36 PROCEEDINGS OP THE PITTSBURGH MEETING 



daughter in Minneapolis, deeply regretted by every one who had known 

 him. 



MEMOIR OF WILLIAM PIIIPP8 BLAKE^h 

 BY ROSSITEB W. RAYMOND 



William Phipps Blake was born June 31, 1826, in New York City. His 

 father, Eliliu Blake, was a surgeon-dentist of eminence, a direct descend- 

 ant of William Blake, who settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 

 1630. He was prepared for college at private schools in New York, and 

 entered the Sheffield School of Yale, where he was graduated as Ph. B. in 

 the chemical course, class of 1852, the first graduating class of the insti- 

 tution. In the same year he became chemist and mineralogist of the New 

 Jersey Zinc Company and chemist of chemical works at Baltimore, Mary- 

 land. In 1853 he started the Department of Mineralogy of the World's 

 Fair at New York City. In 1854, 1855, and 1856 he was mineralogist 

 and geologist of the United States Pacific Railroad Surveys of William- 

 son, Pope, and Whipple and for the War Department at Washington. 

 His writings during this period comprise reports on the geology and 

 mineralogy of California and other parts of the Southwest, and constitute 

 well nigh the earliest scientific accounts of the regions described. One of 

 them was a translation of the Resume and Field Notes of Jules Marcou, 

 of Whipple's expedition. From 1856 to 1859 he was engaged in explora- 

 tions of the geology and mineral deposits of North Carolina and other 

 parts of the country. In 1859 he became editor and proprietor of The 

 Mining Magazine, a monthly periodical, founded in 1853 by W. J. Tenny. 

 Blake transferred the publication to New Haven and issued the number 

 for November, 1859, as a "second series" of the original periodical, under 

 the title The Mining Magazine and Journal of Geology, Mineralogy, 

 Metallurgy, Chemistry, and the Arts, in their application to mining and 

 working useful ores and metals, edited by William P. Blake, geologist 

 and mining engineer. 



The pages of The Mining Magazine under his editorship contained 

 much information of value and exhibited the promise of an important 

 and influential future, but the time was unpropitious for such an enter- 

 prise. The approach of war hindered the further investment of capital 

 in the Southern States, the mineral resources of which Blake had recently 

 explored and was prepared to describe. The Far West was too far away 

 to support, in the absence of railroads, a periodical which could not be 

 cheaply and surely transported to its subscribers. In short, the new series 



6* Condensed by the Secretary, with the author's consent, from the account prepared 

 for the Bulletin of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, No. 45, September, 1910. 



