67 
L. E. DANIELS—A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
BY 
W.S. BLATCHLEY. 
Lorenzo E. Daniels was born March 4, 1852, near Mazon, Grundy Co., 
Illinois. He was reared on the farm, which he afterward inherited, and 
received his education in the country and village schools. He taught for 
two years, and later served one or two terms as sheriff of Grundy County. 
In time a portion of his farm became a town-site, so that he had in his 
later years a competence which enabled him to devote all his time to nat- 
ural science. 
In his boyhood days Daniels became interested in fossils and shells, and 
later in reptiles, conchology finally becoming his especial hobby. His home 
was located near Mazon Creek, which in that region flows through the Coal 
Measures, exposing numerous outcrops of the Upper Carboniferous Rocks. 
These he found rich in animal remains, especially in those of insects. In 
time he gathered personally one of the largest and most valuable private 
collections of Mazon Creek fossil insects extant. These were later worked 
up by a Dr. Handlirseh of Vienna and the results published as a Memoir 
by the U. S. National Museum. 
In his study of recent Mollusca Daniels first collected all the species of 
land and fresh water shells near his home. After retiring from the sher- 
iff’s office he began to make annual collecting trips to other states, going the 
first few years to North Carolina, Tennessee or Florida, and later extending 
these trips to the far western States. 
One of his sisters, Mrs. J. M. Foster, lived at Laporte, Ind., and for a 
number of years he made his home with her. While there he joined the 
Indiana Academy of Science, his name first appearing as a member in the 
Proceedings for the year 1900. It was at one of the Academy meetings 
about that time that I first met him. As I was then in need of an assistant 
to help me in locating the marl deposits in and about the lakes in northern 
Indiana, I secured his services and we worked together at that task dur- 
ing the summer of 1900. Finding him a willing and conscientious worker 
and an enthusiastie shell collector, I gaye him a place as an assistant and 
field collector for the State Museum, and he served as such for four years. 
During the months from April to October inclusive of each year he collected 
shells, fishes, reptiles, batrachians and insects in different parts of the State. 
These he worked up and installed in the museum during the winter months. 
All the mounted turtles and snakes, the alcoholic fishes and reptiles, the but- 
terflies in Denton tablets and 75% of the land and fresh water shells which 
were in the museum at the time I turned it over to my successor were col- 
lected and arranged by Daniels. 
In the year 1899 I had published in my annual report as State Geologist 
an extended paper by R. E. Call, entitled “A Descriptive Illustrated Cata- 
logue of the Mollusea of Indiana,” which started out with the words: ‘This 
