iO KEPORT OF THE SECRETAEY, 



Institution, who occupied for upward of twenty years a room in the 

 Smithsonian building and assisted without salary in the operations of 

 the establishment. lie was devoted to paleontology, aud was one of the 

 principal authorities in the country in the line of fossil shells. At the 

 time of his death he had just completed a large volume on the paleon- 

 tology of the Upper Missouri, published in connection with Dr. Hay- 

 den's surveys. He was obliged on account of his health to spend his 

 winters in Florida, but, delaying his departure too long and unduly exert- 

 ing himself the day before he intended to leave, he was seized with a 

 hemorrhage,and,afteran illness of a few days,died on the 21st December, 

 187G. He was born in the city of Madison, Ind., December 10, 1817, and 

 had therefore just completed his fifty-ninth year at the time of his death. 

 Hisgrandparents were Irish Presbyterians, who emigrated to this country 

 from the county of Armagh about the year 17G8. His father died when 

 he was but three years old, leaving the family in moderate circumstances. 

 He was educated in the public schools of Madison. His attention was 

 early attracted to the fossil shells so abundant in the rocks in the vi- 

 cinity of his home. Arriving at the age of manhood, he invested the 

 small sum received from his ftither's estate in mercantile business, but 

 having no taste for that occupation, and neglecting it to pursue his stud- 

 ies, a failure was the consequence. He then devoted himself as a means 

 of livelihood to portrait-painting, continuing his scientific studies, espe- 

 cially in the line of geology. In the year 1848 he was associated with 

 David Dale Owen in the geological survey of Iowa and Minnesota, and 

 in 1852 became an assistant to Professor Hall in the preparation of the 

 paleontology of the State of New York. Under the direction of Profess- 

 or Hall he explored the Bad Lands of Nebraska, and collected a valuable 

 series of fossils. In 1858 became to "Washington, where he resided con- 

 tinuously to the time of his death, leaving the city for a few months only 

 from time to time while engaged in studying the paleontology of Illinois, 

 Ohio, and California, aud later in Florida during the winter on account 

 of his health. During his residence in the Institution he gradually lost 

 his hearing, and could only be communicated with by means of writing. 

 He gradually withdrew from social intercourse, and devoted his life ex- 

 clusively to the prosecution of science. He was in correspondence with 

 the principal investigators of the world in the line of paleontology, and 

 although scarcely known in this city his name was familiar to the culti- 

 vators of geology everywhere. He was a man of singular truthfulness 

 and critical accuracy, and was highly esteemed by the few who had the 

 pleasure of his acquaintance. His death has been widely announced in 

 all the scientific journals of the day, but no relative has appeared to 

 claim his property. As secretary of the Institution with which he had 

 been so long connected, I considered it my duty to assume the office of 

 administrator, and as a year has now elapsed since the time of his decease 

 I am about to make a report of the condition of his estate to the or- 

 phans' court of the District of Columbia. The final disposition of his 



