Edward Claypole, The Scientist—Comstock. 5 
home in a foreign clime, with three motherless infants demand- 
ing his care. His noble wife died in 1870, leaving a young son 
and twin daughters, the latter but a few weeks old. 
Bravely he battled against an overwhelming tide of «iisaster, 
striving to avert the necessity of removal to America. In 1872, 
he was the successful applicant for the professorship of mathe- 
matics and natural science in the University College of Abery- 
stwyth, Wales; but he had not completed arrangements for 
transfer to this post, when the same bigoted spirit appeared 
there, and he was not permitted to assume the work. 
He then came to the United States, in October, 1872, 
thinking to meet a more tolerant attitude on this side of the 
Atlantic. His hopes were not realized. Almost at this date 
(about August, 1871) the present writer was proposed as can- 
didate for a vacancy in geology, in an American college, and 
was informed in a letter from one of his supporters that his 
election was liable to follow; “‘but,” he added, “if you go there, 
you must keep very dark on the subject of evolution”. Declin- 
ing further consideration of the matter for that reason, his 
friends supported another candidate, now a prominent college 
president, who failed to get the appointment, because he also 
could not “keep silent regarding evolution.” These matters are 
mentioned here to recall the spirit of those times and to make 
clear how severe was the struggle made by Dr. Claypole in 
his persistent determination to acquire the mere right to seek 
truth and exercise his best judgment unhindered. 
Can we doubt that the tight drawn lips, which betokened 
his unswerving firmness of character, were mainly due to these 
harsh experiences? But whence came that tolerant smile and 
the long life afterwards of gentle and manly defense of those 
wrongly accused, with never a word to wound, but ever a kind- 
_ly thought for others? Undoubtedly these were the very re- 
sult of these trials which tested and proved him true. Much 
of this lofty character was inherited, but if we read aright, 
his scientific work, as well as his earnest, simple life and his 
power to think and to tell and to do, came even more from 
this bitter school of experience in which he was not the 
teacher, but the faithful learner. 
Very few know how he struggled through the first years 
of his residence in America. There was no welcome then for 
