22 
Bulletin of Natui'ol History Society. 
lost a chance to learn a new word or idiom, or to make use of his 
knowledge. In such cases as these, the affair was of course but little 
more than a pastime, but when he came in contact with the native 
Brazilian races he applied himself to the study of their languages in all 
seriousness, with the result that he soon came to be one of a very few 
Tapi scholars, and accumulated much material upon the native Brazil- 
ian languages. 
Ethnologic studies interested him deeply, and his work led him 
more and more in that direction. Had he lived, I have no doubt he 
w’ould eventually have devoted himself entirely to the study of South 
American ethnology 
Hartt's strong points were enthusiasm and versatility. . . . He 
loved scientific work for its own sake and with all his heart, and he 
could scarcely entertain the idea of abandoning it for the administrative 
duties of chief of the Geological Survey. He tried hard to do both and 
found it impossible ; he became very nervous and suffered greatly from 
insomnia. On several occasions I have stayed with him all night try- 
ing, with but poor success, to divert his mind from the affairs that 
annoyed him most. At such times he scarcely closed his eyes during the 
•entire night. 
It is not difficult to sum up Hartt’s influence upon geological work 
in Brazil, for with very few exceptions all the work of this character 
which has been done in that country since 1874 is traceable, either 
directly or indirectly, to the impetus given it by Hartt. For the most 
part the work has been done by some of Hartt’s students and assistants, 
and as he was not a narrow specialist, but a broad-minded naturalist, 
his students have also done other than purely geologic work. Hartt’s 
own writings on Brazilian topics number twenty-eight titles, one of 
which — his “Geology and Physical Geography of Brazil” — is an 
illustrated book of 620 pages. 
Mr. O. A. Derby, Hartt’s first assistant on the Brazilian Survey, 
was, after some delay, appointed assistant director of the National 
Museum, where he has been able to carry on more or less geologic 
work ever since the suspension of the Survey in 1877. During the past 
few years he has been director of a geological survey of the province 
of Sao Paulo, where he is successfully carrying out in detail for that 
province the very work that Hartt hoped to accomplish for the empire, 
]\lr. Derby’s published papers upon Brazilian geology number at least 
fourteen titles, and he now has in press the results of the operations 
carried on under his direction in the province of Sao Paulo. His geo- 
logic work is the most thorough that has been done thus far in Brazil, 
almost all that has been done hitherto partaking more or less of the 
nature of reconnoissances.” 
