PROCEEDINGS OF THE OHIO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, 185 



both mathematician and physicist will find in it much that is 

 still and must always be of great value. The physicist especially 

 will be interested in the not infrequent foreshadowing of con- 

 cepts that are today regarded as "modern;" indeed before the 

 acceptance of any doctrine of fundamentals this book should 

 be thoroughly studied. 



Besides the severer studies Stallo also cultivated music, art 

 and literature and his large library contained many rare and 

 choice volumes. So extensive was the range of his intellectual 

 activity that no matter how restricted one's own horizon might 

 be a half hour spent with him, especially in his own home was 

 sure to be remembered with pleasure. In 1885 he was appointed 

 United States Minister to Italy where he continued to reside 

 until his death in the year 1900. 



That an interest in science and scientific pursuits devel'oped 

 among the people of Northeastern Ohio in the early part of the 

 last century is due, more than to anything else, to the influence 

 of the life and character of Dr. J. P. Kirtland. Born in Con- 

 necticut in 1793, he was graduated from the medical department 

 of Yale College in 1815. At the age of thirty years he came 

 to Poland, a small village in Mahoning County, Ohio. While 

 in New England he had developed a strong taste for botanical 

 studies and was an expert in the cultivation of flowers and fruits. 

 In science he was essentially self-educated and although success- 

 ful in the practice of his profession, it was in scientific investi- 

 gation that he found his greatest happiness. In 1841 he re- 

 moved to Cleveland and joined with others in founding the 

 Cleveland Medical College. For several years he served as 

 Assistant on the Geological Survey of Ohio, organized in 1837 

 by Mather to which he contributed a report on the Zoology 

 of Ohio. He published numerous papers in the "American 

 Journal of Science" and in the "Journal of the Boston Society 

 of Natural History." Perhaps the most important of his dis- 

 coveries was that of the sexual distinction in the Naides, prov- 

 ing that sex could be distinguished by the form of the shell, as 

 well as by the internal organism. This was an extremely dis- 

 turbing revelation at the time and was strongly disputed by 



