68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ALBANY MEETING 



operator and superintendent, operating the Oak Hill and other large 

 collieries in the southern anthracite field. 



Mr. Hill was educated in the private and public schools of Pottsville, 

 graduating from the high school of that place in 1875. His cherished 

 desire for a collegiate education could not be gratiiied, and at the age of 

 seventeen years he entered the employ of the Philadelphia and Reading 

 Coal and Iron Company as a chainman on its engineer corps, under Gen. 

 Henry Pleasants, an eminent civil and mining engineer. With this com- 

 pany he remained for six years, steadily advancing to higlier positions. 

 On the organization of the anthracite district of the Second Geological 

 Survey of Pennsylvania, Mr. Hill was appointed an assistant to Mr. 

 Arthur W. Sheafer, Assistant Geologist, who was in charge of the field- 

 work under Mr. Charles A. Ashburner. Mr. HilFs first geological work 

 was in the extremely intricate Panther Creek district of the Southern 

 Coal Field. Later he was assigned to the Northern Coal Field as As- 

 sistant Geologist and placed in responsible charge of the survey of that 

 field, with headquarters at Wilkes-Barre and later at Scranton. 



In 1885 he was transferred to headquarters of the Survey in Phila- 

 delphia, and the conduct of the work in the entire anthracite region was 

 under his direction. To his tact, diplomacy, and the confidence he in- 

 spired among the coal operators and operating companies is largely due 

 the successful conduct and completion of the mapping of the anthracite 

 region. There were many conflicting interests, jealous of each othei'^s 

 success and loath to place in other hands information that had cost thou- 

 sands of dollars to obtain; yet Mr. Hill, so great was their regard and 

 confidence in him and his assistants, was able to obtain this almost price- 

 less data for the use, in a general way, of the Survey in working oat the 

 intricate problems in structure as they were met. Maps, sections, drill- 

 hole records, were, in strictest confidence, placed at his disposal. This 

 confidence was never abused, either by Mr. Hill or any of his young 

 assistants. He was the ideal man for the position, and to him more, 

 perhaps, than to any one else the citizens of Pennsylvania are indebted 

 for the valuable work now at their disposal. 



The devotion of Mr. HilPs assistants to him I have seldom seen 

 equaled; it was perhaps never excelled. He was a superior officer, but 

 at the same time he was also a friend, companion, and adviser. To serve 

 under him in the office was a pleasure, to serve with him in the field a 

 delight. He was an inspiration to us for greater endeavor, for no nuni 

 ever served under him who was not the better for it. 



In 1890 Mr. Hill resigned from the Survey to accept the superin- 

 tendency of the Dunbar Furnace Company, in Fayette County, Pennsyl- 



