MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH BARRELL ^ 21 



While mildly begrudging the time and thought necessarily consumed 

 by even a moderate amount of undergraduate teaching, Barrell persist- 

 ently clung to his class in historical geology, not only for the joy of pre- 

 senting truths to interested minds, but because, as he expressed it, '^teach- 

 ing benefits the teacher even more than the taught." That his reasoning 

 was sound is shown by the disappearance of "Old Bathylith" and "Inter- 

 stitial Eelations^' as friendly nicknames on the campus. And it is prob- 

 able that the practice in presenting geological subjects to men unfamiliar 

 with facts and processes and terminology is in large part responsible for 

 the improvement in style revealed in his latest writing. 



In graduate teaching, where analytical thought, mental invention, 

 breadth and depth of knowledge make the successful instructor, Barrell 

 had few equals. Few advanced students listened to his lectures without 

 a desire to know more about earth history and processes, and witliout a 

 feeling of thankfulness for the opportunity to come closely into contact 

 with this exceptional mind. And it is worthy of note that the men who 

 came to Barrell with the most experience and knowledge are the most 

 enthusiastic in their praise. The attitude of the serious, experienced 

 student is well shown in a letter from D. Foster Hewett : 



It was my good fortune to have close acquaintance as a student with Pro- 

 fessor Barrell, first at Lehigh for three years and later at Yale for two years. 

 In the classroom I feel that his most distinctive characteristics were simple 

 and unaffected hearing, faithful and systematic preparation for his tasks, and 

 orderly and well-balanced use of the class-room period. It is worth while to 

 lay emphasis upon his simplicity, expressed in manner, speech, and dress : for. 

 however natural it may have been, it was also an expression of a profound 

 conviction that the unessential is generally wasteful. Those who kneM' him 

 outside of the classroom recollect that in advance of each period he system- 

 atically prepared outlines for the lecture or recitation. Preserved in note- 

 books, the outlines furnished the basis for each new year's work. In succee<l- 

 ing years, the course was enriched by his own experience and wide reading. 

 There must be few who were not impressed by the rare facility he showed for 

 making each lecture a well-balanced statement of fact, a development and test 

 of hypothesis, and a summary of conclusions, all fitted nicely to the allotted 

 period. His engineering training was frequently brought out in his facilit.\- 

 for using algebra, descriptive geometry, calculus, or analytical mechanics in 

 Ijresenting or testing hypotheses. In his teaching, as in his writing, he em- 

 phasized what many students of earth processes overlook — that many of the 

 forces in operation, though commonly of great magnitude, are governed b\ 

 simple laws of physics. Many will recall his annual lecture on the conditions 

 of deposition of the Newark series. By the use of lantern slides, carefully 

 selected to show the evidence concerning the conditions and fauna of the time, 

 he developed the imaginary vicissitudes and tragedies of the Triassic inhab- 

 itants of Connecticut with such rare imagination and keen sense of humor 

 that he rarely failed to bring forth a .^spontaneous burst of applause. 



