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Prof. Rogers, in doing so, said that he had listened with pain- 

 ful surprise to the announcement just made of the death of our 

 associate, Prof. Tuomey. Last summer, when attending the 

 Scientific Association in Albany, his apparently vigorous frame 

 and look of quiet enthusiasm, gave promise of many more seasons 

 of productive geological toil. Of the early life of Michael 

 Tuomey, Prof. Rogers said he knew nothing, farther than that 

 he was, he believed, a native of Ireland, and coming to this 

 country quite young, became first a resident of the State of 

 New York. As a cultivator of science, he early attracted notice 

 by his study of the Tertiary deposits of the neighborhood of 

 Petersburg, in Virginia, where for some years he resided in the 

 capacity of a teacher. After this he was appointed to conduct 

 the Geological Survey of South Carolina, and having completed 

 the work as far as practicable with the means at his command, 

 published, in 1848, a Report on the Geology of the State, which 

 proved highly acceptable to geologists as well as useful to the 

 community for whose practical benefit it was designed. 



Soon after this. Prof. Tuomey was elected to the Chair of 

 Geology and Natural History in the University of Alabama, and 

 placed at the head of the State Geological Survey then organ- 

 izing ; in which truly interesting field he has ever since been 

 steadily and actively employed. His paleontological studies in 

 the Tertiary and Cretaceous deposits of the Southern Atlantic 

 States proved a valuable introduction to the examination of those 

 groups of formations as they are developed in middle and southern 

 Alabama ; and we cannot doubt that had he lived to complete the 

 survey, his additions to this branch of our geology, as well as his 

 investigation of the structure and paleontology of the older rocks 

 overspreading the northern part of the State, would have formed 

 an important contribution to our knowledge of that rich and 

 varied portion of our great geological field. His partial Reports 

 of the Survey, of which two or three have been published, 

 although intended mainly to indicate the progress of the v ork, 

 contain many valuable details ; but of the nearness of the si/ vey 

 to its completion, and of the extent and character of the raa/elials 

 in reserve for a final Report, Prof. Rogers was without the 

 means of judging. He could only say, that from the great rich- 

 ness of this part of the geological field, and the known industry 



