SKETCH OF EDWARD ORTON. 6ii 



placed considerable emphasis on the value of a study of the rocky 

 floor of the State, concerning which all we know at present is de- 

 rived from the revelations of deep drillings at haphazard; and he 

 thought it would be a good work for the State to make use of all 

 accessible data of this kind at once in constructing a model of the 

 rocky floor of the region under review. The care and fidelity mth 

 which he studied the underground geology are exemplified in a 

 map attached to the paper on the oil and gas fields, in which the 

 horizons of the Trenton limestone are indicated and approximately 

 bounded as they occur by gradations ranging from fifty to two hun- 

 dred and fifty feet, from elevations above the ocean level to one 

 thousand and more feet below. Another contribution of Professor 

 Orton's which may appropriately be given special notice is his part 

 of the article on Ohio in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in which a 

 succinct, clear, and comprehensive account of the geology of the 

 whole State is given, with its salient features delineated so sharply 

 that one may almost conceive from it a definite geological picture 

 of the region. 



Of all his scientific work, however. Professor Orton regarded 

 the fijsing of the order of the coal measures of Ohio as the most 

 important; and he considered the determination of the order of the 

 subcarboniferous strata, and particularly of the Berea Grit, as con- 

 stituting a large permanent service to the study of the geology of 

 the State. 



At the recent meeting of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science Professor Orton contributed a special paper 

 on the local geology of Columbus, the place of the meeting, in 

 which he dwelt largely on the origin of the drift that marks the 

 superficial geology of the vicinity. 



Of the work he has done for the increase and advancement of 

 knowledge, the extent of a part of w^hich we have only faintly indi- 

 cated by the mention of a few particular researches. Professor Orton 

 put the highest value on his labors as a teacher, a calling to which 

 he was devoted for more than half a qentury. He found peculiar 

 pleasure in instructing the children of the old pupils whom he had 

 taught in his younger days. He was actively concerned in the pro- 

 motion and extension of sanitary science, his addresses in that field 

 having been one of the factors that led to the establishment of the 

 Ohio State Board of Health. He was also greatly interested in 

 the advancement of agriculture. 



A theme on which Professor Orton was fond of dwelling in his 

 public addresses was the amount and value of what has been accom- 

 plished within a comparatively short time in the world's history by 

 the use of the methods of science. In an address delivered before 



