322 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



lington, Vt., a region which was admirably fitted to plant in him the 

 love of geology. Here he entered the University of Vermont in 

 1843, whence he was graduated in 1847. Being of a frail consti- 

 tution, the work of an arduous collegiate career left him with impaired 

 health, and led him to seek a warmer climate. This he gained by a 

 residence of some three years in the Southern States. Although 

 employed as a teacher for most of this time, he yet found the leisure to 

 make considerable studies of the rocks of the reo-ions he visited. Re- 

 turning to the North in 1850, he entered the Andover Theological 

 Seminary. After receiving " approbation to preach," and supplying the 

 pulpit in several places, he finally settled at Swanton, Vt., where he 

 remained in charge of the pastorate for eleven years. During the 

 Secession War he was for a time a delegate of the Christian Com- 

 mission, and later the chaplain of the 20th Vermont Regiment. In 

 both of these posts he did the faithful and loving service for which 

 his nature so well fitted him. In these little famous but most impor- 

 tant duties he saw some of the greatest events of that war, the storming 

 of Petersburg and the surrender of Lee among them. 



It was tliis residence at Swanton that did the most to decide his 

 future career. There he found himself in face of some of the most 

 difficult problems of American geology ; and, with the patience and 

 bravery which was characteristic of the man, he did not hesitate to 

 undertake their solution. Several contributions concerning these rocks 

 and a large amount of unpublished matter mark this period of his life. 

 So little disposed was he to claim attention that, had it not been for an 

 accidental contact with Professor Jules Marcou, who recognized his 

 merit and urged him to take his proper place among American geolo- 

 gists, he would probably have passed his life satisfied with the personal 

 satisfaction that knowledge gives. 



In 1867 he came to Boston, and was given a position as assistant in 

 the jNIuseum of Comparative Zoolog}^, under Professor Agassiz. His 

 considerable studies in the Southern tertiaries especially fitted him to 

 arrange the large amount of material in that part of the paleontological 

 collection. This work he in good part accomplished, and it will long 

 remain a monument of his accuracy and devotion. In 1870 he made 

 for the museum an extended collecting tour through the Southern 

 States. This work, protracted into the summer long after his health 

 gave signs of failing, and urged forward with a zeal which great love 

 for the work inspired, planted the seeds of serious disease. In 1871 he 

 became the occupant of a chair at Oberlin College in Ohio, with the 

 idea of giving half of the year to his work there and lialf to his old 



