Holland : John Bell Hatcher. 



603 



land and in Germany, but I fear very little appreciated in America. 

 His work as a collector was magnificent, probably the greatest on" 

 record. " - 



Professor W. B. Scott, in the columns of Science, says : ' ' Hatcher 

 may be said to have fairly revolutionized the methods of collecting 

 vertebrate fossils, a work which before his time had been almost 

 wholly in the hands of- untrained and unskilful men, but which he 

 converted into a fine art. The exquisitely preserved fossils in 

 American museums, which awaken the admiring envy of European 

 paleontologists, are, to a large extent, directly or indirectly due to 

 Hatcher's energy and skill and to the large minded help and ad- 

 vice as to methods and localities which were always at the service 

 of anyone who chose to ask for them. ' ' Testimony of like charac- 

 ter as to the great achievements of Professor Hatcher has come from 

 many other sources. 



Mr. Hatcher was characterized by most intense devotion to his 

 life work, as has been already pointed out. Underlying his char- 

 acter was an indomitable determination. In childhood he was 

 weak, and his parents had little hope of seeing him live to young 

 manhood. He, however, gradually outgrew the physical weakness 

 of his boyhood, and bent himself with a mighty purpose to the 

 acquisition of knowledge. His aged and venerable father has 

 touchingly described to the writer the lad's determination when he 

 was but a mere boy to amass useful knowledge, patiently sitting for 

 hours poring over his books when his comrades of like age about 

 him were bent upon sports and pastimes. He was an indefatigable 

 student of books and a very keen observer of things. He was 

 fertile in resources. He had great mechanical aptitudes, and suc- 

 ceeded, sometimes when alone, by patient effort in accomplishing 

 apparently impossible tasks in the removal of huge and weighty 

 objects from difficult positions, which would not have been under- 

 taken by others. The writer recalls one or two cases in which he 

 dared great physical risks and even death, when alone, far from 

 human companionship, in extracting large masses from their original 

 position and moving them by a skilful arrangement of levers to 

 points where they could afterwards be taken, up. One such instance 

 occurred in the fall of the year 1903, and the writer could not re- 

 frain, while admiring the courage and skill displayed, from earnestly 



