39 2 



PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



matter for an essay, but contented himself with innumerable 

 notes and memoranda that I found on loose slips of paper 

 after his death. He was bitterly opposed to evolution; con- 

 sidered Agassiz the world's greatest naturalist, and predicted 

 that Darwin's " wild speculations " would soon be forgotten. 

 Every geological age came, Conrad held, to a complete close, 

 and the life of the succeeding one was a wholly new creation. 

 These utterly crude and untenable views he held to the last. 



It would be unjust to the memory of the subject of this 

 sketch to pass over without notice his characteristics as a 

 man and author. Conrad was something besides a profound 

 paleontologist. This his friends well knew. He was of small 

 stature, thin and homely, yet he had, as an intimate friend re- 

 cently said, a refined countenance. There was a kindly light 

 in his eyes that words can not describe nor the cunning of the 

 artist depict. I have said " homely " ; this on his own author- 

 ity, for in his poem The Watermelon he declares: 



" The poet may sing of the Orient spices, 



Or Barbary's dates in their palmy array, 



But the huge rosy melon in cold juicy slices, 



Is the Helicon font of a hot summer day, 



"Where I bathe the dry wings of the spirit, and sprinkling 



Sweet drops on the pathway of dusty old Care, 

 I hold Father Time from his villainous wrinkling 

 Of features that never had graces to spare." 



As a conversationist Conrad had few superiors, but a weak- 

 ness of his voice made it difficult for him to be heard, and it 

 was only when with two or three intimate friends that this 

 quality shone out. He avoided large gatherings and never 

 spoke in public. He had a keen sense of humour and was an 

 inveterate punster. His memory was " very bad " scientifical- 

 ly, says Prof. Ball, but it was remarkably good so far as poetry 

 was concerned, and when walking alone in the country he 

 would repeat aloud long passages from the works of* his 

 favourite authors. His fondness for poetry led him to writing 

 verses, some of which were printed in the Philadelphia papers 

 as early as 1828, and his latest effort bears date of 1874. In 

 1848 Conrad published The New Diogenes, a Cynical Poem. 

 This is well described in the subtitle. It consists of some 

 twenty-five hundred lines of fault-finding. The edition was 



