312 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



seized with a chill on the eleventh of March, 1899, while working 

 at the museum; pneumonia rapidly developed, and in a week, 

 almost before those closest to him knew of his serious illness, he 

 was dead. The tribute of a colleague in the University fittingly 

 closes the story of his useful life: 



"The details of his work were so little known by his fellow 

 townsmen and his personality was so unusual that an inadequate 

 impression might easily exist as to the value of his intellectual at- 

 tainments and the importance of what he accomplished. From 

 the time when ... he collected minerals on the shores of the 

 Bay of Fundy to the closing weeks of his life, he was ever the same 

 eager, earnest student of science, amassing collections in many 

 different lines with an indomitable energy characteristic of him- 

 self. 



"Deprived of family ties which to most men bring the chief 

 happiness of life and with but few close personal friends, he was 

 ever bright and cheerful and devoted himself to science with a 

 single heart. It is certainly not strange that, situated as he was, 

 his intense personal ambition should have been often self -centered. 

 His standard of scientific accuracy was high and he demanded 

 the same of others; he was none too tolerant of those who opposed 

 his views and who encroached upon a field which he felt he had 

 preoccupied. But whatever may have been his. personal pecul- 

 iarities, Professor Marsh was a great man; great in the thorough- 

 ness of his intellectual attainments, great in his grasp of the broad 

 principles of evolution, great in the tireless energy of his spirit. 



"Death came to. him suddenly before he had completed all the 

 labors he had undertaken. . . . Notwithstanding it is given to 

 few men to erect such a monument as he has done." 



