202 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



chemistry, mineralogy, natural philosophy, and law (!) in the Univer- 

 sity of Virginia. At the last named place he served From 1817 to 

 1820, being finally forced to resign on account of the opposition to 

 his liberal teachings on the part of the Presbyterians. 



From Charlottesville he went to Columbia, South Carolina, where 

 he served as professor of chemistry (1820-21) and then as president 

 ( Ls^l-1831), being here again compelled to resign for his violent liber- 

 alism in matters relating to science and religion. Queerly enough, a 

 committee appointed by the State legislature in 1831 to investigate his 

 conduct with a view to his removal failed to make out a case, and the 

 charges were dismissed. His final undoing would seem to have been 

 parallel with that of the sick man whose case his physician was unable 

 to diagnose specifically and the record of whose death was put down 

 to ''general cussedness." 



Cooper, as above noted, was not a geologist, as the term is now 

 used, but comes in for recognition here on account of the prominent 

 part he played in early educational movements relating to the intro- 

 duction of the science in the universities. It was through his influence 

 that the chair of geology at the South Carolina College was established, 

 to which Vanuxem was called in 1821, and Le Conte in 1857. At the 

 time Cooper assumed the reins in Columbia geology was taught at no 

 other institution in America except Yale, and the only available text 

 books were the reprints of Bakew r ell's geologies with Silliman's notes. 

 To the latter, on account of the acceptation of Mosaic doctrines, Cooper 

 took violent exception, and attacked them, lirst in lectures to his 

 classes and subsequently in his pamphlet on The Connection between 

 Geologjr and the Pentateuch (published in 1833). 



A man of powerful intellect, but a reckless busybody. Bold and 

 aggressive, he "walked roughshod over men's opinions and suffered 

 the inevitable consequences." His personal appearance must have 

 been as peculiar as his conduct. "He was less than 5 feet high and 

 his head was the biggest part of the whole man. He was a perfect 

 taper from the side of his head down to his feet. He looked like a 

 wedge with a head on it," is the way it is expressed by one of his old 

 pupils. 



The credulity of even the scientific men of this date (1822) can not 



be better illustrated than by referring to an account by Schoolcraft of 



the finding of supposed human footprints in limestone belonging to 



the ""Secondary" formation (Lower Carboniferous), 



Supposed human "J ■»«■••• -tt o t • 



footprints in on the w T est bank of the Mississippi Kiver at St. Louis. 



limestone, 1822. , - , n -i 



Ihese so-called footprints (see fig. 11) were described 

 as those of a man, standing erect, with his heels drawn in and his toes 

 turned outward. The distance between the heels \>y accurate measur- 

 ment was 6£ inches, and between the toes 13^ inches. Attention was 

 called to the fact that the impressions were not those of feet accus- 



