REVIEWS 



Life of James Hall, Geologist and Paleontologist, i8ii-i8g8. By 

 J. M. Clarke. Published by S. C. Bishop, Albany, N.Y., 

 1921. 8vo, pp. 565, pis. 14. Price $3.70 postpaid. 



In this handsome volume of 565 pages, the deft pen of Dr. Clarke 

 has set forth the life and times of James Hall in a most illuminating and 

 fascinating way. While the story holds with tenacity and strict fidelity 

 to the realities of Hall's remarkable career, the handling of its varied 

 incidents is none the less most skilful, and the book is worthy of being 

 read as a work of art. All the way through it bears evidence of unspar- 

 ing labor in searching out from voluminous correspondence and tedious 

 official records the essential details that give precision and life to the 

 sketch. It is written from a deeply sympathetic and appreciative point 

 of view, but the angularities and irascibilities of a strong and intensely 

 earnest man are given their due place in the portraiture. These are 

 touched with wonderful skill, so that they seem merely incidental 

 shadows artistically designed to set off the high lights of the picture. 



The book, however, is far more than a biographical sketch; it 

 carries the reader into the very heart of investigative work as it was in 

 those early times, while incidentally not a little light is thrown on the 

 status of the allied sciences of the day. It gives most interesting glimpses 

 of the leading scientific men of the time, including many of the foremost 

 men in other than the geological sciences. Dr. Hall had a wide acquaint- 

 ance with these, and the abundant extracts from his intimate correspond- 

 ence with them shed suggestive side lights on the personal aspects of 

 pioneer investigation and the troubles, political and otherwise, which 

 attended it. We doubt if there is any other text that carries the reader 

 so close home to the inner history of our own and allied sciences in this 

 country during the early and middle stages of the last century. No 

 student of geological and paleontological progress should miss the 

 opportunity to read this thesaurus of information on a most vital 



stage of early American science. 



T. C. C. 



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