Memorial Add?xss — Edward Orton, 613 



Professor Orton's scientific work was very largely done in the 

 state of Ohio in the capacity of assistant to Professor Newbury 

 in 1869, as above described, and later as State Geologist, his 

 activity as an officer of the state extending over a term of thirty 

 years. The results are largely contained in the voluminous 

 reports of the Ohio Geological Survey. Devoting himself largely 

 to the problems of stratigraphy of the sedimentary formations 

 and the superincumbent drift mantle, and to the economic 

 resources of the state in coal, gas and oil, there is little that is 

 spectacular or striking in his views, but the every-day problems 

 w^hich he studied were so thoroughly examined that his conclu- 

 sions stand unchallenged. In his later years perhaps the best 

 known specialist on natural gas in its relations to coal and oil in 

 subterranean reservoirs, he is most widelv known from the sim- 

 pie and adequate theory which he propounded to explain them. 



Of his geological work, Mr. G. K. Gilbert says : 



"As an investigator he freneraiized freely and did not shrink from 

 the propounding? of theories, but ail his theories were so broadly founded 

 upon, and so faithfully verified by, the phenomena of observation that 

 they came to the world as demonsti-ations which could not be gainsaid." 



Professor J. J. Stevenson says of him : 



" The debt of geology to Edward Orton is very great, far greater than 

 we are apt to think, for, in his writings he effaced himself and often 

 gave credit to others for what was rightfully his own." 



" We can lay a double tribute upon his grave, one to the man whom 

 we loved and one to the geologist who solved so many perplexing prob- 

 lems." 



Professor Orton died in 1899 after nine years of partial inca- 

 pacity for work caused by a paralytic stroke. Only a short time 

 before his death, however, ho delivered an address as president 

 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

 The Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters, in elect- 

 ing him to corresponding membership, chose a man whom all 

 recognize as a worthy representative of American science, and 

 who has been as widely known and loved as it is the privilege of 



a man of science to be. 



William H. Hobbs. 



