MEMORIAL OF ALEXANDER WINCHELL. 6 



James Rieman Macparlane, A. B., Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Editor of the second 



edition of the American Geological Railway Guide. 

 William II. Niles, Ph. B., M. A., Cambridge, Massachusetts. Teacher of geology . 



Timothy William Stanton, B. S., Washington, D. C. Assistant paleontologist, 

 United States Geological Survey. 



The following memorial of the deceased President of the Society, Dr. 

 Alexander Winchell, was read by Professor N. H. Winch ell : 



MEMORIAL SKETCH OF ALEXANDER WINCHELL. 



Fellow Geologists ; 



It is because of the courteous persuasion of some of the scientific and 

 personal friends of my brother that I have undertaken the sad privilege 

 of saying a few words in his memory. It were, perhaps, on some ac- 

 counts more fitting that alien tongues should discharge this duty ; but 

 on other accounts it were more appropriate that a personal friend sin mid 

 speak of him, from the* intimacy of his acquaintance and from the love 

 that springs from many years of community of interests and constant 

 intercourse. To you who knew Alexander Winchell well, no words that 

 I shall utter, however they may be tinged by a brother's partiality, will 

 appear extravagant; and to you who did not know him well, I shall 

 hope to convey some idea of Ins personality and his work. 



This occasion will not permit an exhaustive analysis of his scientific 

 work. I shall hope at another time to treat of that more fully. I will 

 only call your attention to the prominent traits of his personal character, 

 and to some of the epochs of his professional career. 



Alexander Winchell was born in the town of Northeast, Dutchess 

 county, New York, December 31st, 1824. He died at Ann Arbor, Michi- 

 gan, February 19th, 1891. 



His work was many-sided and voluminous. Asa youth and young 

 man, he excelled in mathematics and had a leaning toward civil engi- 

 neering and astronomy as a field for his life's energies. This facility of 

 mathematical reasoning has given cast to some of his later philosophi- 

 cal speculations, in which his arguments are connected and expressed 

 in algebraic form. Later he spent two years at South bee. Massachu- 

 setts, with a venerated uncle, a leading physician of Berkshire county, 

 making preliminary preparations for the medical profession. Aboul this 

 time also his parents and some of his trusted advisers urged upon 

 him the Christian ministry. These early inclinations had their effect on 

 his Later Life, and appear prominently in his predilections for physiologi- 

 cal and fcheologico-scientific writing. He delighted in music and poetry 



