PROF. H. CARVILL LEWIS. 



THE loss to the geological world by the death of Prof. 

 Henry Carvill Lewis at the early age of thirty- four, and 

 in the midst of his work, is greater than they may realize, as 

 the more important of his results acquired during the fast 

 three years have not been fully published. When, in 

 1882, be began to study the glacial phenomena of 



TURE 



d elsewhere, where the 



declaring that anyone 



with the far greater 



Pennsylvania, though numerous observations had been 

 made on the direction of the striae and the location of the 

 moraines, in the northern part of the States, nothing had 

 been attempted towards gathering the results into a con- 

 sistent whole, or tracing the limits of the glaciation. In 

 that year he succeeded in Lracing a great terminal moraine 

 from New Jersey to the Ohio frontier, and showing that 

 beyond this line glaciation was absent, while within it the' 

 direction of the motion could be traced as well by the stria? 

 as by the derivation of the boulders. Of the truth of these 

 views he succeed in convincing almost all the American 

 geologists who had studied the question. Fired by his 

 success in interpreting the glacial phenomena of his 

 native country, and believing that the same key might 

 be found to unlock the mysteries of European glaciation, 

 he practically threw up his position in Philadelphia, and 

 devoted himself to the study of these phenomena in Great 

 Britain. Devoting his summers from 1SS5 to the work, 

 he visited — accompanied by his wife, whose active assist- 

 ance he constantly enjoyed— almost every locality in Great 

 Britain and Ireland where stria; had been recorded or 

 moraines were likely to occur. To reduce the whole of 

 the previous observations to order was a task he had not 

 yet succeeded in completing, but which he boldly under- 

 took, and to continue which he had once more landed 

 in England. Important results were, however, already 

 obtained, and at the British Association last year he gave 

 English geologists the firstfruits, by presenting them with 

 a map of England in which he had traced a great terminal 

 moraine, as in America, on the north of which the stria.- 

 and the dispersion of the boulders indicated a continuous 

 ice-sheet, while to the south the various glacial deposits 

 were accounted for by extra-morainic lakes. He boldly 

 advocated the view of the ice mounting up to the heights 

 of 1 100 feet in Moel Tryfj 

 ice-sheet had crossed the 

 who was acquainted, as \. 

 results of ice-motion in Pennsyl' 

 no difficulty in accepting this, and pointing out that these 

 localities were everywhere on the line of the great terminal 

 moraine. So startling a generalization could scarcely be 

 accepted all at once, and there were many things to 

 account for before the history even of this greatest ice-sheet 

 could be considered complete. Had Prof. Lewis been spared 

 to us, he was prepared to devote himself to the completion 

 of this work. He has left a large mass of notes and draw- 

 ings bearing on it, which must now wait for some Elisha 

 capable of taking up his mantle. Evervglacialist is no doubt 

 more or less satisfied with the account he can give of the 

 glacial history of his own district ; but to the general geolo- 

 gist the whole has hitherto presented a chaos of conflicting 

 histories, fit only to bewilder him. In the clear account 

 given by Prof. Carvill Lewis of one great portion of that 

 history, light seemed at last to dawn, and the hope was 

 raised that glacial chaos would cease. This hope now 

 seems quenched for a time. 



Prof. Lewis was born in Philadelphia, November 16, 

 ]S53, and took his B.A. degree in 1873 in the University 

 of Pennsylvania. From 1S79 to 1SS4 he was a volunteer 

 member of the Geological Survey of the State. In 1880 

 he was elected Professor of Mineralogy in the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and 'in 1SS3 Professor 

 of Geology in Haverford College. His work was by no 

 means confined to his glacial studies, the most important 

 of his minor works being the discovery of the matrix of 

 the diamond in an ultra-basic volcanic rock in contact 

 with a carbonaceous tuff. The prediction that, if such 

 was the origin of diamonds, they might be found in 

 meteorites, had just been fulfilled in Russia ; and he had 

 lately visited a locality in Carolina, where the same con- 

 ditions obtain, but had not proceeded further when he 

 was stopped by death. During the last three years he 

 spent his winters in Heidelberg, studying microscopic 

 petrography with Prof. Rosenbusch. 



Those who knew him personally, were charmed with 

 he beautiful frankness of his nature, his love of truth 

 JnVhTfi? be P°f ses f sion .^ * reason for what he said 

 and his total ack of pride or assumption of authority 

 niej *aw in him a type of what a genuine student of 

 «,W 1° be tempered and refined by general 

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da!?ghteT an ' ied " lS83 ' and ' eaVeS a ** - d «« 



