MEMOIR OF SAMUEL LEWIS PENFIELD 573 



and given to hospitality. His mother was Ann A. Cheesman, of Con- 

 necticut ancestry. By inheritance and early training he acquired that 

 cheerful and amiable spirit which made him so companionable, and those 

 generous and sympathetic impulses that bound him so closely to his 

 friends. From them also sprang that native honesty which was the 

 foundation of his character, underlying his judgment, occasioning his 

 frankness and sincerity of speech, and forming the controlling element of 

 his scientific work. To them must be ascribed that simple and unfalter- 

 ing confidence in a beneficent Deity which accompanied him through life 

 and permitted him to endure the strain of his prolonged illness with 

 cheerful patience and Christian courage. 



While yet a boy his fondness for study led him to hope for a college 

 education and caused him to go to the academy at Willbraham, Massa- 

 chusetts, to prepare himself for the Sheffield Scientific School, which he 

 entered in the autumn of 1874. His tastes and talents led him to success 

 in mathematics and the natural sciences, and at the end of his freshman 

 year he selected the course in chemistry. In this he distinguished himself 

 as an analyst, graduating with honors in 1877. To his classmates he was 

 a modest, manly comrade, devoted to his studies and enthusiastic in his 

 laboratory work. 



Upon graduating he became an assistant in the chemical laboratory of 

 the Sheffield Scientific School, and in addition to his duties as an in- 

 structor occupied himself with analytical work, especially on mineral 

 compounds. His first publication is dated the year of his graduation 

 and is on "The chemical composition of triphylite from Grafton, New 

 Hampshire." His career as a mineralogist must be considered the natural 

 result of his environment, for there was an invigorating atmosphere 

 about the place like the clear, brilliant air that surrounds the summits 

 of mountains. The young, enthusiastic investigator felt the inspiration 

 that came from his association with such men as George J. Brush, 

 James D. Dana, Edward S. Dana, and George W. Hawes, men of clear 

 cut, vigorous ideas and brilliant attainments. It acquired specific direc- 

 tion through the opportunity offered him for cooperation with Professors 

 Brush and E. S. Dana in their study of the remarkable group of minerals 

 found in the pegmatite at Branchville, Connecticut. The analytical 

 chemical work was intrusted to him in part, and he determined the com- 

 position of five new species of magnesian phosphates, eosphorite, triploi- 

 dite, dickinsonite, fairfieldite, and fiUowite, that of two other new species 

 being determined by his classmate and associate in the chemical labora- 

 tory, Horace L. Wells. In addition to these he analyzed a number of 

 other minerals from this locality and from elsewhere. About this time 



li — Bur.T,. Geol. Son. A\i.. Vor,. IS, lOOC 



