( SEP~3 1920 



^w 



onal Muse^ 



THE 



AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 



LOUIS VALENTINE PIRSSON. 



In the death of Louis Valentine Pirsson, professor of 

 physical geology in Sheffield Scientific School, which oc- 

 curred on December 8, 1919, there passed from this life 

 a notable investigator, writer and teacher in the field of 

 geology, a markedly able executive in University work 

 and a man of many lovable and admirable personal 

 traits. He was taken at the time when his power of 

 utilizing wide knowledge and mature judgment was at 

 its maximum, and American geology has, in his untimely 

 death, suffered severe loss. 



It is proposed in this notice to dwell particularly on the 

 personality of the man as exhibited in divers directions 

 during his career, rather than to furnish that fuller state- 

 ment of his life and appraisal of his work which will 

 be given in other more extended memoirs. Pirsson's 

 accomplishments were due not so much to an inborn un- 

 questionable and controlling impulse to a special field of 

 scientific work as to an inherent fine quality of mind which, 

 combined with a great love of nature, made it inevitable 

 that some field of natural science should appeal strongly 

 to him. 



Looking first to the influence of ancestry as a source 

 for certain characteristics, it is to be regretted that the 

 data are meager. Pirsson's great-grand parents on his 

 father's side came from Chelmsford, Essex, England, to 

 the vicinity of New York, where the great-grandfather, 

 William Pirsson, Jr., taught school for a time. A son of 

 this "William Pirsson, who married Emily Morris of New 

 York City, became a manufacturer of pianos and lived 

 in the suburbs of Fordham. It was in the comfortable 

 home of this grandfather that Louis was born, on Novem- 

 ber 3, 1860, the son of Francis Morris and Louisa M. 



Am. Jour. Sci.— Fourth Series, Vol. L, No. 297.— September, 1920 

 13 



