712 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
beginning until his death in 1875. They fittingly represent three 
groups of the members of the Academy and three eras in its 
history: those of the pioneer days, those who helped to establish 
modern learning in the State, and those who have contributed 
largely to the advance of science in its more recent phases nearly 
or quite to the close of the first half-century of the Academy’s 
life. 
Dr. Hoy and Dr. Lapham represent the pioneer period of 
science in the State. Dr. Lapham, the surveyor, was also botan¬ 
ist, meteorologist, and geologist; Dr. Hoy, the busy country 
physician, was also a naturalist, especially on the side of zoology. 
Professor Allen and Professor Irving, in turn, were among the 
first men to bring modern scholarship to the state, Professor 
Allen in the departments of Latin and history and Professor 
Irving in geology. Both were members of the faculty of the 
University of Wisconsin, and the work of each was cut short 
by an early death so that their influence was limited to the first 
twenty years of the history of the Academy. Finally Dr. Peck- 
ham as zoologist and Dr. Chamberlin as geologist represent the 
men whose large contributions to science have continued nearly 
or quite to the present time. 
These six members of the Academy may be grouped in still 
another way: Three—Allen, Chamberlin, and Irving—were 
members of the university and their great contributions to 
knowledge are in the field of their professional work; the other 
three—Hoy, Lapham, and Peckham—reached large results by 
giving to science the free hours of lives whose principal duties 
were in other lines. 
Such are some of the considerations which underlie the selec¬ 
tion of the men chosen to represent the Academy during fifty 
years of its life. A brief sketch is given of each of them and 
of his relations to the Academy. 
WILLIAM FRANCIS ALLEN, 1830-1889. 
Professor Allen was born in Massachusetts; be graduated from 
Harvard in 1851 and studied in Europe, 1854-1856. He served with 
the Freedmen’s Aid Commission and the Sanitary Commission during 
the Civil War. He came to the University of Wisconsin in 1867 as 
professor of ancient languages and history, at the time of the reor¬ 
ganization of the University under President Chadbourne. His title 
was changed to professor of Latin and history in 1870; he devoted 
