2 TIlC AllKrican Geologist. January, 1S98 
of life to environment. Numerous letters to newspapers were 
written from the field, and his botanical notes were afterward 
extensively used in more formal writings. 
Returning to Cincinnati after two years of western life, he 
was appointed (1881) custodian of the Society of Natural His- 
tory, a position he held for six years, and he became also pro- 
fessor of medical botany in the Cincinnati College of Phar- 
macy. In the first part of this period his interest and work 
continued in the field of botany, but paleontological and geo- 
logical papers began to appear in 1884, the Cincinnati group 
affording the principal themes. 
In 1884 he was married to Sarah C. Stubbs, of Cincinnati, 
who had been a teacher of botany and physiology in the city 
high school. The union was a happy one, and his later labors 
liad the advantage of a sympathetic and efficient helpmeet. 
With two sons she survives him. 
In 1886 he was elected to the chair of botany and geology 
of the Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, but this position 
was lost two years later through a disruption of the faculty 
arising from religious prejudices. He was then for one year 
professor of natural history in the Agricultural College of 
Maryland. The work of teaching did not prevent the con- 
tinuance of scientific study, and a number of papers from his 
l)en appeared during this time. In these writings geology, 
paleontology and botany are about equally represented, the 
chief subjects being those which had occupied his attention at 
Cincinnati. 
While in Maryland he began work in connection with the 
United States Geological Survey and in 1889 was appointed 
on the staff as assistant paleontologist, being assigned to the 
division of paleozoic paleontology. The acquiring of this posi- 
tion, which for years had been a cherisht ambition, proved 
only the occasion of- another disappointment, for the work it 
gave him was largely of subsidiary and routine character, not 
affording the opportunities for authorship to which he had 
lookt forward. Two years later he received an appointment 
in the United States Department of Agriculture, having past 
highest in a special examination by the Civil Service Com- 
mission for an assistant vegetable pathologist, and in this 
capacity he served for four years. Here also his duties were 
