8 KA.NSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



education, although his thirst for study was developed as early in life and 

 as intense as theirs. 



An inquisitive mind with regard to natural objects seems to have been 

 born in him. The features of nature in and about Lynn, the home of his 

 youth, are unusually fine and beautiful. The locality is rich in minerals, 

 and the sea-shore is lined with pebbles, polished by the friction of the waves. 

 These were the attractive toys of his childhood, and minerals, incrusted 

 moss and sea-shells became the ornaments of the home of his youth. This 

 collection grew by the accumulation of years into that noble cabinet at Man- 

 hattan — a monument worthy of any geologist. To sit on some cliff, and 

 watch a stormy sea as it lashed the rock- bound shore, was the joy of his 

 boyhood recreations. Once, after a great tempest, he stood near the edge of 

 a rocky elevation, below which the mighty waves broke, throwing their spray 

 high in the air. He was so much absorbed in the wild scene that he did not 

 observe the spray sometimes shot somewhat above the rock on which he 

 stood. Suddenly, as if angry at his seeming indifference, the sea sent a col- 

 umn of water into the air far above him, which descending, drenched him 

 and his brother from head to foot. Benjamin enjoyed the mishap very much, 

 and spoke of the sea as a friend who could not do him any real harm. 



After practicing law for sixteen years, during which he attained a wide 

 reputation for uprightness and fair dealing, and was honored by the mayor- 

 alty of Lynn, closing during his administration many saloons, thus creating 

 quite a reform in the liquor traffic, he removed to Cloverport, Kentucky, 

 where he was connected with the Breckinridge Coal and Oil Company. 



On the breaking-out of the Rebellion, he removed to Kansas, a State he 

 had been greatly interested in from its beginnings. He located in Wyan- 

 dotte county, and his natural love for geology soon becoming known, he 

 frequently delivered lectures on his favorite study through the country. In 

 1864, although a comparative stranger in the State, through the influence of 

 Hon. I. T. Goodnow, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, he was in- 

 vited to deliver a course of lectures before the Legislature, whereupon that 

 body conferred upon him the office of State Geologist, an honor entirely un- 

 sought, yet thoroughly enjoyed. While the State appropriation provided 

 for the office but a short time, he was subsequently elected State Geologist 

 under the State Board of Agriculture, which office he held during life. Dur- 

 ing all these years he was constantly receiving specimens from all parts of 

 the State, and many a little fortune has been saved to its owner from haz- 

 ardous ventures for coal, lead or precious metals, by the truthful and always 

 kindly advice from one who knew well how to read "sermons in stones." 



In 1865, he was elected to fill the chair of Natural Sciences in the Kansas 

 Agricultural College, to which institution, with a royal munificence, he do- 

 nated his entire cabinet. It was during one of his summer excursions that 

 he discovered Ichthyorins dispar, a bird with bi-concave vertebrae and teeth 

 — an anomaly to science. In severing his connection with the college, the 



