MEMORIAL OF ALEXANDER WINCHELL. 9 



gan, Ohio and Canada, on which he made special studies. In respect 

 to the salt-hearing strata of Michigan he established the basin-shaped 

 form of the strata, and defined not only the principles but also the geo- 

 graphic area in which brine might be found. His chief geological problem, 

 however, during this interim was the establishment and defense of the 

 " Marshall group," which on paleontological, historical, and stratigraphic 

 evidence comprises a great series of Subcarboniferous strata which, as a 

 body, belong together, although they had in part been embraced severally 

 under the names Catskill, Waverly, Kinderhook, Goniatite limestone > 

 Yellow sandstone, Chouteau limestone, and Siliceous group* 



On the resumption of the survey in 1869, he was chosen director by 

 the geological board and entered upon his duties with great zest. The 

 eight years that had passed since it was interrupted had broadened his 

 views and qualified him, by his more extended acquaintance with the 

 state and with its geology as well as with the geology of adjoining states, 

 to carry on the survey rapidly and effectively. Preparatory to the 

 meeting of the state legislature he drew up a report of progressf and had 

 put into print a plan for his final report. Unhappily, complications of 

 personal and political nature arose and threatened the success of the 

 survey, and my brother resigned his commission.]: The geological board 

 never appointed a successor but parcelled out the survey to different 

 geologists ; and their separate reports, conceived and prepared in accord- 

 ance with the plans of the director, were subsequently published as 

 official reports on the geology of the state. 



Thus my brother was turned from his chosen field of special geological 

 research and led into the broader domain of systematic study, un- 

 doubtedly to the loss of the citizens of Michigan but to the benefit of the 

 wider circle of readers of his later writings. 



We do not, however, enter within the domain of Alexander Winchell's 

 greatest achievements until we consider his broader discussions of the 

 relations of modern science to education, to culture, and to Christian faith, 

 and his contributions to natural theology. He imbibed from his boy- 

 hood training a profound reverence for the holy scriptures, and his whole 

 life was a testimony, no less in its daily manifestations than in its con- 

 secration to correct biblical interpretation, to his belief in their teach- 

 ings. While he accepted and defended the integrity of the Christian 

 faith, he insisted with equal pertinacity that Christian faith must have 



• The Marshal] Group: A memoir on its Geological Position, Characters and Equivalents in the 

 United states. Proceedings Am. Phil. Soc, vols, xi and xii. L869 ami 1870. 



t Report mi tin- Progress of the State Geological Survey <>t' Michigan, Presented t" the Geological 

 Board Nov., 1870: Lansing, 1871. mm, i;i pp. 



I The circumstances which led to the resignation arc caricatured in " Sparks from a Geologist's 

 Hammer" under the allegory ".V remarkable Maori manuscript." 



II— Bull. Geol, Soc. Am., Vol. 3, 1891. 



