HISTORICAL SKETCn. 7 



County. Mr. Oliver M. Clapp/ of Amherst, recently deceased, was an 

 ardent collector during his long life. The finest collection for the illus- 

 tration of the local mineralogy, excepting, of course, the great collection 

 of Professor Shepard, was that made by Mr. Josiah D. Clark, for a long 

 time a teacher in Brooklyn, but a native of Northampton, who watched 

 carefully the progress of the work at the last opening of the Loudville 

 mine, during the war, and secured very abundant and wholh- unique 

 suites of all the rare things found there, as well as valuable material from 

 all other localities of western Massachusetts. He sold his collection at 

 an exceptionally low price to Smith College, from a desire that it might 

 remain entire and in Northampton. 



The Inirning of the great Shepard mineral collection in Walker Hall of 

 Amherst College in 188"2 may stand as a next and sad epoch in the history 

 of mineralogy in the Connecticut Valley, a loss in many wars irreparable, 

 for the rich store of material for the illustration of the local mineralogy can 

 never be wholly replaced. Fortunately Professor Shepard had published 

 largely concerning this material, and I had taken quite full notes of almost 

 all the collection, which have been incorporated in the following report. 



In December, 1887, the collections made by Professor Shepard after 

 the sale of his collection to Amherst College were presented in his name 

 to the college by his son. Dr. C. U. Shepard, of Charleston, South Carolina, 

 axid this goes far toward restoring the monument to his memory, and very 

 far toward filling out the local collections at Amherst, which should be, of 

 course, unsurpassed for the region in the center of which the college is 

 situated. 



It is proper to call attention to the fact that the list of publications 

 upon the geology and mineralogy of the State (Chapter XXIII), in which 

 I have included those upon topography, is the true history of the progress 

 of these studies here during the present century, and that in the preceding 

 pages I have pui-posed only to emphasize some names that would otherwise 

 be overlooked, and to indicate some salient points in the history which seemed 

 to me to deserve mention. 



'Hist. Conn. Valley, Vol. I, p. 241. 



