MEMOIR OF W. C. KNIGHT 547 



ing, had purchased land, had built permanent camps, and had competent 

 helpers in the field, making collections which were destined to become 

 famous and of great instructional value. Though actively engaged in the 

 chemical side of geological work, his sympathy was for biologic investiga- 

 tions, and it was his intention, as plainly expressed, to gradually restrict 

 his efforts to paleontology, more particularly vertebrate paleontology. To 

 this end he had already filled the museum of the University of Wyoming 

 with rich vertebrate collections, especially Oligocene mammals and 

 Jurassic Dinosaurs. 



He had amassed a great collection of valuable material, much of which 

 is new and yet to be figured and described, but his knowledge of facts 

 and conditions concerning the economic resources of the state was of 

 particular significance to the commonwealth, for there was no spot which 

 he had not visited. Those outside of the state, as well as those living in 

 it, can not but deeply regret that so much is lost to science by a man at 

 the very prime of his life. After an illness of about one week, resulting 

 from peritonitis with complications, Doctor Knight died at his home, in 

 Laramie, Wyoming, July 28, 1903, at the age of forty-four years. In 

 1889 he was married to Miss Emma Howell, a student whom he had 

 known in the University of Nebraska, and those of us who knew him 

 intimately in his own home understand the perfection of his domestic 

 relations. He leaves a widow, one daughter, and three sons. He was 

 honored by election to a number of learned and fraternal societies, being 

 a member of the National Geographic Society, American Institute of 

 Mining Engineers, a Fellow in the Geological Society of America, a mem- 

 ber of the scientific fraternity Sigma Xi, an honored Mason, and a member 

 of the Congregational church. For the past lew years he had been con- 

 nected more or less intimately with the work of the United States geo- 

 logical and hydrographic survey. He was a man of action, and only 

 those favored with intimate acquaintance are fully aware of the vigor, 

 as well as the conscientiousness, of his work and the magnitude and 

 scope of his plans for the future. 



It is seldom, indeed, that the influence of any one scientist touches 

 every one in his state so intimately that the commonwealth mourns his 

 loss as the state of Wyoming mourns the loss of Doctor Knight, its 

 unimpeachable geologist. 



Of his many virtues the one which left its mark throughout all that 

 vast region was his absolute integrity. 



His list of papers and scientific contributions, though long, was but 

 introductory. He had tut begun to publish, and, as his intimates well 

 know, the next few years were to have been unusually fruitful of results. 



The loss which geology sustains is all the greater because such a mass 



