Charles Richard Van Hise (1857-1918) 



HONORED FOR A LIFE DEVOTED TO SCIENCE AND PUBLIC WELFARE - 

 TO RESEARCH, CONSERVATION, AND EDUCATION 



By C H A M L E S P. B E R K E Y 



Profossor of Geology, Columbia University 



PRESIDEXT Chnrles Rieliard 

 Van Hise, of the University of 

 Wisconsin, whose death was re- 

 corded in November, was born at Ful- 

 ton, Wisconsin, May 29, 1857. He was 

 educated in the schools of Wisconsin, 

 including the University, so that he was 

 the product of a typical American pub- 

 lic school system. He became the best 

 known and most representative man of 

 his state and one of the best known edu- 

 cators of America. 



The University of Wisconsin gave 

 liim the degree of bachelor of mining- 

 engineering in 1879; bachelor of sci- 

 ence, 1880; master of science, 1882; 

 and doctor of philosophy, 1892. Hon- 

 ors of many kinds were showered upon 

 him after he had made a world-wide 

 reputation as a scientist and had come 

 into prominence in the councils of edu- 

 cation. The degree of doctor of laws 

 was given by Chicago in 1903 ; Yale, 

 1904; Harvard, 1908; Williams, 1908; 

 Dartmouth, 1909. 



He began his career as a teacher in 

 metallurgy, gradually changing to 

 niineralog}' and to geology, leaving that 

 ultimately to devote himself wholly to 

 executive and public service work. His 

 first appointment to the teaching staff 

 at the University of Wisconsin was in 

 1879 as instructor in metallurgy, in 

 which position he continued until 1883, 

 when he was made assistant professor 

 and in 1886 professor of metallurgy. 

 During part of this time, he was under 

 the influence of the late Professor E. D. 

 Irving, who was then preparing his 

 great monograph on "The Copper-bear- 

 ing Rocks of Lake Superior." This 

 association with Irving and tlie attrac- 

 tiveness of the field that he represented 

 final] V led to an entire change in his 



life work and the field of his investiga- 

 tions. Under these influences he grew 

 to such mastery that with Irving's 

 death, in 1888, he was appointed to the 

 chair of mineralogy to succeed Irving. 

 His genius for structural geology and 

 the attraction of the very complex field 

 represented by the Pre-Cambrian rocks 

 which had engaged Irving, led him out 

 of mineralogy proper into this most ob- 

 scure and at that time almost unknown 

 field. The background that he had in 

 chemical principles gained in his metal- 

 lurgical experience and in mineralogy 

 was, however, a firm foundation for the 

 kind of work that he now set about and 

 in which he made a signal success. In 

 1890 he became professor of archoean 

 and applied geology. In 1892 he was 

 put in charge of the geology depart- 

 ment, in which position he continued 

 until he became president of the Uni- 

 versity in 1903. 



His fame as a teacher and investiga- 

 tor and his recognized leadership in the 

 field of structural and metamorphic 

 geology made his name honored in tlie 

 annals of science, and his assistance 

 was sought by other educational institu- 

 tions and by organized surveys. He 

 was, for example, nonresident professor 

 of structural geology in the University 

 of Chicago for a period of ten years, 

 while caring for his own work at the 

 University of Wisconsin. He had been 

 connected with Irving on the Lake Su- 

 perior division of the United States 

 Geological Survey under Powell from 

 1883 on, and at Irving's death he suc- 

 ceeded to his position in that work also. 

 In 1900. he was put in cliarge of Pre- 

 Cambrian and metamorphic geology on 

 the United States Survey, with the 

 rank of geologist, which position he 



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