82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOSTON MEETING 



find the results of his observations published in the American Journal of 

 Science, as cited below in the first contribution of his bibliography. 

 While on the Key of Sombrero he also studied the birds and shells and 

 sent collections to the Smithsonian Institution. He likewise kept meteo- 

 rological observations for the Smithsonian's records, maintaining thus 

 the most southern of its stations. In 1862 he made a geological survey, 

 for the Swedish Government, of the islets around the island of Saint 

 Bartholomew, West Indies, and forwarded his report to the governor, 

 Carl Ulrich. In 1863 he received from the King of Sweden the gold 

 medal which is given by that monarch to those whose work deserves it — 

 "Illis quorum meruere labores." He returned to New York in 1864 

 and prepared for publication the results of his observations in the West 

 Indies. Union College gave him the degree of A. M. in the same year. 



In 1865 he was appointed assistant in charge of the quantitative labora- 

 tory, in the recently established School of Mines of Columbia College, to 

 which his old chief at Union, Dr. Charles F. Chandler, had been called. 

 In the same year he became a member of the N'ew York Academy of 

 Sciences, then the Lyceum of Natural History, and was an active worker 

 in it all the rest of his life. In the last five years of the sixties micro- 

 scopical petrography, first developed by H. Clifton Sorby, in England, 

 had its chief nurture and expansion under Ferdinand Zirkel, then in 

 Vienna. By 1872 Alexis Julien had mastered its methods of work and 

 undertook the studies for the Michigan Survey mentioned in the opening 

 paragraph above. In 1875 he undertook a similar engagement for Prof. 

 W. C. Kerr, State Geologist of North Carolina, and spent three suc- 

 cessive summers in the field. A very detailed report resulted, w^hich has 

 been the subject of revision in recent years, so as to bring it within the 

 means of publication of the North Carolina Survey, and is stated to be 

 now in process of issue. 



Although attached to the Department of Chemistry, Dr. Julien thus 

 became more and more drawn away from chemical research by his in- 

 terest in the microscopic study of rocks and in the investigation of geo- 

 logical phenomena. In 1880 he published one of his most important 

 and most widely quoted papers, ''On the geological action of the humus 

 acids," in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science. The paper was of unusual value in bringing to the 

 attention of observers the work of this little appreciated agent in the 

 weathering of rocks. 



In 1881 he reverted to his early studies of the guano deposits of the 



