MEMORIAL OF ALBERT HOMER PURDUE. 
By GrEorRGE H. ASHLEY, The United States Geological Survey. 
(Reprinted from the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 
Vol. 29, pp. 55-64, pl. 7. Published March 31, 1918.) 
Published by request in Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science. 
Albert Homer Purdue, late State Geologist of Tennessee, was born 
March 29, 1861, in Warrick County, Indiana, near Yankeetown—a small 
village in the loess-covered hills bordering the Ohio River—an hour’s 
ride by trolley east from Evansville. While the people of the town came, 
as a rule, from Yankeeland, one of Mr. Purdue’s grandfathers had been 
an early settler in western middle Tennessee. His early education was 
obtained at Yankeetown and later at the Indiana State Normal School 
at Terre Haute, from which he graduated in 1886. In 1886-1887 Mr. 
Purdue taught at Sullivan, Indiana. In 1887-1888 he was superintend- 
ent of public schools at West Plains, Missouri. In 1887, at Indianapolis, 
Indiana, he married Miss Bertha Lee Burdick, who died of consumption 
a year later. From 1889 to 1891 he was assistant superintendent of the 
United States Indian School at Albuquercue, New Mexico. Part of his 
duties were the selection of children from the reservation for the school 
and the rounding up of boys who had run away—a line of work that led 
to many interesting experiences. From 1891 to 1894 he was at Stanford 
University, from which he obtained the degree of A. B. in 1893. While 
there he made geologic studies on the San Francisco Peninsula, and 
during 1892-1893 was an assistant geologist for the Arkansas Geological 
Survey with the writer, studying the southern part of the Ouachita 
uplift. This association with Purdue in the field during the summer 
and fall of 1892 was one of the pleasantest epochs in the writer’s life. 
We were living on the country, in a region little settled at that time, 
and Purdue’s vivid description of his week’s experience, when we got 
together at the end of each week, gave an air of romance and adventure 
to the whole undertaking. This work and that in the Coast Range 
Mountains of California, both under the eye of Branner and with his 
counsel, Purdue counted as among the most valuable training experi- 
ences he could have had, as he could not help getting somewhat of 
Branner’s broad point of view and critical study of details. In 1894, 
after a year of graduate work at Stanford, he became a candidate for 
the elective position of State Geologist of Indiana; but his long absence 
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