i897. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 15 



New York was organised under the direction of Mather, Emmons, 

 Conrad, and Vanuxem, James Hall being appointed assistant geologist. 

 Within a year the districts assigned to these men were changed and 

 Hall was placed in charge of the Fourth District. Other changes 

 brought him finally to the charge of palaeontology ; and in the 

 elucidation of the fossil remains of the State of New York, Hall has 

 therefore laboured for upwards of sixty years. The noble series of 

 volumes issued by the State, and known as the Palcdontology of the State 

 of New York, will remain a great and permanent monument of the 

 untiring energy of James Hall, the sole survivor of that little band, 

 the first generation of American geologists. Fortunately for geology 

 in general, the United States has ever been famous for the singular 

 liberality with which she has distributed world-wide the labours of her 

 sons, and Hall's works are as accessible to English geologists as are 

 Lyell's Elements. 



But it is not in palaeontology alone that Hall has gained his 

 laurels ; while hard at work upon the fossils of the State, he was also 

 engaged in stratigraphical matters, and found time to deal with the 

 broader philosophical questions which lie at the root of the subject. 

 He wrote brilliantly on the loading of the earth's crust and on oscilla- 

 tions of level due to denudation and removal of pressure, and on the 

 origin of mountains and sedimentation. He mapped the State of New 

 York several times, and worked away on the complex relations of the 

 rocks until their secrets were fairly wrested from them. As active, 

 apparently, at 80 as he was at 25, James Hall's figure could be seen in 

 all weathers tramping the hillsides in sunshine or snow, never seeming 

 to tire or flag under any difficulties, and it was in this present decade 

 that one of us drove in his trap at imminent risk to his life, driven as it 

 were by a young buck of 20, instead of a veteran of almost 80. And 

 even more remarkable still is the fact that the Professor crossed the 

 United States from West to East to take part in this celebration, and 

 has once again taken the field in active service to the science he has 

 loved so long, rather than seek his well-merited repose. 



Professor Hall has gathered round him a large following of the 

 younger men, who have rendered him great service in carrying out his 

 plans, and he would be the first to give them his ungrudging 

 acknowledgments. We are glad to offer him our congratulations, and 

 indeed those of every geologist in this country, and to hope that he 

 may long enjoy that health, which alone makes a multiplicity of years 

 a great and pleasurable gift. 



A full account of Professor James Hall's life and work, with 

 portraits, will be found in Science for November 13. 



The Eocene Beds of Dorset. 

 In the August number of the Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society, Mr. Clement Reid has given a sketch of these deposits, our 

 knowledge of which has been greatly enlarged owing to the re-survey 



