238 The University of Calijornia Magazi^ie. 



University. The following year he resigned to accept the 

 chair of geology and natural history in the University of 

 Georgia, in which institution his brother John was the pro- 

 fessor of natural philosophy. In 1855 the brothers both re- 

 signed their posts and accepted calls to South Carolina College, 

 at Columbia, Joseph to be the professor of geology and natural 

 history and John to be professor of physics. In 1862, the 

 college succombed to the trouble arising out of the Civil War. 



In the Journal Professor I,e Conte said: — 



"During the dark days of the war, I continued to write, 

 'The Relation of Sociology to Biology,' 'School, College and 

 University,' 'Nature and the Uses of Art.' This was certainly 

 my best. It was written in '63, when the whole South was 

 in an agony of conflict. The college was suspended. I must 

 do something in support of the cause which absorbed every 

 feeling. How could I turn my scientific knowledge to some 

 account ? Just then a large manufactorj' for the production of 

 chemicals for the use of the army was established in the 

 suburbs of Columbia. I was asked to be the chemist. I ac- 

 cepted and for about eighteen months I was engaged in the 

 manufacture on a large scale of many kinds of medicine: 

 alcohol, nitrate of silver, chloroform, sulphuric acid, etc. 

 The whole army drew from this laboratory with the ex- 

 ceptions of those supplies which ran the blockade. In 

 1864, without solicitation, I was appointed chemist of 

 the Nitre and Mining Bureau, with the rank and pay of 

 Major, My business was to test all nitrous earth brought 

 in from nitre caves or nitre beds. My laboratory was that 

 of the college. I visited all of the caves in South Carolina, 

 Tennessee and Alabama and the iron mines at Shelbyville. 

 I found here a Bessemer furnace, the only one in the Con- 

 federate States. I returned to Columbia in September and 

 made my report to St. John, Chief of the Bureau at Richmond. 

 Meanwhile Sherman was coming down from Chattanooga to 

 Atlanta, Johnson in front, retreating step by step. Sherman's 

 march through Georgia is a matter of history. The sea coast 



