NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



fessor of Chemistry and Natural History at Amherst College. 

 Although interested in many subjects, he devoted almost all of 

 his time to geology, and in 1830 was made chief of the Geologi- 

 cal Survey of Massachusetts. In 1836, he was appointed Geol- 

 ogist of the First District of New York, and in 1857, State 

 Geologist of Vermont. Dr. Hitchcock was the first to suggest 

 and carry on the survey of the State of Massachusetts, which 

 was the first, not only in the long series of surveys subsequently 

 carried on in the United States, but the first survey of an entire 

 State under government authority inaugurated anywhere in the 

 world. For his extensive and important work in geology he 

 received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Harvard 

 at the age of 47. His name will always be closely associated with 

 the beginnings of geology in this country. He has, indeed, been 

 called one of the fathers of American geology. He was the 

 first to give a scientific exposition of the so-called " bird tracks " 

 in the Red Sandstone of the Connecticut Valley, and this new 

 science, which began with him, he termed ornithichnology. 

 The paper was published in 1836, and was followed from year 

 to year by descriptions of his investigations, tables of species and 

 other articles. 



In 1840 he was elected the first President of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, which was organ- 

 ized at that time, and in 1845 was made President of Amherst 

 College, and Professor of Natural Theology and Geology, 

 which positions he held until 1854. His life was closely con- 

 nected with Amherst, from the very beginning of the college, 

 and in his own presidency he established it on a firm financial 

 footing, besides elevating the standard of study. He also pro- 

 cured for it a number of buildings, increased and improved the 

 equipment, and enlarged the number of students. He died the 

 year after the National Academy of Sciences was organized. 



(From J. P. LESLEY, in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of 

 Sciences, vol. I, 1877, pp. 113-134.) 



