124 
THE SCIE^TTIST. 
it is for needless ceremonies and convent- 
ions and for ever}" S(>rt of sham or hum- 
hug, or charlatanry^ or ignorant pretense. 
Himself the most open of men, incapable 
of hypocrisy, and scarcely able to con- 
duct himself wiih ordinary reserve, he 
is often deceived by designing persons, 
wlio abase his confidence. Having no- 
thing to conceal himself, he fancies 
others equally sincere, and his good nat- 
ure is imposed upon by those who use 
him to their own advantage. 
Professor Cones has been twice mar- 
ried. His tirst marriage was contracted 
verj^ early in life, and proved uidiap})}^ 
By his former wife he has three chil- 
dren, his eldest son, Elliott Baird Cones, 
being now a student in Harvard Univer- 
sity. In October, 1887, he married Mrs. 
Mary Emily Bates of Philadelphia, a 
lady in every way iitted to appreciate her 
liusband and grace his home. Possessed 
of ample means to indulge his tastes and 
pursue his investigations. Professor 
Cones is planning with his wife a jour- 
ney around the world, to be undertaken 
as soon as work upon the Century Dic- 
tionarj^ is finished, to observe for him- 
self and gather materials for a woj-k on 
psychic science, which shall at once set 
that department of thought on a stable 
basis, and furnish the key to the religious 
myths of the world. 
Such a man cannot of course bf» a 
member of any orthodox church, or sub- 
scribe to any creed ' Jn religious matters 
he is an extreme radical and free-thinker. 
He holds the vievy tliat much of the 
teaching of the established churches is 
demonstrably false in fact and vicious in 
effect; that some of it is known to be 
such by the professors of religion, and 
taught from unworthy motives for im- 
moral purposes; and yet that there is 
much truth, exaggerated, distorted and 
misunderstood, which only requires to 
be winnowed frona^ the chaff to be a 
blessing instead of a curse, and fruitful 
to human welfare. He takes strong 
ground against the interference of the 
ehuich with state affairs, and his keen 
satires upon ecclesiastical politics have 
more than once ired the clergy of the 
orthodox, protestant and catholic sects. 
Had he lived in the dai.k ages he would 
have been an arch heretic and probably 
gone to the stake. Another revolt of this 
thinker against established usuages is up- 
on the woman question. He has intensified 
the theological odium that his- attitude 
on the church questions aroused by his 
daring and eloquesit championship of 
woman's equal rights in church and 
state, by his recent declaration that the 
church is the chief bulwaik of wonifin's 
slavery, as it was of negro slavery before 
our civil war. The stand he has thus 
taken of late years is that of the most 
radical reform in society and in the 
church, on all the most vital questions of 
the time. As an agitator of such topics 
he shows not less courage than ability 
for "rousing the sleepers," as one of his 
critics lately remarked; and his influence 
upon contemporaneous thought seems 
likely to be still greater in the future 
then it has been in the past. He is such 
a man as the philosopher Emerson might 
have had in his mind's eye when he 
wrote: "Beware when the great God 
lets loose a thinker on the world." 
E. S. Lawton, 
Washington, D. C. 
Prof. J. E. Todd of Tabor College, Tal)or, Ta. 
has been appointed by state geologist Winsiow 
to look up tlie Drift and Soess formation of 
this state. Prof. Todd has aiv.'ii this quesiion a 
large amount of «tudy, and his reports will be 
looked for with interest by the students of 
Geology. 
Mr. Todd spent several days in Kansas City 
and vicinity taking notes of the Drift and Soess 
deposit in this locality. 
