122 THK NAUTILUS. 



the study oi' shells," in order to intelligently study Jussils, of wliich 

 otherwise he would have learned but little that was satisfactory. 

 Living or recent shells were then termed "Concha Marina" — a 

 lumping together amusingly indefinite and vague as seen in the 

 light of to-day. To quote him further "I fancied recent shells 

 would furnish a key to Paleontology and I expected in a few weeks 

 of study to master the science of conchology." The result was 

 somewhat disappointing; he found as all true students have found, 

 whatever the path of study, that fresh vistas, eternally new, are con- 

 stantly opening, and that with increased knowledge comes a wider 

 and more distant horizon, and so like others who have the love and 

 thirst and courage of learning, undaunted he kept right on. 



His father, Simon Newcomb, of the fifth generation of the family 

 iu America, the first being Andrew who came to this country in 

 1635, was a physician. The son it will be noticed followed the 

 father's profession. In 1838 he was fortunate in making a marriage 

 that was in every way congenial; his wife a most estimable woman, 

 his companion and friend for 54 years, survives him. After prac- 

 tising medicine in Albany, and a prolonged visit to the Antilles in 

 1846-7, in 1849 he went to California, thence to the Hawaiian 

 islands in 1850, whei'e he resided for five years. Here the oppor- 

 tunity for studying the interesting shells of the Achatinellidae was 

 open to him, and he added over a hundred species to the number 

 previously known. His exhaustive series of these beautiful forms 

 is pcobably the finest extant, and the conclusions reached by him 

 are without doubt more nearly correct, than those of other authors 

 who have published on this rather difficult group. 



In 1856 he returned to New York. In 1857 he went to Europe 

 and pa^t of the time had Dr. Gould for a companion. In London 

 he had the pleasure of meeting many of the leading naturalists of 

 the old world, Keeve, Gray, Sowerby, Adams, Hanley, Owen and 

 others, and Deshayes, Kiener, Bernard!, Hupe and otheis in 

 Paris. On his return to the United States he went to California in 

 1858 and established himself as a physician in Oakland, where he 

 became w'ell and agreeably known and soon had an ample practice. 

 Here as elsewhere he continued his conchological studies, ever 

 enthusiastic and ever ready to assist others as he had been from the 

 beginning and was unto the end, all the while adding to his collec- 

 tion, already magnificent, and one of the finest and best arranged 

 in the world. His generous encouragement to collectors as well as 



