three names are especially prominent, — Francis Alger, 

 Charles T. Jackson, and Thomas T. Bouve. These three men were 

 contemporaries and lifelong friends ; and each in his own way con- 

 tributed in an imjDortant degree to the development of this department 

 of the Museum. Mr. Bouve was the youngest of the trio, and the period 

 of his activity extended well into the modern era in the history of educa- 

 tional methods. He was thus led to a deeper appreciation of the value 

 of minerals as a factor in elementary education. It is therefore prob- 

 ably well within bounds to say, that for this reason, and because of his 

 greater length of service, Mr. Bouve has done more than any other one 

 man to make this collection what it is to-day, an important adjunct of 

 the educational system of the community. 



Durino- the years when we worked together upon the minerals, I had 

 the pleasure of hearing from his lips the history, both in general and in 

 detail, of a large part of the collection ; and whether the specimens had 

 been collected by himself or a fellow member, or obtained by purchase 

 or exchange, his evident love for them made me feel that I was being in- 

 troduced to his dear friends, whose care he was reluctant to relinquish 

 to another, 4 



His appreciation of the beautiful in minerals culminated in his well 

 known fondness for gems ; and these he did not value commercially, but 

 only in proportion to their intrinsic beauty and scientific interest. This 

 study forced upon his attention the unsatisfactory nature of the criteria, 

 such as color and lustre, commonly relied upon in the identification of 

 cut stones; and led him to test more thoroughly than had been done 

 before the relatively fundamental property of specific gravity. In his 

 valuable paper on this subject he demonstrated to the satisfaction of 

 Professor Dana, and other high authorities, that while each of the mineral 

 species to which the gems belong varies notably in specific gravity, so 

 that the several species overlap and are indistinguishable by this char- 

 acter, the gems, being in every instance the purest and most ideal forms 

 of their respective species, are essentially constant, and only rarely so 



