11 



ceding time. When Prof. Worthen took up the study, amid the 

 cares of a family and while engaged in business, the facilities 

 for its study were extremely few especially in the western 

 country. No work on elementary Geology had then been pub- 

 lished in this country and the first books that he was able to 

 obtain were Dr. Mantell's "Medals of Creation" and "Wonders 

 of Geology,'' which I well remember finding in his library upon 

 my arrival at his house in the spring of 1850. They were 

 written in a style adapted to popular comprehension and by 

 as great an enthusiast and collector as himself. It is doubtful 

 if any works could be found now, better calculated to stimu- 

 late the zeal of a born naturalist. They presented a general 

 survey of the Fossil World, with an outline of British Paleon- 

 tology, illustrated by wood cuts of fossil remains. It gave him 

 what he most needed at the time, an insight into the manner 

 in which the sedimentary rocks were formed and how r the re- 

 mains of animals and plants came to be embedded and pre- 

 served in them. By collecting the minerals and fossils in his 

 own locality and exchanging them with other collectors for 

 those found elsewhere, he gradually gathered not only an ex- 

 tensive and very valuable geological museum but acquired the 

 knowledge which was the object of his ardent pursuit. Thus 

 the writer found him upon his own arrival in the Mississippi 

 Valley in the spring of 1850. He was still engaged in business 

 but his store as well as his house was more of a stone shop 

 than a dry goods shop and he evidently begrudged the time 

 there spent waiting for or attending upon customers; conse- 

 quently he soon sold out his business and determined for the 

 future to devote himself to his loved science. Meanwhile by his 

 correspondence and exchanges he had made the acquaintance 

 of many men engaged like himself in scientific pursuits and 

 made such progress himself in knowledge as to be elected a 

 member of the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science at its 5th annual meeting, held at Cincinnati in 1851, 

 a society of which he remained a member to the time of his 

 death, whose proceedings he greatly enjoyed, and to whose trans- 

 actions he at various times contributed valuable papers, notably 

 "On the occurrence of fish remains in the carboniferous limestone 



