The Days of a Man 



D873 



The 



Glacial 



Epoch 



caused me a certain embarrassment. My prede- 

 cessor, Dr. Livingston, a man of high character and 

 a certain degree of executive ability but no scientific 

 training, had been removed from the professorship 

 of Natural Science at the age of sixty because he 

 was thought inadequate for the labor of teaching. 

 The presidency then becoming vacant, after con- 

 siderable discussion on the part of the board he was 

 made acting head for the time being. This left his 

 relation to me rather delicate, and occasionally 

 difficult. On one occasion, for instance, he criticized 

 my account of the Glacial Period because I made it 

 appear "as though ice had actually covered the 

 land." His misinformation on these matters dated 

 from the period in which glacial phenomena were 

 attributed to icebergs and the wash of waves over 

 submerged regions. 



At the end of the year the trustees, being short of 

 Lombard m oney and none too appreciative, left me no ac- 

 ceptable alternative save to resign which I did 

 not unwillingly. They were, however, taken aback 

 by the fact that nearly all the advanced students 

 then expressed their intention of going to Cornell. 

 Among those who actually did go were Edward 

 Junius Edwards, entomologist, whom Mary after- 

 ward married, and Belle Sherman, who graduated 

 at Cornell and remained in Ithaca for forty years as 

 science teacher in the high school. 



Leaving 



From Galesburg I went directly to the island of 

 Penikese as one of those chosen by Professor Agassiz 

 to constitute the first class in his proposed Summer 

 C 106 H 



