NOVEMBER 10, 1899.] 
the examination of the shell heaps, then 
little known, but now recognized as existing 
at many places along our Atlantic coast. 
These he studied with much interest and 
prepared reports on them which were pub- 
lished by the Peabody Museum in Cam- 
bridge. Of this institution he was one of 
the founders and its first curator. His suc- 
cessor and the second curator of that insti- 
tution, I need hardly add, is President 
Putnam. 
For the meeting in the year 1859 the 
City of Springfield, Massachusetts, was 
chosen, and to preside over that gathering 
Stephen Alexander, of Princeton, was se- 
lected by his colleagues. 
ALEXANDER. 
Alexander was born in Schenectady, New 
York, in 1806. As a boy he was slender 
and delicate, fond rather of books than of 
outdoor sports, and being an excellent stu- 
dent, he was given a college education. 
He was graduated at Union in 1824 with 
high honor, although only eighteen years of 
age. For several years he taught, and then 
made astronomical observations in Albany, 
the results of which were communicated to 
the Albany Academy. 
In a sketch * by his successor at Prince- 
ton, the inference is made clear that the 
marriage of his sister in 1830, to Joseph 
_ Henry, had much to do with the shaping 
of his scientific career, for he followed 
Henry to Princeton in 1832, and then en- 
tered the Theological Seminary as a student. 
His scientific work was entirely connected 
with astronomy, and, beginning with 1834, 
he observed most of the solar eclipses vis- 
ible in the United States. In 1860 he was 
made chief of the party that went to Lab- 
rador under the auspices of the United 
States Coast Survey to observe the eclipse 
* Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy 
of Sciences, Washington, 1886, Vol. II., p. 249. 
Stephen Alexander, by Charles A. Young. 
SCIENCE. 675 
of that year, and again, in 1869, he was a 
leader of the observation party sent to 
Ottumwa, Iowa. He was associated with 
Henry in his thermopile observations on sun 
spots in 1845, as well as in other astrophys- 
ical researches, and, to quote from Young: 
“He observed four transits of Mercury, 
and in December, 1892, he closed the record 
of more than fifty years by a careful and 
satisfactory observation of the transit of 
Venus.” * 
It would be too much to claim that Alex- 
ander was a great scientist, but fifty-three 
years of earnest devotion to his professional 
duties, added to his valuable contributions 
to the science of his choice, is a career 
worthy of high honors. It was well said of 
him at the time of his death, in 1883, that 
“ American astronomy to-day owes much 
to his life and labors.’’ + 
The unwritten law of alternating the suc- 
cession in the presidential chair from a rep- 
resentative of the physical sciences to one 
devoted to natural science received an em- 
phatic demonstration in the selection of 
Isaac Lea as the successor of Alexander. 
The searcher for truth in the remote dis- 
tance of far-away skies gave place to the 
patient student of fresh-water shells. 
LEA.{ 
Born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1792, 
Lea was early influenced towards a fond- 
ness for natural history by his mother, who 
was devoted to botany. At the age of fif- 
teen the boy was sent to Philadelphia to 
enter mercantile business, and there met 
Lardner Vanuxem, the future geologist. 
The young men spent their leisure in long 
walks, in which they collected minerals and 
studied the geological features of the vicin- 
ity. 
* Biographical Memoirs, p. 254. 
} Idem, p. 259. 
{A Portrait of Isaac Lea is published as a frontis- 
piece. 
