4 The American Geologist. January, 1902. 
polean.” It is not too much to claim that, if they were to be 
sent out now over his own signature, without comment, geolo- 
gists unfamiliar with them, would consider them newly written. 
So well had he threshed out his material that revision at this 
late date would be merely technical and probably wholly unnec- 
essary. Thus at the threshold of his career, he appears with 
character and habits thoroughly formed by his rigid school- 
ing, and although he grew in strength and influence in later 
years, he never failed to “go to the bottom” of his subject, even 
at the start. 
A great crisis in his life came about this time. He was not 
the only one who was made to suffer for conscience sake at 
that period. The revolutionary ideas of Darwin, supported 
by an overwhelming array of facts accumulated slowly for 
years, now came irresistibly before Edward Claypole as a 
newly forged tool with which to work upon the raw materials 
of earth. But it cost him heavily to retain it. 
The widespread revolution in thought at the time of the ap- 
pearance of Charles Darwin’s treatise on “The Origin of 
Species,” which gave impetus to the doctrine of evolution, we 
may suppose was much more bitter in Claypole’s environment 
by reason of its nearness to the fountain-head. At any rate, the 
young man, now nearly thirty-five, recovering slowly from 
results of the financial depression of 1866, with increasing 
family and bowed down over the loss of his estimable wife, was 
soon compelled to stand champion for that science to which 
he had then committed himself. It became necessary to re- 
nounce his allegiance or to forfeit his means of support. The 
authorities of Stokescroft College, at Bristol, where he was 
teaching, were alarmed by the tendency of his influence over 
students, impelling them to think for themselves. They insist- 
ed upon a statement of his religious beliefs. This appearing 
to clearly demand of him a branding of the hypothesis of evo- 
lution as heretical and forbidden doctrine, he declined to 
acquiesce, and his resignation followed as a necessity. 
Only those who bear the scars of cruel wounds received in 
that memorable conflict can fully appreciate the depth of moral 
courage necessary to meet the issue as Claypole met it, with his 
surroundings and necessities. And with all that, he was soon 
forced to quit his native land and all his family ties to seek a 
