498 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



At the time he begun his work satisfactory text-books were few and 

 the difficulties which he encountered in addition may be best under- 

 stood when it is remembered that work was undertaken more than 

 fifty years ago, when railroads were practically unknown, when post- 

 age on a single letter cost 25 cents, and when, moreover, money was 

 scarce and labor cheap. There being no overland freight or express 

 lines, all his exchanges of specimens with friends in the East were 

 made by means of Mississippi River steamboats between Warsaw and 

 New Orleans, and Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic sailing vessels between 

 New Orleans and Boston. Often months would elapse between the 

 time of his sendings and return of exchange material. 



In 1851 Worthen first began attendance 

 upon the meetings of the American Associa- 

 tion, and in 1853, as noted, took part in the 

 survey of the State of Illinois, under the 

 direction of J. G. Norwood. From 1855- 

 1857 he was assistant to James Hall on the 

 survey of Iowa, and in 1858 was made State 

 geologist of Illinois in place of Norwood, 

 as already mentioned. 



Worthen's own labors related principally 

 to the Carboniferous rocks, and to him be- 

 longs the credit of being the first to work 

 out the true relations of the divisions of the 

 Lower Carboniferous system in this section. 

 Personally, as we are told by his biogra- 

 pher, Worthen was of manly presence, kindly, candid, and of unpre- 

 tentious manner, impulsive and generous to his friends, charitable even 

 to those with whom he had little sympathy, but uncompromising in his 

 love of justice and scientific truth. His thorough interest in his work 

 is shown by his persistent continuation of the same under the most 

 adverse conditions. Again and again his work was in danger of sus- 

 pension by the threatened failure of the necessary appropriations by 

 the legislature, and more than once they were so far reduced that 

 only the most careful management averted disaster. Once during 

 1875-1877 the appropriations were allowed to entirely fail, but he 

 continued his work without compensation and with such sincerity of 

 purpose that they were resumed by the next legislature. 



Lesquereux, whose paleobotanical work has been on several occasions 

 described in these pages, and to whom we shall again have occasion 

 to refer, was born at Fleurier, Switzerland, in 1806, and came to 

 America with Arnold Guyot, about 1848. His early scientific studies 

 were on living plants; but later, and particularly after coming to 

 America, he turned his attention almost exclusively to fossil forms. 

 His work on the coal plants of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and 



Fig. 70.— Aruos Henry Worthen. 



