Winchell Memorial 101 



samples from two deep wells, one drilled for Col. Clough, then 

 City Engineer, in East Minneapolis and the other sunk in Em- 

 metsburg, la., were reported to the Academy by Prof. Winchell 

 and published in the first Bulletin. This also contained his first 

 published paper in the annals of the Academy, "( ieological Xotes 

 from Early Explorers in the Minnesota Valley" which is an ex- 

 tremely interesting summary from LeSueur's reputed discovery 

 of copper mines on the I Hue Earth at the close of the 17th cen- 

 tury through the expeditions of Keating, Featherstonhaugh, J. X. 

 Nicollet and jas. Hall. At the beginning of 1876 occurs his first 

 report on iron ores in Pennsylvania, with reference to the Lake 

 Superior ores as being a lower formation; also "Xotes on the 

 Paleontology of the Trenton Limestone in Minn." After the sum- 

 mer of 77 occurred the first presentation to the Academy of the 

 results of his study of the recession of the Falls of St. Anthony, 

 which Dr. A. F. Elliott, the Academy's veteran secretary and the 

 donor of Elliott Hospital, thus records: "Prof. Winchell made 

 some very interesting remarks about the geology of Hennepin 

 County. Two drift periods : oldest is red in color and the later, of 

 a gray color, overlies the red and contains cretaceous deposits. It 

 came from the northwest. On east side of the river no gray drift 

 overlying the red as far east as Stillwater. Red oaks are char- 

 acteristic of the red drift. The best timber is found where the 

 gray drift abounds. The Falls of St. Anthony began at the be- 

 ginning of the last glacial period at Fort Snelling about 8,859 

 years ago." 



Professor WincheH's first presidential year of the Academy 

 was marked by his paper on "Darwinism," the Mss. of which was 

 evidently burned, along with other Academy material for a bul- 

 letin, in the historic Brackett's Block fire. But its tenor can be 

 anticipated from his resolutions on the death of 1 )arwin in 1883, 

 printed in the second volume of the Bulletin: "In common with 

 the scientific laborers of the civilized world we lament the death of 

 Charles H. Darwin of England, and we wish hereby to express 

 our profound admiration of his scientific labors. II is high at- 

 tainment of success in that sphere in which few men reach fame, 

 and his industrious genius in grouping the facts of animated na- 

 ture were equalled only by the quiet modesty of his life and the 

 Christian fortitude with which he endured, without resentment, 



