408 PROCEEDINGS OF MONTREAL MEETING. 
defects of his qualities.” He was so impressed with the immensity of the 
work to be done, with the necessity of speed, and with the shortness of 
the time allotted him, and he was often so carried away by the rushing 
impetuosity of his thought, that he published no little hasty and ill-con- 
sidered work. He frequently made blunders that a little more care and 
consideration would have enabled him to avoid, so eager was he to say 
what he had to say and then pass on to the attack of some new problem. 
To balance this defect, however, he had no tendency to pose as infallible, 
or to defend errors simply because he had himself committed them. 
While extremely clear as to his own opinions and the grounds upon 
which he held them, and while ready to give and take hard knocks in 
defense of his views, he was always ready, on good reason being shown, 
to change those views, and he allowed no weak regard for fancied con- 
sistency to hamper the freedom of his thought. 
This hurried and most imperfect survey of Cope’s contributions to 
geology may sound to some ears like a list of small and not very impor- 
-tant services which any one who enjoyed similar opportunities might 
have performed ; but those who are familiar with the vast and desolate 
regions where the work was done and who know the great difficulties 
which the pioneer explorer has to overcome will view the matter in a 
very different light and will always regard with admiration the rapidity, 
clear-sightedness, and skill with which the great complex of fresh-water 
deposits was marshaled in orderly array, their succession determined, 
and their equivalences with similar deposits in other parts of the world 
made out. To those who appreciate the difficulty of the problems in- 
volved it might well seem that Cope’s contributions to geology were suf- 
ficient for one man’s title to fame; but when we remember that all this 
geological work was done, so to speak, by the way, merely as a necessary 
introduction to something far larger, the prolegomena of his real life- 
work, admiration grows into astonishment at such powers of achieve- 
ment. “Take him for all in all. we shall not look upon his lke again.” 
In the absence of the author, the following memorial was read by 
J. F. Kemp: 
MEMOIR OF JOSEPH FRANCIS JAMES* 
BY TIMOTHY W. STANTON 
Dr Joseph Francis James, an original Fellow of this Society, was born 
in Cincinnati, Ohio, February 9, 1857. He died in Hingham, Massachu- 
*In the preparation of this sketch Mr G. K. Gilbert has generously permitted me to use a more 
extended biographical notice he has prepared for publication, and also the original data furnished 
by Mrs James. Mr Gilbert’s memoir has since been published in the American Geologist, vol. xxi, 
pp. 1-7. 
