78 The American Geologist. February, 1905 
rope. The title to the address already mentioned as deliv- 
ered before the legislature of Tennessee as a plea for estab- 
lishing a state geological survey names a number of societies 
to which he belonged and in the appended bibliography this 
title is given in full in order to preserve this list. To it the 
writer can add that he was also a member of the Geological 
Society of Pennsylvania, the Geological Society of France 
and the Geological Society of Germany. In addition to 
membership in scientific societies, he was a Mason of high 
degree. 
It is difificult to form a just estimate at this day of Dr. 
Troost's scientific work, largely because of the impossi- 
bility of realizing fully the conditions under which he labor- 
ed. There was very little scientific work being done any- 
where in America in 181 1, and very little in the region west 
of the Appalachian mountains between 1825 and 1850. His 
studies with Hauy and his early occupation in America as a 
manufacturing chemist made him a skillful crystallographer 
and mineralogist and his earlier scientific investigations and 
published papers evinced his great interest in these subjects. 
Although later in life his attention was largely turned to 
natural history, paleontology and geology, it is probable that 
he was always strongest as a mineralogist, though his mono- 
graph on the crinoids of Tennessee, presently to be noticed, 
would if published, have added materially to his prominence 
in paleontology. 
His interest in natural history which had already led 
him to the possession in 1828 of over 400 species of mounted 
birds from the island of Java alone, increased in his later life, 
and in his excursions over the state he collected natural 
history specimens as eagerly as geological ones. He be- 
came particularly interested in reptilian life, and snakes es- 
pecially became a hobby with him. He usually had several 
pet ones around his room and frequently carried one or more 
in his pockets. Students who took him a rare specimen of 
a snake won their way at once into his good graces. Feath- 
erstonhaugh tells of Dr. Troost's traveling on top of a stage 
coach with two large rattlesnakes in a basket when, the 
cover coming unfastened, their peering heads caused a pre- 
cipitate scattering of driver and passengers on top and with- 
