NOTES. 
AGAIN has science been called upon to give up one of her 
brightest lights and most enthusiastic devotees, and many of our 
readers have in the death of Dr. Witt1am Stimpson to mourn for 
a dear friend. Dr. Stimpson was born in Cambridge, Mass., and 
early became devoted to Natural History pursuits. He also had 
the good fortune of being under the guidance of Agassiz and soon 
became an original investigator and distinguished as a mala- 
cologist. His first publication was on the marine shells of New 
England, in 1851. From this time he pursued the study of 
Marine Zoology with the greatest vigor, and dredged and collected 
along our Atlantic Coast from Florida to Grand Menan, until he 
became the authority in the lower forms of animal life, especially 
in the classes of Crustacea, and Mollusca, and until Mr. Verrill 
commenced his work on our Radiates, Dr. Stimpson was the 
acknowledged authority in that group also. In the classes of 
Mollusca and Crustacea of our Atlantic coast, Dr. Stimpson was 
to the time of his death the acknowledged head of the able band 
of workers in these departments, while his connection with the 
Government Exploring Expedition to the North Pacific, as natu- 
ralist, gave him a wide field of work in his most favorite study of 
the Crustacea, in which he shared equally with Dana the honors of 
the scientific world. As a dredger Dr. Stimpson early became 
noted, and taking his first lessons in our own harbor of Salem, 
under the guidance of Dr. Wheatland, he soon became the pioneer 
ìn this science along our whole coast, and his very last work was 
the superintendence of the deep sea dredging off the coast of 
Florida under the direction of the Coast Survey. Dr. Stimpson’s 
Connection with the Chicago Academy of Science, as the successor 
of the lamented Kennicott, is known to all, and to the disastrous fire, 
` which in one short hour destroyed all his material, manuscripts, 
drawings, specimens and library, must we attribute. the close of his 
i e at the age of forty-two years. For though suffering from lung 
disease, there is little doubt but that for the fearful calamity which 
So suddenly destroyed all his work and hopes, he would have lived 
to have seen published the valuable works, which, owing to a fatal 
delay on the part of government, are now ARON — 
445 
