MEMOIK OF ALBERT ALLEN WRIGHT 689 



Columbus. He began again, however, as though he had received no 

 rebuff, and in the end his perseverance was fully rewarded. His efforts 

 were made, not as an officer of the State Geological Survey, but as a pri- 

 vate citizen, eager to advance a cause which he regarded as good. His 

 papers urging topographic work have proved helpful in presenting the 

 matter of topographic mapping to the legislatures of a number of states. 



Professor A. A. Wright possessed in a very large measure the scientific 

 spirit. He was careful and deliberate. He was slow in forming judg- 

 ments, yet persistent in accumulating material on which a rational judg- 

 ment could be based. With such a temperament, it is not surprising that 

 his contributions to the science to which he was devoted are of the highest 

 order in quality. They might have been notable in quantity had he not 

 sacrificed any desire for personal distinction to the welfare of the college 

 to which he gave such a full measure of his time. His more important 

 geological work has to do largely with his native state. In 1874 he began 

 field work on the lake ridges of Lorain county. His published results 

 were valuable, and left nothing to be added concerning the surface feat- 

 ures of this portion of Ohio. In 1893 he reported on the ventral armor 

 of Dinichthys for the Ohio Survey, and, aided by excellent specimens 

 secured in Lorain county, he was able to supplement and to modify in a 

 number of important particulars the descriptions of Newberry. His re- 

 ports of certain coal beds in Ohio and on drift and glaciation in New 

 Jersey are represented by a number of titles in geologic magazines, in the 

 bulletins of this Society, and in the Proceedings of the Ohio Academy 

 of Sciences. At the time of his death he was at work with thin-sections 

 of bryozoans, and hoped to be able to add something of value to the lim- 

 ited literature on these difficult organisms. 



Professor Hall, a colleague of Professor Wright for years, sums up his 

 life most justly : 



"Outside of Oberlin, he might have made a much larger reputation as an 

 earnest investigator and sound reasoner upon scientific topics, and as a master 

 of an unusually clear and chaste literary style, if he had been willing to take 

 a larger place in the scientific assemblies of his time. He might have written 

 books which would have proved helpful to the thought of his time, especially 

 as bearing on the interpretation of science. As a teacher, he might have 

 attracted larger classes and might have made a superficial impression on a 

 larger number of pupils, if he had cared to make more parade of his learning. 

 But he chose to do his work quietly, with no desire to do anything that should 

 dazzle, but with a fixed purpose to do everything in the most thorough and 

 faultless manner. The true scientific spirit mastered him as it has mastered 

 few minds in his generation, and, slender as might seem his technical training, 

 it made it impossible for him to approach any topic without the most pains- 

 taking and careful investigation, seemingly without the least prejudice as to 

 the outcome of his research." 



