THE 
AMERICAN GEOLOGIST. 
Vou. XXIX. JANUARY 1902. No. 7: 
EDWARD CLAYPOLE-THE SCIENTIST. 
By Dr. THEO. B. Comstock, Los Angeles, Cal. 
‘Learned in the lore which Nature can impart, 
Teaching that sweet philosophy. aloud 
Which sees the ‘silver lining’ of the cloud— 
Looking for good in all beneath the skies— 
These are the truly wise!” 
Sixty years ago, in the little village of Ross, Hereford, Eng- 
land, on the river Wye made famous by Tennyson, there tived 
the Rev. Edward Angell Claypole,.a worthy Baptist minister of 
more than ordinary erudition, with his devoted and capable 
Wife, née Elizabeth Blunt. Their son, Edward Waller Clay- 
‘pole, was the eldest of their six children, and his early life was 
not passed in idleness nor in the midst of luxury. He inherited 
sturdy qualities from. both parents. Although it does not ap- 
pear in the records accessible that much direct. encouragement 
came from them towards the prosecution of scientific studies; 
and although we know that his final determination in that di- 
rection cost him and them untold pangs over unreconcilable 
differences of opinion; yet there can be traced in all his after 
career a consecration of self and an indomitable will, not less 
the heritage of the hard schooling of his ancestors in the Scotch 
school of divinity at the university of Edinburgh, because it 
led the young truth-seeker into then forbidden paths. His 
father, in a different sphere, would have been as true to his own 
convictions had not his little world then happened to be in 
agreement with him. His paternal grandfather had seceded 
from the established church, becoming a Baptist dissenter, un- 
der like circumstances. Independence of thought and a tend- 
ency to liberal ideas were, therefore, deeply rooted in the family 
soil. 
