348 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



his time, and was graduated from Williams College in due 

 course. Prof. Marcou gives 1820 as the year of his gradua- 

 tion, but the General Catalogue has him in the class of 1818, 

 which seems to be conclusive. As a college student his in- 

 terest in the sciences was quickened by the instruction of Pro- 

 fessors Amos Eaton and Chester Dewey, and he subsequently 

 had a large share in introducing the study of these subjects 

 among the young men of the country. After completing his 

 college course Mr. Emmons continued his favourite studies at 

 the Rensselaer School, graduating there with the class of 1826. 

 In the same year he published his Manual of Mineralogy and 

 Geology for the use of the students of that institution. He 

 also studied medicine at the Berkshire Medical School, and 

 established himself as a practising physician in Chester, 

 Mass. 



In 1818, at the age of nineteen, Mr. Emmons married Miss 

 Maria Cone, of Williamstown, and at the age of thirty-seven 

 became a grandfather by the birth of a son to his eldest 

 daughter. 



In 1828 Dr. Emmons removed to Williamstown, where he 

 continued to practise medicine, and in the same year was ap- 

 pointed lecturer on chemistry in Williams College. A cabinet 

 of mineralogical and geological specimens which he began to 

 collect here was presented by him to the college after it had 

 received the valuable accretions of twenty years. He resided 

 in Williamstown until 1838, becoming the most eminent prac- 

 titioner in Berkshire County. In 1830 he was appointed junior 

 professor in the Rensselaer School and held the position till 

 1839. He was also a lecturer in the Medical School of 

 Castleton in the days of its renown. His chair in Williams 

 College was enlarged in 1833* to a professorship of Natu- 

 ral History, which he held till 1859, when the department 

 was divided, he retaining the mineralogy and geology till his 

 death. 



Having been appointed upon the Geological Survey of New 

 York in 1836 and Professor of Chemistry in the Albany Medical 

 College in 1838, Dr. Emmons removed in the latter year to Al- 



* The History of Williams College, another book by the Rev. Calvin Dur- 

 fee, D. D., above quoted, gives 1848 as the year of his election to the professor- 

 ship of Natural History. 



