MEMOIR OF JAMES HALL 427 



enough to feel the importance of their years and to make the youngest 

 member of the corps repent his aggressiveness. 



The work in the fourth district was performed with characteristic 

 energy. The region was not the western New York of today ; roads 

 were less numerous and less carefully made; e:Jcposures were rare and 

 poor. It was necessary to wade along streams for miles to gain frag- 

 ments which were to be pieced into tentative sections : the people were 

 suspicious, fearing some new scheme for increasing the taxes; but none 

 of these things moved him ; as in later years, difficulties only increased 

 his determination. So his is the only one of the four final reports which 

 deals broadly with the problems of the young science, and, though upon 

 the contemned fourth district, it is the only one which has endured 

 with authority, and become a classic in geological literature. ' 



While the survey was in progress. Professor Hall, with his colleague, 

 Professor Mather, and some gentlemen in Philadelphia, became inter- 

 ested, in the mineral region of southeastern Ohio, where a large area was 

 secured in 1838. Professor Mather soon afterward became a resident of 

 Ohio, though retaining his position on the New York survey, and the 

 property was allotted to the several purchasers, about 2,000 acres falling 

 to Professor Hall. It was practically wiklerness land, but studies by 

 Hildreth and Briggs had shown that it lay within the best mineral region 

 of the state, and, as afterward was discovered. Professor Hall's share was 

 the best of the whole. When the fieldwork of the New York survey 

 had been completed. Professor Hall made a journey to the Mississippi 

 valley, partly to see his propert}^, partly to trace the New York forma- 

 tions, and partly to make purchases of mineral lands for some gentlemen 

 in New York. The banking system was uncertain then, and it was nec- 

 essary to carry the whole sum to be invested sewed into the lining of 

 his clothes. 



While on this journey he remained for a few daysln the house of Mr 

 Henry Newberry, at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, where he became acquainted 

 with John S. Newberry, then a lad of nineteen, who had become an en- 

 thusiastic collector of Coal Measures plants from his father's coal mine. 

 He was able to give valuable information to Professor Hall respecting 

 the distribution of the principal beds near Cleveland, which aided ma- 

 terially in determining plans for the journey, while he received in return 

 the generic names of the plants which he had collected. This brief as- 

 sociation had its influence on the lives of both. More than once Dr 

 Newberry spoke to me of Hall's extraordinary gentleness and attractive- 

 ness, while Professor Hall's face always brightened as he spoke of the 

 guileless boy whom he met at Cuyahoga Falls. 



Upon returning to Albany, Professor Hall found Mr Conrad in a de- 



