MEMOIR OF JAMES E. MILLS 513 



ingly in 1851 he went through lower Canada and the northern line of 

 states to Minnesota, thence down through the states bordering on the 

 Mississippi river to Saint Louis, across the middle states to Washington, 

 and back to Maine, making more than 1,000 miles of the journey on 

 foot and on horseback. In Minnesota he met and traveled with Doctor 

 Carl Scherzer, of Vienna. By his advice he gave up the plan of entering 

 Harvard College, but instead entered the Lawrence Scientific School in 

 1852. He spent part of his time under Louis Agassiz, both as student 

 and as assistant, and graduated in 1857 summa cum laude. He continued 

 as assistant to Professor Agassiz at Harvard until 1858, when he felt it 

 his duty to turn his whole attention to the ministry. He accordingly 

 began preaching in Brooklyn, New York, and in 1860 was ordained as a 

 minister of the New Jerusalem church (Swedenborgian) and entered upon 

 his duties of pastor of the society in Brooklyn, where he continued three 

 years. His health failing, he gave up sedentary life and entered again 

 on geological work. For two or three years he was engaged in'exploring 

 and locating coal beds on cape Breton and in Cumberland county, Nova 

 Scotia. Until 1870 he had an office as consulting geologist in New York, 

 and examined and reported on mining properties, among them iron de- 

 posits in Alabama, coal deposits in West Virginia, and oil deposits in 

 western Pennsylvania. In 1868 he examined lead mines in Missouri 

 and did geological work on the survey of the upper Mississippi, then 

 being carried on by the government under General G. K. Warren. In 

 1869 he was mining manganese in Virginia. In 1869, 1870, and 1871 he 

 was superintendent of Bradys Bend iron works, in western Pennsylva- 

 via, and successfully located several oil wells in new territory. In 1871 

 and 1872 he was at the Vulcan iron works, in charge of tiie manufacture 

 of steel rails, into which industry he introduced important improve- 

 ments. From 1872 to 1879 he made Saint Louis, Missouri, his home. 

 In 1873 he was vice-president of the Big Muddy Iron Company of Saint 

 Louis. In 1877 he examined and reported on the mine La Motte and 

 other lead properties in Missouri. In 1878 he examined and reported 

 on gold mines in Rio Grande do Sul and in Minas Geraes, Brazil, South 

 America. In 1879-'80 he was superintendent of the SaoCyriaco Gold 

 Mining Company in the diamond district of Minas Geraes, Brazil, but 

 returned to this country in 1880. Since 1880 he has been consulting 

 geologist and adviser of the capitalists interested in the Calumet and 

 Hecla Mining Company, for whom he has examined and reported on 

 several properties in the west and in Mexico. In 1880 he went to Cali- 

 fornia to examine certain gold placer deposits, and while pursuing his 

 work he devised a new method of sinking steel shafts to depths of 200 

 feet or more without removing the water until bed rock was reached, 



