MEMORIAL OF H. S. WILLIAMS 51 



stratigTapliY. Incidental to his studies he described 16 new genera and 

 more than 140 new species.'^ ^ 



He was the inventor of the noAv widely used method of photographing 

 fossils after coating them with ammoninm chloride deposited on the 

 fossils by the union of hydrochloric acid fnmes and those of ammoninm. 



Professor Williams was an investigator rather than a teacher. That 

 he thoronghly understood the theory of teaching, however, is proved by a 

 reading of a paper on the Methods of Instruction in General Geology. 

 This paper,^ as far as the writer is aware, contains the best suggestions 

 for the presentation of this difficult subject that has yet appeared. He 

 was, nevertheless, not notably successful as a teacher or a lecturer for 

 undergraduate students. 



A former student and his successor at Yale says : 



"Williams was not a 'popular' teacher, as voted by the Senior class. He 

 knew no tricks of the lecture platform and cared little for applause. He found 

 it difficult to formulate dramatic situations and impossible to be dogmatic ; 

 his statements were accompanied by qualifications and exceptions. Williams 

 loved the truth as few men love it ; he was not content with half truths. The 

 effect of this style of teaching was easily seen in the reaction of the class. 

 At first the teaching seemed confusing ; few clear-cut sentences could be writ- 

 ten in a note-book, and cramming for tests on the basis of catch phrases was 

 a very difficult task. Before the end of the course, however, the class realized 

 that under the name of geology they were learning the greatest lesson open to 

 men — the method of weighing evidence and thus arriving at the truth." ^ 



With his graduate students he took as his model Louis Agassiz, and 

 occasionally would illustrate Agassiz's method by the oft-told story of the 

 fish skeleton which Agassiz gave a student for study. One who studied 

 under him as a graduate student says :' 



"He did not believe in directing each separate step which his pupils took, 

 but he believed rather in leading them to search for their own problems, and 

 when found to solve them independently, if possible. He considered the field 

 of scientific paleontology to be limited in its possibilities for a livelihood, and 

 consequently he never offered undue encouragement to prospective students to 

 enter the work. To those who were bound to enter, however, he gave the best 

 that he had in him in counsel and advice. He was especially a laboratory 

 teacher and made his students feel that they were companions with him in 

 research. . . . His own experience during his early days at Cornell led 

 him to advise his student always to search for and solve the problems that 

 were to be found in their own dooryard, rather than to think that any problem 

 worth solution must be found in distant parts of the earth." 



■* Charles Schuchert : Henry Shaler Williams ; an appreciation of his work In stratig- 

 raphy. Am. Jour. Sci.. vol. xlvi. 1918. pp. 682-687. 

 5 American Naturalist, vol. xxi, 1887, pp. 616-626. 

 s H. E. Gregory : Memorial address, Cornell University. 

 ■^ Stuart Weller : .Journal of Geology. 



