8 * SKETCH OF PROF. JOHN LE CONTE. 



and then retired from executive duties in order to build up more 

 thoroughly his own department of work. On the resignation of 

 President Gilman in 1875, Dr. Le Conte was induced again to 

 assume the presidency, which he retained until June, 1881, but 

 still performing the duties of his professorship. Since that date 

 he has confined himself to his chair of Physics. 



Through nearly the whole of life the two brothers, John and 

 Joseph Le Conte, have been closely associated, each attaining 

 eminence, the elder as a physicist, the younger as a geologist. 

 The elder preceded the younger by six years at Franklin College, 

 in Georgia. They went almost together to the South Carolina 

 College, and likewise to the University of California. This fact 

 has often led to their names becoming confounded by strangers. 



Dr. Le Conte is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, 

 the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the 

 American Philosophical Society and Academy of Natural Sci- 

 ences in Philadelphia, the New York Academy of Sciences, and 

 the California Academy of Sciences. To this list might be added 

 various other bodies which have bestowed upon him honorary 

 membership. 



A list of some of the more important of Dr. Le Conte's pub- 

 lished writings is appended. The entire list is too long for inser- 

 tion, amounting to about a hundred papers. 



Of the first dozen, which show the direction of his tastes as a 

 physician, perhaps the most interesting is No. 9, in which by origi- 

 nal experiments he proved that the alligator is able to execute de- 

 liberate and determinate movements after decapitation and even 

 after destruction of the spinal cord. 



In No. 10 he shows that the mortality from cancer has in- 

 creased in modern times ; that it augments regularly with in- 

 creasing age, and that it is greater in France than in England. 

 The same subject is pursued still further in No. 28 and No. 49, 

 in which he shows important errors in the usual methods of in- 

 terpreting vital statistics, and that the average mortality from 

 cancer is fully three times as great among females as among 

 males. 



In No. 16 he gives the first rational explanation of a whole 

 class of ice phenomena as manifested both in the ground and in 

 plants. In No. 17 the investigation is continued, and from nu- 

 merous experiments it is shown that many plants may be com- 

 pletely frozen without injury. 



No. 19 is a criticism of Moseley's theory of the descent of 

 glaciers, in which it is demonstrated that the descent can not be 

 produced by expansions and contractions of the ice due to changes 

 of temperature. 



In No. 20 it is shown that Maury's theory of the winds is un- 



