A. Wing's Discoveries in Vermont Geology. 333 



Rutland and Morikton, Vermont, and derived much profit from 

 the survey of the region he had explored, and from the inform- 



al for publication. His decease having prevented the *__ 

 oomplishment of his purpose, I have felt it a duty to him and 

 to science to consent to perform, with the aid of such material 

 . as I could obtain, the unfulfilled task ; and the following article 

 is the result. 



My sources of information have been two small note-books 

 and a few of his letters, received from his family through Prof. 

 Henry M. Seely, of Middlebury College. But these letters are, 

 in part, long accounts of his geological observations and views, 

 written at different times during the ten years over which his 

 explorations extended,— probably in response to enquiries from 

 those to whom they were addressed. Among them, one, of 

 many pages, bearing the date, August 9, 1872, is addressed to 

 me, and was written, as it states, on receiving a request from 

 me, dated August 3, for " a fuller account of the fossils of West 

 Rutland,' 1 a brief note on his discoveries by Mr. E. Billings, 

 being all hitherto published. No copy of this letter ever left 

 his hands, nor even an acknowledgment of the request ; and it 

 is probable that the same is true of the others. His disinclina- 

 tion to write, and his reluctance to make his results public, so 

 long as doubts remained, were, in all probability, the occasion 

 of these many unfinished epistles. But if hesitating with his 

 Pen, he was all energy and enthusiasm in exploration. Tt was 

 m 1865 that he came to the determination "to ascertain, if pos- 

 sible, the geological age of the limestones, slates and quartzytes 

 of Otter Creek Valley ;" and ever afterward he kept at it, 

 "tramping," as he says, "during all the time that could be 

 spared from vigorous teaching." He had his reward while going 

 on with his work ; for, as his writings show, he experienced the 

 delight of a child over his discoveries ; and, at the same time, 

 ne felt the confidence of a thorough worker, that the geological 

 truths developed would sooner or later find their place m the 

 science. He continued his field-work to the last ; and it was the 

 fatigue of an excursion in the autumn of 1875, when he was 

 already sixty-seven years old, that brought on his fatal illness. 

 It is to be regretted that his results were not earlier made 

 Public; for they would have given some errors in New Eng- 

 land geology a speedier extinction, and helped much to push 

 forward discovery. Mr. Wing, by the use of his spare time 

 amid the duties of teaching, accomplished vastly more for the 

 elucidation of the age of Vermont rocks than had been done 

 b y the Vermont Geological Survey. The Vermont Beport pre- 

 • n .;■.,.. * ■•'■ 



