422 



PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



bility of their devoting themselves to more congenial studies. 

 His devotion to his subject rendered him averse to calling the 

 roll. As a lecturer his manner was easy and self-forgetful ; 

 his success in imparting knowledge was due to his earnestly en- 

 deavouring to uplift his listeners' minds, but at the same time 

 neither to discourage nor weary them. Imitating Faraday, 

 his manner was that of a gentleman returned from an inter- 

 esting travel narrating to his friends some of the delights he 

 had experienced. 



His professorship was divided in 1852, when the college 

 became able to have a separate Professor of Chemistry. Prof. 

 Shepard continued to deliver the lectures on natural history 

 till 1877, when he was made professor emeritus. After leaving 

 Amherst his northern home was at New Haven for the rest of 

 his life. 



The following history of the growth of Prof. Shepard's 

 collections was written by him for the History of Amherst 

 College, at the request of Dr. Tyler : 



" My mineralogical cabinet was commenced at the age of 

 fifteen, while a member of the Providence Grammar School, 

 and was brought with me when I left Brown University to 

 join the sophomore class of Amherst institution in 1821. An 

 early visit after my arrival here to the tourmaline and other 

 localities of Chesterfield and Goshen served to increase my 

 eagerness as a collector, and at the same time placed me in 

 possession of abundant materials for exchange. In 1823 my 

 identification of the previously supposed white augite of 

 Goshen with the species spodumene, gave me confidence in 

 the study of minerals, while it increased my stock of speci- 

 mens desirable tcr mineralogists. The exchange I then carried 

 on with the Austrian consul-general, Baron von Lederer, in 

 behalf of his own collection and that of the Imperial Cabinet 

 of Vienna, rapidly enriched my little museum in foreign min- 

 erals. Indeed, from the first it was sufficiently an\ple to serve 

 a useful purpose in the instruction of beginners, and was the 

 sole resource of Prof. Amos Eaton in the lectures he gave 

 during two seasons before the students of the institution. 



" On leaving college I resided a year partly in Cambridge 

 and partly in Boston, during which period I profited much in 

 extending my collections, through visits to new localities in 

 eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and still more by 



