Biographical Notice of Eoenezer Emmons. — Marcoii. 15 
another work of the first order, on account of the excellent figures 
and descriptions of fossil plants of the Triassic types and of ver- 
tebrate remains. He completed the palasontological part of his 
North Carolina discoveries the following year in publishing his 
Part VI. of "American Geology, " Albany, 1S57, devoted en- 
tirely to fossil animals and plants of the Permian and Triassic 
systems of the Atlantic slope. In it, Emmons describes the 
oldest mammal }*et found under the name Dromatherium sylvestre. 
All the drawings made by his son, E. Emmons Jr. , are well exe- 
cuted, being accurate and far superior to all the figures of other 
fossil plants published until then and even since in North Amer- 
ica. We can add that later publications on the same subject 
made by the U. S. Geological Survey are not superior in an}- re- 
spect, as well for the drawings as for the descriptions and deter- 
minations ; and that Dr. Emmons' works on the Triassic flora of 
North Carolina remain the standard and authoritative publications 
on American palaeophytology. Dr. Emmons also was very suc- 
cessful in his important and valuable reports on the agriculture of 
the states of New York and North Carolina, seven volumes of 
which were issued between 1846 and 1860. 
The painful strain put upon him, a northern man and loyal to 
the Union, by the great civil war, was too much. In some of his 
letters to me, he says : ' ' Our political iustitutions tremble. The' 
South is really in hostile attitude to the North.". . . . "The politi- 
cal condition under which we are living in the South is quite op- 
pressive. I cannot but look with great fear upon the results of 
agitation, and it unfits me for work. " 111 health soon confined 
Dr. Emmons to his plantation, Brunswick county, where he died 
on the 1st of October, 1863, surrounded I)}- his wife and son. 
His remains were brought home and interred in the Albany Rural 
Cemetery. All his valuable papers, field notes, maps, books, 
etc . left in North Carolina after his death, in a supposed safe 
place, were lost and are probably destroyed. 
The portrait given is from a small daguerreotype taken in the 
early time of the art, and is the only likeness of him. 
The letter reproduced by photo-lithography is a lair example of 
his writing and signature. It was addressed t<> professor Jules 
Marcou, Chestnut street, Boston, Mass. 
