458 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



merits, pass through life with less than their deserts from their 

 fellows. One whose association with him for many years was 

 close enough to permit him to see within this veil, feels a con- 

 viction that the root of every endeavor in this life toward the 

 best ideals, the best execution in daily work, was the love for 

 his mother. In her seemed to be centered all his desire for 

 companionship, for laudation and approval, and for her and the 

 home at Waterbury he provided to the end of her life. From 

 this excellent woman and his good father he seemed to have 

 inherited many fine traits of character, a strict integrity and 

 conscientious punctiliousness and perhaps also his delight in 

 nature and all her works. In his work of preparing scientific 

 drawings of paleontologic objects he succeeded for accuracy of 

 expression and of detail far beyond his own expectation, attain- 

 ing a power that few have equaled. The thousands of draw- 

 ings which he made for the Paleontology of New York contributed 

 in a most important way to the value and prestige of that work. 

 Less can not be said than that he was the vehicle for the proper 

 expression of our paleontologic data; and many a working 

 paleontologist has allowed himself to express the feeling that 

 a publication, specially of a descriptive character, is less serv- 

 iceable without the illustrations than the illustrations without 

 the description. On looking at some of his most skilful and 

 elaborate drawings of crustaceans and plants from the Coal 

 Measures, Prof. Lesley, the former state geologist of Pennsyl- 

 vania, expressed his amazement that such execution was within 

 human power; and yet but few saw the results of Mr Simpson's 

 handiwork save after they had passed through the printing 

 press and were shorn of their finer beauties. Mr Simpson was 

 draftsman less of choice than of necessity. Had his way been 

 clear before him and the preliminary training attainable, his 

 deep seated, never lessening love of nature would have carried 

 him to successful accomplishment in some branch of natural 

 history. The flowers were his constant companions; he seemed 

 to crave their unspoken sympathy, and knew and loved their 

 haunts. When he painted them, it was with a preraphaelite 

 touch that was startling in the exactitude of detail. 



