February 191 8; these were sons of the distinguished New York lawyer, 

 Mr. Agar, who was so active in all enterprises for the city's betterment. 

 Our first grandchildren were born a month before the Armistice — 

 Adeline's son, W. B. S. Agar, on October 9, and his double first-cousin, 

 Joan, on October 13, 1918. "Jack" Agar, whom we all admired and loved, 

 entered the Army Aviation service and, after a year's training, was sent 

 to the front in France, where, to our unspeakable grief, he was killed 

 (October 17) leaving our young daughter a widow at twenty-three. The 

 third and last grandchild, Agnes McDonough, was not born until 

 June 3, 1922. 



In April 1918, 1 received the high honour of election to the presidency 

 of the American Philosophical Society, an office which I held with great 

 interest and pleasure, until the statutory limitation of seven years was 

 reached in 1925. That year I was elected President of the Geological 

 Society of America, the last of such honours that I am Ukely to obtain. 

 The Philosophical Society then held monthly meetings as well as the 

 Annual General Meeting in the spring. It was my remarkable good 

 fortune, that I was never compelled, by ill health or stress of weather, to 

 fail in attendance at a meeting, though, on one occasion, only the Presi- 

 dent and one of the Secretaries were present. 



To me, however, the greatest change brought by the lifting of the 

 threatening war-cloud was the restored tranquillity of mind that en- 

 abled me to resume my work. After an interval of several years, the 

 publication of the Patagonian Reports was again taken up and finally 

 concluded, more than thirty years after the appearance of Volume I. 

 Whenever I look at the stately row of fifteen quarto volumes, I find it a 

 source of profound gratification and thankfulness that my life was 

 spared to bring Hatcher's great enterprise to so happy a conclusion. Of 

 the many collaborators who took part in this undertaking, only one or 

 two are left. 



The years 1919 to 1925 yielded little that called for recording, though 

 they were happily occupied with the work of classroom and laboratory 

 and the researches which are the spice and joy of Hfe. The summers were 

 all spent on Cape Cod, where the garden filled the mornings, reading 

 and writing the evenings, and where the finely developing grandchil- 

 dren were so happy. A major surgical operation in 1924 has given me 

 fifteen years (and I hope many more) of vigorous health. Sinclair's many 

 collecting trips to the fossil-bearing regions of the West brought in much 

 material from which I am still profiting. From one such expedition he 



