MEMOIR OF RALPH STOCKMAN TARR 35 



sequel shows how he accomplished his purpose, His letters breathe this 

 spirit of independence and determination. 



On February 10, 1895, he wrote about the drift into writing text- 

 books : 



"I do not know what I am coming to. Everything points to the fate of a 

 writer of books, great and small. I had promised myself a summer of field 

 work, but it now looks as if it would not materialize. A chance to write three 

 books has come to me in the past two months. ... I have been at work on 

 for five years . . . two books on physical geography." . . . 



In February, 1893, he complained of the effects of confinement to 

 work. His campaign for the spring and summer was laid out. "I am 

 going off," he states, "to the Bermudas for the spring vacation to recruit 

 and to see something of midoceanic coral life. In the summer I am going 

 to put in three months in Newfoundland, on the shores and in the in- 

 terior." His paper on the Bermuda Islands was the fruit of the first 

 trip ; but the opportunity to accompany Peary to Greenland for the sum- 

 mer led to the abandonment of the Newfoundland excursion. On re- 

 turning from this expedition, Tarr wrote, October 31 : 



"My trip to Greenland was full of wonders and replete with results. . . . 

 I think that the most important result of the trip was the proof that in the 

 part of Greenland which I saw the ice-sheet had submerged all the land, even 

 the highest. ... I do not think that a geologist, and especially one work- 

 ing in the glacial aspects of the subject, can afford to miss the opportunity of 

 spending a summer in the north and a month with the great glacier." 



The Cornell expedition to Greenland which Tarr at this time led gave 

 him the long-desired opportunity to study glaciers at first hand. His 

 studies of the Cornell glacier were presented before the Society at the 

 meeting in 1896. 



In the winter of 1897-1898 the question of the origin of peneplains 

 occupied his attention. On February 12, 1898, Tarr wrote : 



"Lack of confidence is not one of my failings, but there is a matter, these 

 five years on my mind, upon which I sometimes question my own powers. Do 

 you know that I am a disbeliever in peneplains? Several years ago 1 wrote 

 an article opposing the theory, but took alarm when 1 saw every one else be- 

 lieving in them. I pigeonholed the paper. 1 rewrote it. . . . Again 1 put 

 it away. Now I have it out again, rewritten. I believe it is right, yet 1 ran 

 not help doubting it, for I seem to have no companions." 



The paper eventually appeared that year. His doubts appear to have 

 arisen from a failure to find that degree of peneplanation which he ex- 

 pected to see in New England and parts of New Jersey. 



