MEMORIAL OF E. W. HILGARD 45 



The recent finding in various parts of this territory of beds containing 

 leaf impressions^ and their identification as Lower Oligocene, Upper 

 Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene respectively, appear to demonstrate the 

 correctness of Hilgard^s original conclusion, and the name Grand Gulf 

 will probably stand, or should stand, not perhaps as a fbrmation name, 

 but as the collective name of a very definite and apparently unique type 

 of Coastal Plain sediments — or shall I say Mississippi Eiver sediments? 



Concerning the agricultural half of his 1860 report, Doctor Hilgard 

 writes :^ 



"In the special or descriptive portion of the Agricultural Report the State 

 is divided into 'regions' characterized by more or less uniformity of soil and 

 surface features; and each is considered in detail with respect to all natural 

 features bearing on agricultural pursuits, special attention being given to the 

 nature of the soils, as shown hj their vegetation and analysis. In the latter 

 respect I departed pointedlj'^ from the then prevailing opinions, by which soil 

 analysis was held to be practically useless. My explorations of the State have 

 shown me such intimate connection between the natural vegetation and the 

 varying chemical nature of the underlying strata that have contributed to soil 

 formation as to greatly encourage the belief that definite results could be 

 eliminated from the discussion of a considerable number of analyses of soils 

 carefully observed and classified with respect both to their origin and their 

 natural vegetation and a comparison of these data with the results of cultiva- 

 tion, and that thus it would become possible after all to do what Liebig origi- 

 nally expected could be done, namely, to predict measurably the behavior of 

 soils in cultivation from their chemical composition. 



"To what extent this expectation has been fulfilled is hardly apparent from 

 the very limited number of analyses which my unaided work was able to fur- 

 nish for the report of 1860. But the lights then obtained encouraged me to 

 persevere in the same line of investigation, in the face of much adverse criti- 

 cism, when wider opportunities presented themselves afterward. By the aid 

 of these I think I may fairly claim that the right of soil analysis to be con- 

 sidered as an essential and often decisive factor in the a priori estimation of 

 the cultural value of virgin soils has been well established alongside of the 

 limitations imposed by physical and climatic conditions and by previous inter- 

 vention of culture." 



His contributions to the scientific journals until 1875, when he went to 

 California, were mainly in elal)oration of his geological work in Louisiana 

 and Mississippi, outlined above, as may be seen in the appended bibliog- 

 raphy. During this period there are also many articles from him on 

 agricultural subjects, contributed mostly to the newspapers and to the 

 popular agricultural papers. 



In California, while his main work was in connection with his depart- 

 ment, in preparing the annual reports of the experiment station and 



^riiblications of the Mississippi Histoi-ical Society, vol. iii, p. 224. 

 IV— Bull. Geok. Soc. Am., Vol. 28, 1916 



