MEMOIR OF JAMES E. MILLS 515 



week, and he believed that there would soon be no difficulty in finding 

 all the labor he required ; and this proved to be the case. The demands 

 he placed on these men were more strict than they had ever been accus- 

 tomed to, but they met these demands as soon as they realized that they 

 were to be treated justly. He was scrupulously honest in dealing with 

 his men ; he always paid them promptly and never made or permitted 

 any claims on their wages through the company's office. 



Later, in Mexico, he met with many similar difficulties and with much 

 opposition among all classes, but it is a great pleasure to know, and it 

 is an honor to the profession, that he followed the same policy and 

 met with the same success. One can hardly understand the importance 

 and meaning of this policy unless he has had experience in dealing 

 with people who live and die, generation after generation, under a system 

 of oppression by debt, by social superiors, and by the pride of place and 

 office. 



His contributions to geological science are small. I never look at the 

 list at the end of this paper without a sense of disappointment, for I 

 know that he gathered and had at his command a vast amount of useful 

 information upon geologic subjects. The bulk of his work, however, 

 was done for private parties, and he always fully realized that informa- 

 tion gained in this way was the property of his employers. Moreover, 

 he never could have brought himself to publish anything for the sake 

 of parading his information ; it could only have been for the purpose of 

 giving others the benefit of what he knew. To him geology was merely 

 the expression of the laws of God, and was therefore always interesting, 

 always worthy of the effort required to understand it, and it was for all 

 mankind. He always acted as though he felt that what he had and 

 what he knew (outside of what he controlled as an employe) was held in 

 trust for the good — not of himself alone, but for the good of humanit}-. 



On one occasion when I asked for the use of some of his books, he 

 boxed them up and sent them to me with the request that after I had 

 used them I should pass them on to whoever might require them. 



When in 1890 Doctor Penrose undertook the study of the manganese 

 regions of North America he found Mr Mills to be one of the few geol- 

 ogists of this country who at that time had and readily imparted valu- 

 able information regarding the manganese deposits of the United States. 

 In the preface to his " Modern American Methods of Copper Smelting," 

 Doctor E. D. Peters acknowledges " the valuable assistance of Mr J. E. 

 Mills in connection with the geology of the Butte mining district." 

 Mention is made of these instances as showing how free and helpful 

 Mr Mills was with his knowledge, and even with his propert3^ 



