Thirty-first Annual Meeting 189 
few men that it is possible to know on so short an acquaintance, yet 
due to a common interest in fossils. I may, I believe, fairly claim to 
have attained a certain intimacy with him. 
It began when he modestly offered to go with me and show me, if I 
cared to have him, the localities where Dr. Clark, of Berea, had been 
most successful in his search for fossil fish. ‘If I cared!’’ To me, it is 
an opportunity forever lost that I was able to visit only one locality 
with this man who had been the intimate companion of Dr. Clark, the 
indefatigable collector, and Edward Claypole, the elucidator, of the 
Cleveland shale fish. 
With the same modesty, almost with depreciation lest he might 
seem to intrude himself, he invited me to look over his small collection 
of fossils from the Cleveland district. When he learned that Western 
Reserve University possessed almost nothing from the Cleveland shale, 
he offered me anything of his from that formation ‘‘which might be 
worth having;”’ the University gratefully received it all. After his 
death, Mrs. Piwonka, at his request offered the remainder of the collec- 
tion to the University, “such portion as might be thought worth 
having.”’ The whole collection is not large, but contains much material 
from the Cleveland and Sandusky regions, all carefully marked as to 
locality, all valuable, particularly that from the Cleveland shale which 
yields material only on long careful search. Some of the material is 
unique. In earlier years, he had been equally generous with his findings, 
and the collections of both the United States Geological Survey and of 
the Dominion Geological Survey of Canada, have been enriched at his 
hands; in the days when Dr. Clark combed all Cleveland fish-producing 
localities twice yearly, an occasional choice specimen was obtain by 
him from Mr. Piwonka, which must since have lodged either in the 
British Museum or the American Museum of Natural History. 
Before his death, he donated to the Department of Geology of 
Western Reserve University a generous sum of money to defray 
expenses of members of the department in making extensive field trips 
or elaborate collections. The donation was unsolicited, and was made 
with the firm assertion that he did not do it in any effort to perpetuate 
his name (indeed, he rather insisted that his name be left out of it); 
that though fortune had not been lavish with him, yet she had not 
been unkind, perhaps kinder than to most individuals engaged in 
University work, and he wished to defray a part of the expense that 
they are frequently put to in the prosecution of their interests. This 
sum has already been of service, and will be of yet more service, in the 
recovery of the last fish and amphibian remains that can possibly be 
obtained from the famous old Linton Coal-Measures locality of eastern 
Ohio. 
Mr. Piwonka was born in New York City of Bohemian stock. He 
was valedictorian of his class from Central High School, Cleveland. 
His interest in natural science was first aroused by S. G. Williams, then 
a teacher in Central High School (who later became Professor of Edu- 
cation in Cornell University, and whose collection forms the bulk of the 
paleontological collection of Western Reserve University). After 
