THE 
AMERICAN GEOLOGIST. 
VOL. XXXV. MAY, 1905. NO. 4. 
BENJAMIN WEST FRAZIER. 
PORTRAIT— PLATE XV. 
This thorough and learned geologist, mineralogist, and me- 
tallurgist, was bom in Philadelphia, October 3, 1841, and died 
January 4, 1905, aged sixty-four years, in Bethlehem, Pennsyl- 
vania, at the head of the department of Mineralogy in Lehigh 
University. 
It has been the melancholy duty of the present writer to 
prepare obituary notices of several leading members of our 
profession in these and other columns, and it has always hap- 
pened that the study, for this purpose, of each character, has 
revealed one or more admirable traits which assisted the pos- 
sessor to his place in the world of science. In the present 
case the enviable characteristics of professor Frazier, while 
assisting him to deserve, have hindered him from accepting, 
the very eminent place as a man of science which is his right. 
He entered the sophomore class of the department of Arts 
of the University of Pennsylvania in 1856, graduating in 1859. 
The period between this and his departure for Europe was 
occupied partly in the counting house of his uncle, Joseph Ca- 
bot; partly in reading law; and finally, when he had decided 
upon a scientific career, in preparation at Booth and Garrett's 
chemical laboratory. 
The studies which he had intended should fit him for his 
profession were interrupted by the civil war of 1861, during 
the course of which he twice served with the emergency men 
of the Pennsylvania militia. On the re-establishment of peace 
he married Miss Alice Clarke of New York, and with his bride 
visited Europe to attend the best technical schools of geology, 
