George 11 ant I lufton W'ilUams. — Chirke. 71 
ment, were to him a wholesome stimulus toward tlie best M-liich 
life could atford. 
He was of a fine nervous temperament, which, if it prevent- 
ed a high degree of physical robustness, nevertheless infused 
both body and mind with activity- To many who knew him 
well it was a source of surprise that he endured so sturdily 
the often arduous strain of geological field work, and that it 
ever became to him a means of bodily repair and refreshment. 
Yet it was his mind that was normally and b}' nature more 
richly endowed than his ])ody. 
During his earl}^ training in the public schools of Utica, 
terminating with his graduation from the Utica Free Acad- 
em3% he left traces all along of the first degree of excellence. 
In the autumn of 1874 he entered Amherst college. Here 
he showed the same proficiency in all lines of academic 
work, loving and excellent in the languages and their clas- 
sics, stout in mathematics; the two essential ingredients 
of the first half of such a course. The former kindled a flame 
which was never allowed to die, and to these accomplishments 
must be due in no small degree, his broader and more delight- 
ful tastes. 
I am not aware that Mr. Williams had manifested any es- 
pecial aptitude for natural science during his boyhood; a re- 
spect in which he was like many who have attained eminence 
as investigators and philosophers in this field of knowledge. 
The rigors of his preliminary training and earlier college 
course may^ have afforded no opportunity for the development 
of such tastes, and the scientific instinct was dormant until 
he came into contact, in his junior j^ear, with that devoteil 
teacher, professor B. K. Emerson. 
I recall his enthusiastic devotion to zoolog}^ (a subject whicii 
at that time came within the scope of professor P^merson's 
work), which seemed for him a door opening into a new world 
of interest. And when he touched the living rock and had 
become thoroughly enamored of geology, his fondness for its 
zoological side long clung to him. 
Being graduated in 1878, a portion of tiie following year 
was spent at Amherst in post-graduate work. Petrography 
was then a virtually new science in this country. Zirkel, of 
Leipzig, had aroused an interest in the microscopical study 
