762 SCIENCE. 
much of this material has been taken, 
contains the following appreciation of Le 
Conte’s work : 
That Le Conte was the greatest entomologist 
this country has yet produced is unquestion- 
able. Facile princips will be the universal 
judgment both now and by posterity.* 
Mention must be made of the fact that 
when the civil war broke out he entered 
the Union army as surgeon of volunteers 
and was afterward advanced to the office 
of medical inspector, with the rank of lieu- 
tenant colonel, which he retained until the 
end of the war. In this duty his fine or- 
ganizing power and gcod sense showed 
themselves to excellent advantage. From 
1878 till his death in 1883, he again served 
the government as chief clerk of the U. 8. 
Mint in Philadelphia.” 
One of our past presidents, Lesley, who 
was his life-long friend, said of him: 
Let the world reverence his memory as a 
discoverer, as a philosopher, as a genius. 
HILGARD. 
For the meeting held in Detroit in 1875 
Julius Erasmus Hilgard, of the U. 8. Coast 
Survey, was chosen to preside, and thus for 
a third time in our history an officer of the 
U.S. Coast Survey was honored by an elec- 
tion to the highest office within the gift of 
our Association. Hilgard} was the eldest 
son of a distinguished Bavarian jurist and 
writer and came with his father to this coun- 
try in 1835. Although at that time only ten 
years of age, he had completed the third 
grade of the gymnasium in his native town 
of Zweibrucken, and his subsequent educa- 
tion was for the most part obtained from 
his father or self-acquired. 
*Samuel H. Scudder, in Biographical Memoirs, p, 
280. 
+ Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy 
Vol. III., p. 327. Julius E. Hilgard, by Eugene W. 
Hilgard. See also sketch with engraved portrait on 
wood in Popular Science Monthly, Vol. VII., p. 617, 
September, 1875, and Appleton’s Annual Cyclopedia 
for 1891, p. 628, with portrait. 
[N. S. Von. X. No. 256. 
In 1843 he went to Philadelphia with a 
view to the study of engineering and prac- 
tical employment. He was soon actively 
at work on one of the new railway lines 
then coming into existence. While so en- 
gaged he became acquainted with Alexander 
D. Bache, and in 1845 when Bache became 
superintendent of the Coast Survey, he of- 
fered young Hilgard a subordinate appoint- 
ment in this service, which was promptly 
accepted with the statement that he pre- 
ferred to ‘‘do high work at low pay than 
low work at high pay.’”* 
In the short time of fifteen years he rose 
from the lowest place in the survey to that 
of first assistant, which was second only to 
the office of superintendent. During the 
greater part of the civil war and until the 
death of Bache in 1867, the actual duties of 
the superintendent devolved on him. Peirce, 
who succeeded Bache said of this service : 
The distinguished ability with which this 
difficult service was discharged was manifest to 
all. He (Hilgard) has extended to me the 
benefit of this experience liberally and loyally. 
While I willingly acknowledge myself under 
deep and lasting obligations to him for the aid 
thus rendered me, I can also testify that in all 
respects he has been equally true to my prede- 
cessor, the greatness of whose reputation has 
not been diminished in his keeping. 
Hilgard continued as assistant in charge 
of the office during the superintendency of 
Peirce, and his successor, Patterson, but in 
1881 his services received their just reward 
by his appointment as superintendent of the 
Coast Survey, which place he then held for 
four years. On the advent of a new ad- 
ministration, after a faithful service of forty 
years, he was obliged to resign. It is not 
pertinent to this address to discuss the 
reasons that led to his resignation, but 
There can be no two opinions upon the 
character and value of his life-work in connec- 
tion with the Coast Survey. He brought into 
*Biographical Memoirs, p. 330. 
