MEMORIAL OE* E. W. HILGARD 51 



"The incident [a fall from a step-ladder, which caused the fracture of a 

 bone] came so near terminating my earthly career that at my age — 82 plus — 

 it is no wonder that my resilience has lagged. However, I still live, and hav- 

 ing so much before me yet that ought to be done and which I do not like to 

 leave undone, I must evidently husband my strength carefully. 'Venit mors 

 velociter, rapit nos atrociter, nemini parcetur,'' as the Gaudeamus^ has it. . . . 

 I am especially beholden to you for the good fight you have made on my geo- 

 logical work, which I confidently leave to posterity to judge. The definition 

 and naming of subdivisions of the 'Grand Gulf interval I willingly leave to 

 quilibet — the interval is there and can be renamed if they want to." 



"They have put my graven image in bronze at the door [of the new agricul- 

 tural building]. That will be to you the main point of interest. One addi- 

 tional thing may interest you, namely, that I shone by my absence, being sick 

 in bed with an attack which took me in the nick of time. Loughridge read my 

 speech and did it well and most of the public knew not Joseph from his substi- 

 tute. . . . You, at least, were not sick when Smith Hall was inaugurated — 

 quod honum, felix, faustumque sit. But it has been Kismet with me every time 

 a climax came." 



Tlie Doctor^s own estimate of liis scientific worlv is given in part above 

 in connection witli his 1860 report and in part in tiie following quotation 

 from a recent letter : 



"In reply to your request to have me mention the work of my life that I set 

 most store by, I have jotted down 'das mats gloriozas fazanJias,' as the Portu- 

 gee would say, among my multitudinous doings." 



"With my geological work you are familiar. For the agricultural, most of 

 which has been done on the Pacific coast, ... I have gone somewhat more 

 in detail. ... In the matter of direct soil examination, as you know, I have 

 followed David Owen and Robert Peter ; but the need of physical analysis be- 

 coming obvious, I added that to their procedure. My work in Mississippi gave 

 me only a very one-sided idea of the subject ; it opened out when I came to the 

 arid regions, and only assumed its real significance in that connection. . Then 

 I recognized its bearing on the history of civilization, which flourished in 

 Assyria when the barbarous Germans and Saxons were still warring in their 

 forests, while living in caves." ^ 



"My work in the Mississippi delta mainly caused me to be made a member 

 of the National Academy, and that on arid countries and soils brought me a 

 gold medal from the Munich Academy and a semi-centennial diploma Citerum 

 contuUmus') from the University of Heidelberg. So I have special reason to 

 prize these things and what bears on them." 



"My continuous agitation for agricultural instruction in the public schools 

 and the popularization of rational agriculture, together with the broad instruc- 

 tion personally given, have given me a somewhat extraordinary popularity in 

 this State." 



3 German students' song, beginning : Gaudeamus igilnr Jiivenes dnm snmus. 

 * Causes of the development of ancient civilization in arid countries. North American 

 Review, September, 1902. 



