Joseph Le Conte 



309 



heavy oblong board, like one of our 

 stone sledges, the bottom of which has 

 been armed with pieces of sharp rock. 

 The drivers of these contrivances were 

 usually women, and sometimes they 

 were nursing their babies as they stood 

 or sat upon the threshing-board. When 

 the grain has all fallen to the ground, 

 the straw is removed and the wheat is 

 winnowed by throwing it up into the 

 air by means of long-handled wooden 



shovels, thus allowing the wind to blow 

 awa}^ the chaff. Then the grain is 

 gathered up and spread out on skins by 

 the roadside or in any other convenient 

 place to dr}^ before being stored or taken 

 to the mill for grinding. The millennium 

 evidently has not come to these people, 

 for, contrary to the Scripture injunc- 

 tion, they muzzle the ox which is tread- 

 ing out the grain by tying wisps of straw 

 about his mouth. 



JOSEPH LE CONTE 



IN the death of Professor Le Conte, 

 science loses one of her most hon- 

 ored exponents, the country one of 

 her most exemplary citizens. 



Joseph lyC Conte was born in Georgia, 

 February 26, 1823. He graduated from 

 the university of his native state as 

 A. B. in 1 84 1, and from the College of 

 Physicians and Surgeons in New York 

 as M. D. in 1845. After some years of 

 medical practice in Macon, he took a 

 special course at Harvard under the 

 elder Agassiz, graduating as B. S. in 

 1851. Within a year he became pro- 

 fessor of natural sciences in Oglethorpe 

 College. Georgia; later he occupied the 

 chair of geology and physics in South 

 Carolina College, and during the civil war 

 he serv^ed as chemist of the Confederate 

 government. During these early years 

 his fame grew and spread throughout his 

 own country and others, and his abilities 

 shone through the war-clouds beyond 

 those of his contemporaries with scarce 

 an exception; and in 1869 he was in- 

 vited to the chair of geology in the Uni- 

 versity of CaHfornia. This important 

 position he filled, with a success bring- 

 ing him world-wide renown, to the day 

 of his death. 



The instinct of the explorer, as well 

 as of the scientific geographer, was strong 

 in Professor Le Conte. While still a 

 youth (in 1844) he set out with a young 

 kinsman to explore the then remote re- 

 gions about the Great Lakes and the 

 sources of the Mississippi; and for weeks 

 the two were beyond settlements, out of 

 reach of habitations save those of In- 

 dians, subsisting on fish and game, and 

 mastering wood- craft and all manner of 

 travel-sense — for, in addition to walking, 

 they paddled a thousand miles in birch- 

 bark canoes. After his transfer to the 

 Pacific coast, Professor Le Conte con- 

 tinued to seize every opportunity for 

 outdoor work; he was more intimately 

 acquainted with the Yosemite Valley 

 than any scientific contemporary, and 

 explored the neighboring and still more 

 picturesque Hetch-hetchy more minutely 

 than any other man; and his personal 

 knowledge of the high sierras, the au- 

 riferous foot-hills, the coast ranges, and 

 the great valley of California was un- 

 excelled. His taste for and experience 

 in the actual flavored all his numerous 

 geologic writings ; to him earth-science 

 was geography seen deep and clear. 

 These writings are unrivalled in simplic- 



