264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ture, showing the bearing of the earth's physical features upon every* 

 department of human interest. 



Another pre-eminent service which Guyot rendered to America was 

 the work he did in meteorology, a science which had received very 

 little attention when he arrived in this country. From 1851 to 1859 

 he worked at the preparation of the " Meteorological and Physical 

 Tables," published by the Smithsonian Institution, and also superin- 

 tended the construction" of accurate meteorological instruments. In 

 connection w^ith Professor Henry he must be regarded as the founder 

 of the system of weather observations and reports which has resulted 

 in the Government Signal Service. 



In 1854 Guyot was elected to the chair of Geology and Physical 

 Geography at Princeton, a post which he filled for the thirty remain- 

 ing years of his life. Until compelled to cease by the increasing in- 

 firmities of age, he devoted all his vacations and spare time to his 

 favorite investigations, making elaborate and careful examinations of 

 the mountains from New England to South Carolina. This work in- 

 volved an immense amount of hardship and fatigue, and he was fond 

 of describing with quaint picturesqueness and humor his experiences 

 in roughing it in the mountains of Pennsylvania and the Carolinas. 

 In 1861 he published in the " American Journal of Science and Arts " 

 the results of his work up to that time, " a memoir which remains to 

 this day the best existing description." Again, in 1880, he brought out 

 another memoir on the same subject, devoted chiefly to the Catskills, 

 some of the rough work for which was done after he was seventy years 

 old. Many shorter papers on meteorological, physical, and geograph- 

 ical subjects were written at intervals, but no complete list of them has 

 ever been prepared. His work during this period is a noble example of 

 what may be done without appropriations or endowments, for in those 

 days Princeton was very poor, and he had to do as best he could with- 

 out assistance. 



As a friend and teacher Guyot will ever be held in loving remem- 

 brance till the last of his hundreds of students shall have followed him 

 to the grave. His lectures were wonderfully fascinating, leading his 

 hearers step by step to heights whence they could survey the whole 

 field. His broad culture, gained by the combination of the humanita- 

 rian and scientific studies, had given him an extraordinary power of 

 generalization, stimulating his students by showing them the relations 

 of any subject which he handled to the whole realm of knowledge. 

 He was able to depict these sciences in their true perspective without 

 distortion or exaggeration, a power which is unhappily very uncom- 

 mon. Those who had the rare privilege of pursuing advanced courses 

 of study under his supervision will long remember the great stimulus 

 to earnest work which they received from him, and the clear, philo- 

 sophical views of Nature which he expounded. 



For many years Guyot labored under great disadvantages from the 



