20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE WASHINGTON MEETING 



He was held in the highest esteem in the community in which he lived. 

 He stood for uprightness and honorable dealing, and he was never the 

 billing tool of designing adventurers. For many years he has been justly 

 regarded as the leading geologist in South America, and his standing is 

 due not to the fact that there are but few geologists in South America, 

 but to his ability and to his excellent work. 



In 1892 he was awarded the Wollaston prize of the Geological Society 

 of London, while his distinguished services led to his being made one of 

 the associate editors of the Journal of Geology and to his election to mem- 

 bership in various learned societies in different parts of the world. He 

 was a frequent contributor to the American Journal of Science. He was 

 naturalized as a Brazilian citizen a few months before his death.* 



The circumstances that led to Derby's suicide are not clearly known, 

 or rather they are not clearly understood. Neither the published ac- 

 counts of all the details available to the authorities nor the many private 

 letters received from mutual friends throw much light on the case. The 

 act was committed in his rooms in the Strangers Hotel in Rio, where he 

 had lived for eight years. The evening preceding his death was spent at 

 the home of a Brazilian friend and he went to his own rooms about mid- 

 night. The next morning he was called as usual, took his bath, drank 

 his coffee, and read the morning papers. About 10 o'clock a messenger 

 going to his room found him lying across his bed with a bullet-hole 

 through his head and the revolver still grasped in his dead hand. He 

 left no word of explanation or complaint about anything or against any 

 one. 



The general impression seems to be that his suicide was due to disap- 

 pointment on account of the reduction by the government of the appro- 

 priations for his work. A few feeble efforts have been made to find other 

 explanations for his act, but this must he and is accepted as the only 

 genuine one. 



The history of his struggles to keep the scientific work intrusted to him 

 out of politics and to make it efficient is nothing new. Scientific men 

 the world over have often been in similar positions. In the present case 

 there is no doubt but that the matter was complicated by the financial 

 situation in Brazil brought about by the war in Europe. The govern- 

 ment was hard pressed financially and it was absolutely necessary to re- 

 duce expenses to the lowest possible point. It was not unnatural under 



* His successor as director of the Brazilian Survey is Dr. L. F. Gonzaga de Campos, 

 who has been one of the geologists of the survey since it was begun. Doctor Campos 

 is the author of a number of valuable papers on Brazilian Geology and a thoroughly 

 conscientious man of wide personal acquaintance with the geology of Brazil. 



