40 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMHERST MEETING 



the Eaton coal field. At that time it was the stratigraphic relationships 

 that especially interested me. A few days before I discovered that a 

 marked plane of unconformity existed in the very middle of the coal 

 section, which was 4,000 feet thick. This entire succession of strata had 

 been hitherto regarded as Laramie in age. The fossils below the uncon- 

 formity line were manifestly Cretaceous types, but those above seemed to 

 be Tertiary forms. In all his observations in this region Saint John had 

 overlooked this feature. Following the early Government explorers, he 

 called the entire section Laramie. When the suggestion was made that 

 the entire Laramie formation was probably missing and might be actually 

 represented by a hiatus, it was too new for him to grasp all at once. So 

 we went out together to some of the localities showing the unconformity 

 to best advantage and there freely argued the question. It was a joyous 

 jaunt, and he seemed to be fully impressed with the stratigraphical im- 

 portance of the feature. Later he wrote me fully and with much enthu- 

 siasm on the probable correctness of the conception. This was many 

 years before the Government representatives entered the field and gleaned 

 from the coal miners, who by this time had learned to make practical use 

 of the suggestion, that the same conditions existed. Had Saint John 

 been permitted to gather his notes together, his report on this great coal 

 field would have been one of the most extensive and instructive of the 

 kind extant. 



In the long stretch of work and study Saint John at length overtaxed 

 his body, to which he seldom showed little consideration, either in the 

 field or in the work-room. The tired machine finally broke down, and 

 the later years of his life were spent in semi-retirement in San Diego, 

 California, in the mild and equable climate of which he found best relief 

 from the ailments which followed him. 



When I last visited him there, a few weeks before his demise, I little 

 suspected that the end was so near. His was a gentle passing, which 

 event took place on the morning of July 20, 1921, after a lingering illness, 

 the culmination of a long period of ill health that a decade before had 

 caused his removal from the high altitudes of New Mexico to sealevel. 

 His faithful wife, who had also long suffered from serious illness, survived 

 him but a few days. Thus the couple, after a married life of devoted 

 attachment of more than half a century, passed on together over the 

 Great Divide, as they would have chosen to do had they been permitted 

 to express preference. 



Saint John's skill is not confined to the happy transcription of field 

 observations. He is equally adept in detailed descriptions of species and 

 specimens. The measure of his wide researches on the character and 



