2 The American Geologist. "^"i^' i^^^- 
significance of those phenomena of growth and de:rine on 
which so much of his own best work was based, so hip mental 
equipment strikingly exemplifies the vitality of variution. It 
might be difficult to locate the ancestral kernels of his pe- 
culiar mentality, the instinctive love of nature and extraor- 
dinary orderliness of thought that were so pervasive of his 
methods and evident in his achievements. 
He was born at Dunkirk, N. Y., Oct. 9, 1856, md in his 
youth his family moved to Warren, Pa., where his father 
subsequently acquired large business interests. His fond- 
ness for natural science developed earlv and instinctively, ex- 
pressing itself in the zealous acquisitiveness of the collector. 
Before he entered college he had brought together an exten- 
sive series of land and fresh water mollusks, both from the 
home localities and through exchanges from regions more 
remote. He had mastered that group of obscurities, tlie spe- 
cies of the Unionidae. For long his interest in these mol 
lusca held full sway, and he did not make formal surrender of 
his intet"est therein until in later years he found problems 
of broader import growing on him. Contemporaneously grew 
his interest in the geology of his home ground, but this was at 
no time so much a concern for its geological struciure as 
for the acquisition of its fossils. These he collected with 
the greatest avidity and his zeal soon carried him '-ifield into 
the well known localities of New York. After he entered 
Michigan University his summers were regularly spent in 
this pursuit. The volumes of the Paleontology of Ker^ York. 
with their profusion of illustration, were his guide and in 
spiration . 
. On a hot summer day in 1877, pale with weariness, 
he staggered with pack on back into the laboratory of pro- 
fessor James Hall at Albany. He had sought what to him 
had seemed the fountainhead of knowledge of his fossils. 
It had l)cen the goal of many a youthful dream to show to 
the author of the Paleontology of Nezc York the treasures 
he had found. The great and keen-eyed Hall ever had an 
appreciative reception for such endeavor. With the most 
friendly concern he refreshed and nursed this acolyte and 
when strength had returned expressed a lively interest in his 
efforts and his ambitions. On going away Beecher hnd prom- 
