MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 13 



cations are said "to show that careful examination of phenomena, 

 weighing of evidence, and painstaking accuracy, Avhich those best ac- 

 quainted with Professor Pettee always expect in papers prepared by his 

 hand." He edited the mining and metallurgical terms for the Standard 

 Dictionary. 



It may be that the disease of the heart, which has finally brought his 

 earthly career to a close, checked his activity in the field, for he told me 

 of it years ago, had been very painfully conscious of it for many years, 

 and knew that any hour might be his last. The patient and cheerful 

 courage with which he kept on the round of duty under these circum- 

 stances is an example to us all. He was prominent in many societies 

 and did some of his most valuable work in that connection. He was 

 a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, American Institute of Mining Engin- 

 eers, American Association of Advancement of Science, Geological So- 

 ciety of America, American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, and 

 Michigan Academy of Science, and had held offices in many of these. 

 In particular his association has been intimate with the Mining En- 

 gineers of whose transactions he has read the final i)roof critically for 

 many years. The qualifications for a good proof reader are very high. I 

 often feel my deficiency in this respect. They include a good memory, 

 sound judgment, a very wide range of exact information, patience, a 

 zeal for accuracy, and yet the kind of a mind which will not, in looking 

 out for commas pass unnoticed blunders of sense. It has been said that 

 it takes a poet of the first order to translate a poet of the first order. 

 So to read proof well requires a reader who knows more than the author 

 of the article. In this department, Raymond writes, "He would detect 

 a broken or inverted letter, a column of figures that did not 'add' right, 

 a mistake in a chemical formula or algebraic equation, an incorrect 

 reference or quotation, a blunder in a foreign tongue, or a logical ab- 

 surdity, obscurity or contradiction — all with equal certainty and pre- 

 cision. Backed bv the great librarv of the Universitv of Michigan, he 

 was absolutely indefatigable in following the trail of the smallest ques- 

 tion involving reference, quotation, or statement by one author of the 

 views of another. It was, indeed, a startling revelation to me that, of 

 the passages marked by authors as quotations, he found so many which 

 gave the quoter's notion of the meaning, instead of the exact words of 

 the original. In this, as in all other particulars of the ethics of author- 

 shij) and scholarship, Prof. Pettee was an unerring and uncompromising 

 authority." 



He was a loyal supporter of the church of his choice, and his fidelity 

 to truth was a characteristic that impressed his colleagues. Overstate- 

 ment, exaggeration, and disproportionate display would be as unfit for 

 him dead as they were to him living, but the societies who have owned 

 him as a member have reason to regret his departure, and when Rossiter 

 W. Raymond speaks of his "unimpaired reason, manifold knowledge, 

 balanced judgment, dauntless perseverance and loyal aft'ection," he was 

 using chosen words weightv with meaning. 



A. C. LAXE, 

 Lansing, Michigan, 



