CHARLES RICHARD VAN HISE | 693 
(1904). To these major treatises are to be added many contribu- 
tions to scientific periodicals and to scientific societies, as well as 
addresses and minor papers of other types. 
These monumental studies made Van Hise facile princeps in 
the great field of pre-Cambrian geology. His work is too broad’ 
and complex for analysis here, but it may be said to rise into two 
climaxes, the first structural in nature and best expressed in the 
generalizations of his Principles of Pre-Cambrian Geology, the other 
chemico-physical and best set forth in his Treatise on Metamor phism. 
No treatment of either of these almost illimitable themes could in 
his day, or in our day, or in the near future, be the last word on 
these intricate subjects, but the contributions of Van Hise must 
always be regarded as marking a great epoch in the progress of the 
geology of the earliest terranes. 
It was one of the cherished ambitions of Dr. Van Hise to reduce 
the complex phenomena of early crystalline geology to the principles 
of chemistry and physics. His effort to do this appears in clearest 
terms in his Treatise on Metamorphism, but it also runs as a strong 
vein through most of his later geologic writings. His generaliza- 
tions respecting metamorphic processes are perhaps to be regarded 
as his broadest studies and as his climacteric contribution to geo- 
logical science. 
In attempting now to summarize his work we must not fail to 
observe that just as some of the fruitful work of Irving came over 
by inevitable inheritance into Van Hise’s work and enriched it, so 
some of Van Hise’s work has passed over into the still evolving 
work of Leith and lives in it and will perhaps prove to have some 
of its best fruits in it as it gradually evolves. We must at least 
note that the fruitage of Van Hise’s planting is still growing and 
ripening. 
In the very nature of the case, work on the great iron- and 
copper-bearing formations of the Lake Superior region always 
gave a notable economic bearing to the studies of Dr. Van Hise, 
and so, as his mind always sought principles and generalizations 
as the most vital embodiment of specific facts, he was naturally 
led to draw important conclusions relative to the principles 
of ore deposition, particularly those connected with secondary 
