BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF CLARENCE KING. 



The greatest advance in geological science in the past half 

 century has been due less to the brilliant generalizations of indi- 

 vidual investigators, of which, however, there has been no want, 

 than to the systematic organization of geological work which has 

 given a sounder basis for theoretical deduction and rendered the 

 work of the individual more permanent and effective. 



It was not until the truth that geological studies could not be 

 profitably confined within State lines or other artificial bounda- 

 ries had been proved by practical demonstration that the aid of 

 the general government was freely and permanently enlisted 

 and thereby geological science in America raised to its present 

 high position. 



To the accomplishment of this result the late Clarence King 

 was the foremost and one of the most active contributors. His 

 influence on the development of geological science in this country 

 was exercised at a critical point in its history, when the personal- 

 ity of the man, aside from his purely scientific* ability, played a 

 much greater part than it would at the present day, when the 

 labors of men of his type have already borne abundant fruit in 

 impressing upon the people at large the practical importance of 

 a scientific guidance in the development of their material re- 

 sources. It seems, therefore, appropriate in speaking of the 

 man, even to a strictly scientific audience like the present, that 

 the more personal element should receive attention. 



For believers in atavism a consideration of King's ancestry 

 will possess a peculiar interest. On both sides he came of good 

 English stock planted on ISTew England soil, where conditions 

 seemed propitious for the gradual development of the varied 

 characteristics that showed themselves so remarkably comb hied 

 in this brilliant man. 



Daniel King, the first of the name in this country, came to 

 Lynn. Massachusetts, in 1637 — a younger son of Ealphe Kinge 

 of Watford, in Hertfordshire, England. 



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