426 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SEALER 



Fossil Brachiopods of the Ohio Valley. His researches in this 

 field were warmly commended by Agassiz, and at once gave him 

 a place among his contemporaries in science. Although he early 

 began to publish in scientific journals, in Government and State 

 Geological Reports, a letter which he wrote to his father while in 

 England shows that he was by no means satisfied with what he 

 had already done. 



LONDON, May, 1873 



S wrote you all the news Sunday last. We are all much as then. I did 



too much last week and so am compelled to do less this ; but I am getting 

 along quietly. I do not expect ever to be able to do very hard work again ; 

 yet I think it is probable that I have a good deal in me yet which can be got 

 out with careful management. I shall always run the risk of setting up the 

 old irritations. My plan is to come back to Cambridge for the next year. 

 If my Nantucket scheme for summer school goes forward this year I shall try 

 to get there in July ; it will involve only a little supervising work and in ex- 

 change therefor I shall get two months' rest in the winter. I intend to have 

 two assistants, which will cost me $1000, leaving me $3000 from the uni- 

 versity. I shall do a little less than half my usual task for the coming year 

 and see how that does. I mean also to come back to horseback exercise, 

 which is more diverting and less wearing than foot exercise. In this fashion 

 I hope to live at least twenty years of useful work. I am anxious to have 

 some repose in order that I can begin to get my scientific results in order. 

 I have done a good deal of work which should be published, but have as yet 

 got very little on to paper and into print. 



While Director of the Kentucky Geological Survey (1874-80) 

 Mr. Shaler's annual reports and other contributions, written by 

 himself or with the aid of his assistants, required a great deal of 

 his time. These writings relate to the natural resources of the 

 state, as well as to purely scientific subjects. The whole of 

 Volume III, new series, was written by himself. His first inde- 

 pendent book, "Thoughts on the Nature of Intellectual Pro- 

 perty," was published in 1878; "The Geology of Boston and 

 its Environs" (Memorial History of Boston, edited by Justin 

 Winsor), in 1880. "Glaciers," with W. M. Davis as collabora- 

 tor, appeared in 1881. His next venture, "The First Book of 

 Geology," was published in 1884, and "Kentucky: A Pioneer 



