2 The American Geologist. January,1894 
result is highly gratifying to the scientific- men of the United 
States. It proves a growing appreciation of the value of sci- 
ence on the part of the intelligent and influential portion of 
the community. 
But while Dr. Lapham was a scientist, in the broad sense of 
the word, he was specially a geologist, and it is because of his 
alliance with science through the avenues of geological work 
that we desire to review succinctly his life and work in this 
series of sketches.* 
Born in Palmyra, Wayne county, New York, March 7th, 
1811, his father's family participated in the general westward 
flow of migration, removing first to Rochester and Lockport, 
where his father was engaged as a contractor in the construc- 
tion of the Erie canal. He was one of thirteen children and 
had to do his share for the support of the family. He assisted 
his father as a stone-cutter, and later was aid to his older 
brother in laying out a road on the Canada side of the Niag- 
ara river, down the steep banks below the falls. He worked 
also on the Welland canal and on the Miami canal. In 1827 he 
was employed on the canal constructed round the falls of the 
Ohio, and in that year, at the age of sixteen, sent to Benjamin 
Silliman, editor of the American journal of Science and Arts, 
•'A notice of the Louisville and Shippingsport canal, and of the 
geology of the vicinity." It was illustrated by plans, geological 
sections and a map — all executed with artistic skill — and con- 
tained the first published notice of the occurrence of petroleum 
in the cavities of limestone rocks. f For three years subsequently 
he was assistant engineer on the Ohio canal, and lived at 
Portsmouth. In 1832 he published an article on the Geology 
of Ohio, in conjunction with his elder brother, giving obser- 
vations on the distribution of the primitive and other boulders. 
These two brothers for several years worked together inti- 
mately, each writing to the other the new observations he 
*Miss Julia A. Lapham, Oconomowoc, Wis., has furnished a mass of 
historical memoranda from the manuscripts and records left by Dr. 
Lapham, for use in the preparation of this sketch, including scrap- 
books, unpublished scientific papers, letters and personal incidents. 
The author has also made use of a memorial of Dr. Lapham by Charles 
Mann, read before the Wisconsin Historical Society, and another by S. 
S. Sherman, read before the Old Settlers' Club, Milwaukee, Dec. 11, 
1875. 
tOp. cit., vol. xiv, p. 65, 1828. 
