WILLIAM WILLIAMS MATHER. 407 



no provision was made for preserving papers, field-notes, and 

 maps. A geological reconnaissance of Kentucky, authorized 

 by the Legislature of that State, was made by Prof. Mather 

 in 1838-39, his report being issued as a State document. Both 

 his appointment in Ohio and that in Kentucky had been ac- 

 cepted with the condition that they should not prevent the 

 completion of his work in New York. 



Colonel Charles Whittlesey has stated, in an article on the 

 Personnel of the First Geological Survey of Ohio, that after 

 the suspension of the Ohio survey, Mather bought a tract of 

 several hundred acres, including the Pigeon Roost, north of 

 the court-house in Jackson County, and became a citizen of 

 Ohio. He cleared a part of this land for a farm and built 

 him a comfortable house on it. Afterward he and Prof. James 

 Hall entered a large tract of Government land in the south- 

 ern part of the same county, on which they erected an iron 

 furnace. 



When Mr. Mather settled in Jackson County, in 1841, it 

 was impossible to obtain sperm oil there for domestic lighting. 

 The only recourse of the family was to mould tallow candles, 

 which was very unsatisfactory. In the following winter Mr. 

 Mather began experimenting on the preparation of oil from 

 lard. He placed the lard in a canvas bag and suspended it in 

 a warm room, thus obtaining by the slow process of dripping 

 an oil that the family used in lamps. An account of these ex- 

 periments was published, and is believed to have been the 

 starting-point of the production of lard oil, which has since 

 become so extensive. 



About the time the field work of the New York survey was 

 finished, Prof. Mather became Professor of Natural Science in 

 the Ohio University at Athens. He held this position from 

 1842 to 1845 and from 1847 to 1850, being vice-president and 

 acting president in 1845. The period from 1845 to 1847 was 

 occupied in examining mineral lands for mining companies, 

 mainly about Lake Superior, but also in New Jersey, Virginia, 

 and Massachusetts. During the first quarter of 1846 he was 

 acting Professor of Chemistry and Geology in Marietta Col- 

 lege, his other engagements making him unwilling to accept 

 the professorship. In the winter of 1845 ne began a series of 

 experiments on the extraction of bromine from the bitter wa- 

 ters of the salt works near Athens, Ohio. At that time bro- 



