Alenander Winchell. 109 
permission was given by the author to print the whole in pamphlet 
form. Hence the ‘‘orthodox” bruit which followed respecting his 
‘“insoundness. ” 
1878. On returning, February, 1878, to Vanderbilt University, 
he was received with the same politeness and cordiality. Though 
his work was, in general, the same as before, he occupied some of 
his leisure hours in constructing some pieces of microscopic appa- 
ratus. During the summer he also constructed a small working 
steam-engine of one-fifth horse power. Before leaving Nashville 
he had also completed asurvey of the sanitary geology of the city, 
and drawn up a report to the Board of Health, which was embod- 
ied in the report of the Board for that year, and also was printed 
by the Board in pamphlet form. In making the survey he ran 
two intersecting lines of levels between the extreme limits of the 
city, a work in which his experience as professor of civil engi- 
neering twenty-three years previously, availed him. 
On the morning of the 27th of May, an hour before the 
appointed time for a pubiic address which he had been solicited 
to deliver, as one of the exercises of commencement week, he 
met bishop McTyeire casually, and the latter then proceeded to 
comment on the influence which would be exerted against the 
interests of the university by the professor's heterodox position in 
reference to Preadamites and evolution. He endeavored to show 
the bishop the unreasonableness of objections to an opinion founded 
on scientific evidence, and not held in conflict with fundamental 
religious beliefs; but the latter would not see the subject in that 
light, and asked him to relieve the university of an embarrassment 
by declining a reappointment. This he indignantly refused to do 
on any such grounds as alleged. He went almost directly to the 
public audience, assembled in the chapel, and delivered an extem- 
poraneous address on Man (nu the Light of Geology. He felt that 
the bishop had been extremely inconsiderate in bringing before 
him so distracting a subject, on the very hour appointed for his 
address, but with that self control which had marked his action in 
yarious other trying occasions, he centered his mind on the topic 
before him, and was subsequently led to believe that the bishop's 
course had acted simply as a stimulus, enabling him to outdo 
himself in eloquence and perspicacity. The address, at all events. 
was praised on every hand. 
The next morning, May 28, 1878, he took a final leave of the 
