48 PEOCEEDI^'GS or THE BALTIMORE MEETI>s'G 



he continued at Yale as assistant in paleontology aijd graduate student 

 in geology and zoology and received his doctorate in 1871. Upon com- 

 pleting his graduate work he taught a year at Transylvania College, then 

 known as Kentucky University. 



The years between 18 72 and 1880 were spent in business in Ithaca at 

 the earnest request of his father who wished all of his sons to cooperate 

 with him in the banking and mercan4;ile enterprises which he had 

 founded. He spoke to me at one time of these years spent in business as 

 ^ery unhappy ones because his interests were in scholarly pursuits and 

 not in the mere making and accumulathig of money. One should not 

 conclude from this statement, however, that he lacked business ability. 

 His analytical mind and the conservative training which he received from 

 liis father enabled him to exercise good judgment hi business matters, 

 and he left to his children a fortune somewhat larger than that which he 

 had inherited. 



In 1879 he was elected Assistant Profes.?or of Geology at Cornell Uni- 

 versity — a title which was changed to Professor of Paleontology in 1880. 

 In 1881 he was promoted to a full professorship, which, in 1886, was 

 made to include geology. 



In 1892 the high regard in which he was held by Prof. James D. Dana, 

 who was attracted to him as a student and who had closely followed his 

 work as an investigator, is shown by his appointment, at the personal 

 request of Dana, to the Silliman Professorship of Geology, Avhich Pro- 

 fessor Dana had so long held. This appointment was very gratifying to 

 "Williams not only because it was a recognition of his scientific work but 

 also because of the honor of the appointment to that chair. His stay at 

 Yale, however, was not as pleasant as he had anticipated, and twelve 

 years later he leturaed to Cornell University as Professor of Geology 

 and Director of the Geological Museum. Here he remained in the region 

 wjiose study gained for him recognition as one of America's foremost 

 paleontologists until, on reaching the retiring age in 1912, he became 

 Professor Emeritus. The last two years of his life were spent in Cuba, 

 where he was much interested in the development of oil on a son's prop- 

 erty. He died in Havana of pleurisy July 30, 1918. 



Henry Shaler Williams began his scientific studies at a time when 

 unusual interest was being aroused in geology and paleontology. Some 

 of James Hall's notable monographs on the paleontology of New York 

 State had already appeared, and the year before he o^raduated from Yale 

 (1868) the report on the Upper Helderberg, Hamilton, Portage, and 

 Chemung was puljlished in which are described the fossils from the for- 



