liv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [MaV I9C4, 



out so vast an amount of material in the time. Some of this 

 material was published and is of excellent quality, but a great deal 

 of it never saw the light after the object was attained for which it 

 was j)repared. It is recorded that when he was sent by a Boston 

 company to survey some lands in the Cape-Breton coal-field, he 

 measured the strata, bed by bed, and in order to complete his 

 section with accuracy, was let by a rope down the face of a high 

 cliff. When at one time he seemed to be approaching dangerously 

 near the verge of the precipice, one of his faithful and admiring- 

 attendants, fearing for his safety, took the precaution to knock him 

 ■down, and then apologized for his apparent rudeness. 



At length, in the middle of 1866, his health gave way so com- 

 pletely under the strain of this overwork, that he was compelled to 

 seek rest and refreshment for two years in Europe, during which he 

 spent some time in Egypt. By the spring of 186S he was once more 

 at his home in Philadelphia, but still unfit for much mental exertion. 

 In 1872, the University gave him the professorship of Geology and 

 Mining and made him Dean of the Scientific Department. Three 

 years later he was chosen Dean of the Towne Scientific School. 

 These University avocations kept his hands sufficiently full of work, 

 when, in 1874, he received the chief appointment of his life, that 

 of State Geologist of Pennsylvania. He had passed through thirty- 

 five years of geological experience, and was now in his fifty-fifth year. 

 Though the official emoluments of the post were small, compared with 

 the income that he had been deriving from his private practice, he 

 at once accepted the appointment and threw himself with all his 

 wonted enthusiasm into the work of doing for his native State what 

 he had long wished to see done. He would now have the oppor- 

 tunity of making a thorough survey of a region so full of geological 

 interest and economic importance. How well he fulfilled the task 

 which he set before himself, and to which he devoted the unceasing 

 labour of some twenty strenuous years, those geologists can best 

 appreciate who have made acquaintance with his voluminous 

 Peport. At last, worn out with his exertions, he had, in 1893, to 

 lay down the pen. when the last coping-stone of the great work of 

 his life had still to be placed. 



The printed reports and map-atlases of the Second Geological Survey 

 of Pennsylvania extend to no fewer than 120 volumes. Throughout 

 these the hand of J. P. Lesley is everywhere apparent. He was 

 the life and soul of the enterprise, firing his subordinates with some 

 of his own ardour, training them in his methods of observation and 



