104 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL VI. No. 1179 



WILLIAM BULLOCK CLARKE 



Dr. William Bullock Clarke, professor of 

 geology in the Johns Hopkins University, 

 eminent for his contributions to geology, died 

 suddenly from apoplexy on July 27, at his 

 summer home at North Haven, Maine. 



Wm. Bullock Clarke was bom at Brattle- 

 boro, Vermont, December 15, 1860. His 

 parents were Bama A. and Helen (Bullock) 

 Clark. Among his early ancestors were 

 Thomas Clark, who came to Plymouth, Mass., 

 in the ship Ann in 1623 and who was several 

 times elected deputy to the general court of 

 Plymouth Colony ; Richard Bullock who came 

 to Salem, Mass., in 1643; John Howland, a 

 member of council, assistant to the governor, 

 and several times deputy to the general court 

 of Plymouth Colony, who came to Plymouth 

 in the Mayflower in 1620; John Tilly who 

 likewise came in the Mayflower; and John 

 Gorham, captain of Massachusetts troops in 

 King Philip's War. Among later ancestors 

 were William Bullock, colonel of Massa- 

 chusetts troops in the French and Indian 

 War, and Daniel Stewart, a minuteman at 

 the battle of Lexington in 1775. 



Clark studied under private tutors and at 

 the Brattleboro high school, from which he 

 graduated in 1879. He entered Amherst Col- 

 lege in the autumn of 1880 and graduated 

 with the degree of A.B. in 1884. He im- 

 mediately went to Germany and from 1884 to 

 1887 pursued geological studies at the Uni- 

 versity of Munich from which he received the 

 degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1887. Sub- 

 sequently he studied at Berlin and London, 

 spending much time in the field with members 

 of the geological surveys of Prussia and Great 

 Britain. 



Before leaving Munich Dr. Clark was of- 

 fered and accepted the position of instructor 

 in the Johns Hopkins University. He was 

 instructor from 1887 to 1889, associate from 

 1889 to 1892, associate professor from 1892 to 

 1894, and professor of geology and head of 

 the department since 1894. He has been for 

 a long time a member of the academic council 

 — the governing body of the university — and 

 took a very active interest in its 



affairs, acting as one of the coimnittee of ad- 

 ministration while the university was without 

 a president. 



In 1888 he was also appointed an assistant 

 geologist on the U. S. Geological Survey and 

 detailed for work on the Cretaceous and Ter- 

 tiary formations of the Atlantic Coastal 

 Plain. At the same time he was requested to 

 prepare the correlation bulletin on the Eocene, 

 one of a series of reports which were presented 

 to the International Geological Congress in 

 Washington in 1891. Professor Clark spent 

 the summer of 1889 in a study of the Eocene 

 deposits of the far west while the remaining 

 period was occupied in the investigation of the 

 Eocene formations of the Atlantic border. 

 He was advanced to geologist on the staff of 

 the U. S. Geological Survey in 1894 and held 

 this position until 1907, since which time he 

 has acted as cooperating geologist. 



Professor Clark organized the Maryland 

 State Weather Service in 1892 of which he 

 was appointed the director. He has held the 

 position continuously to the present time. In 

 1896 he organized the Maryland Geological 

 Survey and has been state geologist since the 

 establishment of that bureau. The Geological 

 Survey was enlarged in scope in 1898 by the 

 addition of a highway division which was in- 

 structed to investigate and report on the con- 

 ditions of the roads of the state and the best 

 means for their improvement and Professor 

 Clarke and his associates through their pub- 

 lications and addresses aroused much interest 

 in the subject throughout the state. In 1904 

 the duties of the highway division were much 

 increased by the appropriation of $200,000 

 annually to be met by a similar amount from 

 the counties for the building of state aid roads 

 by the survey. A sum exceeding $200,000 

 was also subsequently appropriated for the 

 building of state aid roads by the survey, at 

 the expense of the state alone, of a highway 

 connecting Baltimore and Washington. The 

 duties of the highway division were trans- 

 ferred in 1910 to a newly organized State 

 Roads Commission, of which Professor Clarke 

 was made a member and which position he 

 held until 1914. Nearly $2,000,000 had been 



