572 Ohituarfj — J. B. Hatcher. 



States Geological Survey, he says, alluding to the death of Professor 

 Hatcher : " I can hardly tell you how shocked and grieved I am. 

 I had often thouglit of the prohahility of Hatcher's death while in 

 the field when taking great risks and entirely away from medical 

 and surgical attendance, but of his death at home I had not 

 thought a moment. In his intense enthusiasm for science, and the 

 ■promotion of geology and palaeontology, and the tremendous sacrifices 

 he was prepared to make, and had made, he was a truly rare and 

 noble spirit, the sort of man that is vastlj' appreciated in England 

 and in Germany, but I fear very little appreciated in America. His 

 work as a collector was magnificent, probably the greatest on 

 record." 



Professor W. B. Scott, in the columns of Science, says : " Hatcher 

 may l>e said to have fairly revolutionized the methods of collecting 

 vertebrate fossils, a work which before his time had been almost 

 wholly in the hands of untrained and unskilful men, but which he 

 converted into a fine art. The exquisitely preserved fossils in 

 American museums, which awaken the admiring envy of European 

 palfeontologists, are, to a large extent, directly or indirectly due to 

 Hatcher's energy and skill, and to the large-minded help and advice 

 as to methods and localities which were always at the service of 

 anyone who chose to ask for them." Testimony of like character as 

 to the great achievements of Professor Hatcher has come from many 

 other sources. 



Hatcher was an indefatigable student and a very keen observer. 

 He was fertile in resources. He had great mechanical aptitudes, 

 and succeeded, sometimes when alone, by patient effort in accom- 

 plishing apparently impossible tasks in the removal of huge and 

 weighty objects from difficult positions, which would not have 

 been undertaken by others. The writer recalls one or two 

 cases in which he dared great physical risks and even death, 

 when alone, far from human companionship, in extracting large 

 masses from their original position and moving them by a skilful 

 arrangement of levers to points where they could afterwards be 

 taken up. One such instance occurred in the autumn of 1903, 

 and the writer could not refrain, while admiring the courage and 

 skill displayed, from earnestly warning Mr. Hatcher against the 

 repetition of such risks as he at that time assumed in attempting to 

 handle a block of rock weighing nearly a ton without the assistance 

 of other men. 



While accomplishing a vast amount of most important work 

 during the last five or six years of his life, there was hardly any 

 time in which, as the result of the illness and exposure which he 

 had undergone in Patagonia, he did not suffer pain, and at times 

 of a most excruciating character, and yet he was patient and 

 imcomplaining. 



Perhaps the most striking characteristic of Mr. Hatcher was his 

 extreme modesty. He was always reticent in speaking of what he 

 had done, and shunned publicity other than that which came to 

 him through his scientific writings. 



