432 PROCEEDINGS OP THE NEW YORK MEETING 



to subdivide the column on physical grounds. The importance of ])ale- 

 ontological confirmation was felt by all, and Conrad had tried to make 

 the confirmation, but the examination of his list of fossils shows how 

 defective his data were. The column thus divided was useful only for 

 direct tracing and afforded nothing for general service. Professor Hall 

 determined the fossils of each division, proved that the formations de- 

 fined on physical grounds are practically coextensive with those defined 

 on paleontological grounds, and so gave means for identification over 

 broad areas. As this work was done within an offshore region, where 

 changes in conditions were exceptionally numerous and positive, a too 

 rigid application of the New York measuring line led at first to errors of 

 correlation elsewhere; but those errors were inseparable from the times, 

 when all the workers were self-trained and were becoming good geol- 

 ogists only by correcting their own errors. 



Conrad was the first in our country to make extended stud}'- of Paleo- 

 zoic fossils, but he soon abandoned the work. For a long time Professor 

 Hall had the field so thoroughly to himself that he came to regai'd it as 

 his own. For more than half a score of years he resented with great 

 energ}^ and no little acerbity any intrusion upon his domain. His great 

 knowledge of forms, necessarily far beyond that of any other American 

 student, rendered him not sufficiently tolerant of opposing opinions, and 

 too frequently his criticisms had a scornful tone, which secured to him 

 as an inalienable possession the implacable hatred of some of his con- 

 temi)oraries. But the systematic revision of his own work, l)egun almost 

 two-thirds of a centur}^ ago, made its defects so manifest to him as abso- 

 lutely to change his disposition toward fellow-students in paleontology. 

 As the years went by ill-will toward scientific men who, as he belie-ved, 

 had done him injustice, disappeared ; he sought friendship and cooper- 

 ation where before he had repelled both. There were men for whom to 

 the last he entertained certainly no affection. To have been indifferent 

 toward them would have required him to be either more or less tlian 

 man, and he was neither. 



Professor Hall's thorough method of investigation was all his own, 

 and the laboratory on the Albany hill was a training school for Amer- 

 ican paleontologists. One after another of his assistants having begun 

 with him at the alphabet of the work went out to hew a special path for 

 himself and to make American science respected. When we think of 

 Meek, White, Whitfield, Walcott, Beecher, and Clarke, we think of Amer- 

 ican paleontology, for those men have given most of the literature on 

 invertebrate paleontology, aside from that published b}'' Hall himself. 

 He impressed himself upon his assistants while he cultivated in them 

 powers which he did not possess himself. He was a great teacher, for 



