MERltILL SCHUCHERT 625 



National Museum. (1889c.) Merrill continued this work alongf the 

 same lines on his own initiative, traveling and visiting quarries, 

 examining old stone buildings whenever opportunity ottered, and 

 collecting data on weathering properties. Then he rewrote the hook 

 and iniblished it as Stt»nes for Buililing and Di-coration. (Ib'Jlb.) 

 Of all Merrill's writings none had a wider circulation. It treats of 

 the geographical distribution of building stones in the United States, 

 their minerals, physical and chemical pi'operties, and weathering 

 qualities, and gives suggestions on their selection and testing. The 

 book passed through three editions (1897b, 1903e) and was, as he 

 says, "the tirst systematic work of its kind to ai)pear in America, 

 and I believe I may say was the chief instigator of the numerous 

 investigations by State surveys along the same lines which were 

 undertaken later." It established his reputation as an authority on 

 the subject. Until the Bureau of Standards was established, the Gov- 

 ernment repeatedly called for Merrill's opinion on the stones to be 

 used in its various buildings. The one building in which he took great 

 interest was the Lincoln Memorial. The question of the ability of 

 the so-called Yule Creek marble quarries in Gunnison County, Colo., 

 to furnish material in quantity and in tiie unprecedented sizes needed 

 for this memorial was favorably decided by him after a single visit 

 to the place. '' I may state, however," he adds, " that the selection 

 of a marble for the structure was not mine. For our climate I 

 would have preferred a light colored granite." 



With regard to his work on rock weathering, he says : 



It is perhaps l)Ut natural tliat my attention liaving been called to the weath- 

 ering of roclis when used for building pui'poses I should have turned uiy 

 thoughts next to this particular phase of geology. The field was an inviting 

 one and indeed the amount of superfieial decomposed material overlying the 

 rocks in the District of Columbia had early attracted my attention, since I 

 had come from a glaciated region where like phenomena were almost wholly 

 unknown. The results of my studies In tliis line were very favorably received. 

 The main results were brougiit together in my treatise Rocks, Rock-weathering, 

 and Soils. (ISOTb.) In tlie preparation of this volume, I luid not only collected 

 my own materials, nnide my own sections, but also many of the separations and 

 chemical analyses, a detail which in the present condition of chemical science 

 I should scarcely dare to attempt. 



This book of Merrill's was unique and has been a source from 

 which compilers of textbooks on agriculture have drawn their nuite- 

 rials for many years. As Dr. Harvey W. "Wiley said : 



Doctor Merrill is the most complete authority on soils. ... He lias given 

 much to geology but has given much more to agriculture — how much tlie public 

 will never know. 



And in Europe, Farrington tells us, it is for this woik on rocks 

 and rock weathering that Merrill is best known. 



Rocks disintegrate, alter, decompose, and dissolve, under all cli- 

 mates, but the decomposition is, Merrill says, most apparent under 



