SKETCH OF MANLY MILES. 101 



occasion on the noijiliboi-inj; monntnin (lc]n<j,inp: rains from condensa- 

 tion of the steam thus produced. It is probable that tlie ^^'aianae 

 rejijion is a center of electrical distnrbance in connection with these 

 eruptions, and Ihat under the torrential rains accomi)anying them the 

 mountain wastes like a snowbank in a March thaw. 



So as our vision extends backward lhrou;^li the centuries, while the 

 dome of the Koolau mountain grows ever lower, Kaala is filling up its 

 outlines, gaining in altitude and slowly assuming in its turn the features 

 of a recent volcano. The mountains are now se])aratcd by a channel of 

 ocean, which widens and deepens as the Koolau mountain becomes 

 swallowed up again in the deep sea, and Kaala stands as an island 

 by itself, perhaps by this time an active volcano, and we have only to 

 follow l»ack the thread of tlie history stcj* by stejt tlirougli a few more 

 millenniums of time to see, where Oahu is now marked on our mai)S, 

 only an unbroken expanse of blue ocean. 



SKETCH OF MANLY MILES.* 



To Dr. Manly Miles belongs the distinction of having been the first 

 professor of practical agriculture in the Ignited States, as he was 

 appointed to that then newly instituted position in the Michigan Agri- 

 cultural College in 1865. 



Professor Miles was born in Homer, Cortland county, New York, 

 July 20, 182G, the grandson of Manly Miles, a soldier of the Revolution; 

 while his mother, Mary Cushman, was a lineal descendant of Miles 

 Standish and Thonms Cushman, whose father, Joshua Cushman, joining 

 the Mayflower colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1021, left him 

 there with Governor Bradford when he returned to England. 



When Manly, the son, was eleven years old, the family removed to 

 Flint, Michigan, where he employed his time in farm work and the 

 acquisition of knowledge, and later in teaching. He had a common 

 school education, and improved all the time he could spare from his 

 regular occupations in reading and study. It is recorded of him in 

 those days that he was always successful in whatever he undertook. 

 In illustration of the skill and thoroughness with which he performed 

 his tasks, his sister relates an incident of his sowing plaster for the 

 first time, when his father expressed pleasure at his having distributed 

 the lime so evenly and so well. It appears that he did not spare him- 

 self in doing the work, for so completely was he covered that he is 

 said to have looked like a plaster cast, "with only his bright eyes 

 shining through." A threshing machine was brought on to the farm, 

 and Manly and his brother went round threshing for the neighbors. 

 Industrious in studv as well as in work, the bov never neglected his 

 more prosaic duties to gratify his thirst for knowledge. He studied 

 geometry while following the plow, drawing the problems on a shingle, 



* Dr. Manly Miles was a charter member of the Michigan Academy of Science. The 

 present slvetch is reprinted, with some minor corrections, from the Popular Science Monthly, 

 April, ISttO. W. B. B. 



