70 Tlie American Geologist. February, 1815 
logical science in America. As the aged Cato is made to say, 
this life has been quenched, not xjermitted to burn out. At 
the \erj threshold of his prime, with all his powers s^nnmet- 
rically ripening, and in the promise of a future glorious to 
himself and the sciences he loved, he is stopped. The pang is 
such as rent the heart at the too early departure of Roland D. 
Irving and H. Carvill Lewis. 
American geology is now called to mourn not simply be- 
cause one of its workers has fallen by the way, but in that it 
has lost that rare product among its devotees, a well-rounded 
man of broad culture, wide interests and generous instincts, 
an investigator of astuteness and notable success, a teacher of 
magnetic fervor, a speaker of polished fluency and trenchant 
aptness. It is a loss we could ill afford, for which there seems 
now no compensation, from which none can reap a benefit 
and all suffer only bereavement. The key to the mystery is 
in the keeping of heaven. 
Professor AVilliams died of typhoid fever on the twelfth of 
July last, at his childhood's home in Utica, N. Y. During 
the scorching days of early summer, while in the field upon 
the Piedmont plateau of Maryland, he drank freely of a germ- 
poisoned well. His system, tired and exhausted by the labors 
of the academic year, gave way to the attack which followed. 
He was born at Utica, January 28th, 1856, and was, hence, 
in his thirty-ninth year. His father, Robert S. Williams, a 
prominent citizen of that city, a man of substantial and en- 
nobling tastes, surrounded his three children, of whom our 
lamented friend was the eldest, with the refining influence of 
such interests, coupled with sturdy virtues drawn from a long 
line of Puritan heritage. As the writer knew it fifteen years 
ago, it was a home whence emanated only inspirations of the 
good, the beautiful and the true, where gentler influences 
reigned and where a mighty and well-selected library cast an 
irresistible charm. 
No one could have held a livelier appreciation of such early 
advantages than did Williams himself, and while he accounted 
the lack of them in another no fault or necessary obstacle to 
success, he was quick to see that it was not without signifi- 
cance. Circumstances which would have left many another 
less keenly alive to the need of an active, vigorous employ- 
