EDWARD ORTON 209 
University, the older title being recognized as no longer appli- 
cable. 
But executive duties were never attractive to him; they 
interfered with his work asa student. Again and again he asked 
to be relieved from the presidency, but not until 1881 did the 
trustees feel that the institution could beara change. At that 
time, when the university was established and its policy deter- 
mined, they yielded to his urgent request. Thenceforward he 
devoted himself to the chair of geology. With characteristic 
wisdom he became merely a professor, and apparently forgot 
that he had been president. One finds no room for surprise at 
the respect and affection with which his colleagues regarded 
him. 
Professor Orton’s love for natural science was distinct early 
in life, but it always leaned toward application to the benefit of 
somebody, for, in the proper sense of the term, he was a utili- 
tarian. As soon as he was settled at Yellow Springs he began 
to study the deposits so well exposed in that neighborhood and 
quickly gained, as no others had done, a thorough understand- 
ing of their relations. His collections of fossils, made wisely 
and scientifically, proved of great service to paleontologists; he 
delivered lectures upon scientific subjects, accurate, yet devoid 
of technical language—lectures of a type little known at that 
time; he was sought as a speaker among farmers, in village 
lyceums, and at teachers’ institutes. Within two or three years 
he had become the scientific authority for southwestern Ohio. 
When the geological survey was organized in 1869 he was 
appointed one of the two assistants, with the southwestern por- 
tion of the state as his district. 
At that time there were few geologists. The old surveys 
had ended in the early forties; a few attempts had been made 
to organize new surveys, but only that in Illinois had attained 
real success. Some students had gained experience on the gov- 
ernment expeditions in the far West, but of trained geologists 
there were barely a score. Professor Orton belonged to the 
generation beginning work immediately after the Civil War, but 
