22 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AXX ARBOR MEETING 



lu seminar periods he sliowed exceptional capacity for visualizing the stu- 

 dent's problem and generosity in contributing time and interest to the serious 

 student. At the monthly meeting of the Dana Club, composed of the graduate 

 students in geology at Yale, he inspired debate with the predetermined pur- 

 pose of encouraging facility' for expression, but if extreme divergence of opin- 

 ion developed he sought to reconcile the differences. 



I can clearly recall several incidents, particularly near Mount Carmel, north 

 of New Haven, when he gave fine exhibitions of grasp of the principle of 

 multiple working hypothesis in the examination of small outcrops of diabase 

 with the view to proving beyond doubt whether they represented masses of 

 surface flows. Many may remember that even Dana did not instinctively 

 understand this process. 



A student could scarcely fail to be impressed by the capacity of his intellect, 

 ^the force of his appeal, the breadth of his interest and sympathetic consider- 

 ation, and the high mental and physical standards that he set for himself and 

 those who were fortunate enough to be associated with him. 



As a teacher of professional geologists, Barrell has received wide recog- 

 nition. In the nian}^ letters of appreciation received from distinguished 

 geologists at home and abroad the expressions "^'leader/' ^^guide/' and 

 "teacher'' are common. Certain it is that the analyses, demonstration 

 of method, and evaluation of the literature shown in the writings of 

 Barrell have cleared the way for a more successful attack on prol:)lems of 

 stratigraphy and structure. 



Some personal Chai^acteristics 



Barrell was a man of strong, unique personality. His ideals were high 

 and his demands for creature comforts small. He cared little for popu- 

 larity and for the non-essentials which go with social prestige. His great 

 desires were uninterrupted time for work and intellectual fellowship 

 established through A^Titings. He possessed many attractive human 

 traits, but his intellectual power was so obvious and so continuously dis- 

 played that twenty years of intimacy has left me an impression of a mind 

 rather than of a man. His personality appeared to be contained in a 

 mind of surpassing fertility, imagination, and machine-like logic. His 

 death marks the loss of a thinker — rare in any generation. 



The key words to BarrelFs character are "justice" and "logic" rather 

 tlian "sentiment" and "altruism": and these dominant mental traits 

 appear even in small affairs. 



In playing handball, a game which Barrell put on his schedule, not 

 for the sheer joy of playing, but as a conditioning factor in mental work, 

 disputed points were not to be settled by mutual give and take, but by 

 plotting the course which a ball must have taken to reach a certain point. 



