356 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



He himself says, in a characteristic letter to F. B. Meek, written 

 July, 1863: 



I go on Monday to help H. ferret out my skulking species of paleozoic shells. 

 May the recording angel help me. God ami 1 knew them once, and the Almighty 

 may know still. A man's memory is no part of his soul. 



Conrad was bitterly opposed to the doctrine of evolution, and pre- 

 dicted that Darwin's wild speculations would soon be forgotten. Every 

 geological age came, according to him, to a complete close, and the life 

 of the succeeding one was a wholly new creation. His feeling on this 

 subject is well shown in a letter, also to Meek, dated February, 1869, 

 where he says: 



I sent yon to-day a copy of my paper in Kerr's geological report. I perceive by 

 Cope, Martin, and Hayden's researches that they have not found that phantom of 

 the imagination, a formation between chalk and Eocene. The world has been so 

 thoroughly harried by despairing development philosophers with so little result that 

 they may as well say the "game is up," and not speculate on lost formations lying 

 at the bottom of the ocean, a desperate expedient to save genetic succession. It is 

 strange that geologists can not recognize an Azoic, era after the chalk. I consider, in 

 the light of paleontology, the advent of one only form of life in the beginning to be 

 absurd. The history of Lingula ought to teach us the permanence of certain forms 

 of life from the beginning, while thousands of others were created and died out. 



Poor in health, given to melancholy and low spirits, he furnished 

 to American geological history that which has a counterpart only in 

 Percival, and like Percival, it may be added, he was sometimes given 

 to rhyming, though unlike Percival, lie was slovenly and careless in 

 his work to a point beyond endurance. 



His melancholy increased with age, and frequent ill health caused 

 him at times to lose interest in every undertaking. 



A period of moping would usually end in his writing some verses which nobody 

 would praise, and this seemed sufficiently to nettle him, to rouse him thoroughly, 

 and he would become again enthusiastic in the matter of shells and fossils. 



It was presumably during one of these moping periods that he 

 wrote again to Meek under date of October 24, 1864, as follows: 



I am troubled with the cui bono malady, and frequently wish to be under the 

 "clods of the valley." The idea of suicide haunts me continually, and I wish to 

 get to work to banish the horrors, but whatever side I look at work it brings 

 expenses I think I would regret. Singular inconsistencies of man. I don't expect 

 to live much longer, yet shrink from expenses, but such is the hard mental twist 

 that early poverty gives the mind. My blues have been considerably increased by 

 the death of Doctor Moore, « who I loved more than most other men, and by the 

 death of my nearest and dearest sister with whom I lived in Trenton. Now r I must 

 plunge into the marl beds to keep up a little time longer and hope to finish the 

 Miocene figures before I go where no dreams of new discoveries will haunt me. 

 Excuse this egotism; it is the last of it; but you now see why I do so little. Only 

 one thing remains. I don't suppose yon feel the want of a home, but I have felt it 

 all my life, and the dreams of an Egeria have overtopped the dreams of science, so 



"Dr. W. D. Moore, of the University of Mississippi. 



