THE 
AMERICAN GEOLOGIST. 
Vol. XIV. DECEMBER, 1894. No. 6. 
SKETCH OF DR. JOHN LOCKE. 
By N. H. Winchell, Minneapolis, Minn. 
(Plate X. Portrait.) 
Fifty years ago the person of John Locke, of Cincinnati, 
was a familiar object to the higher circles of science in that 
city. No less familiar to the geologists of fifty years ago was 
the personality of his genius and the power of his industrious 
pen. As a geologist, however, his career was short. He re- 
turned to the medical profession, and secondarily to physics 
and astronomy. His chief laurels will always be found in the 
contributions which he made to other sciences, yet as an orig- 
inal contributor to geology he was associated with Owen, 
Hall, Shumard, Whittlesey and Foster. 
Born Feb. 19, 1792, at Lempster, N. IL, he spent his boy- 
hood at Bethel, Maine, where his father was proprietor of 
"Locke's mills," still known.* Here he took much interest in 
the machinery of the mill and in the physical problems in- 
volved, exhibiting a precociousness which marked him 
throughout his early career, and which took the direction of 
mathematics and natural science. He became greatly inter- 
ested in botany, and published a text book which \\;is ad- 
*The writer is under obligations to Mr, J, B. Locke, of Zumbrota, 
Minn., nephew of Dr. John Locke, for much information concerning 
the personal -history and character of Dr. John Locke, and for the use 
of a copy of the memorial address of l>r. ?I. B. Wright, delivered at the 
requesi of the Cincinnati Medical Society. There is also an accounl of 
l>r. Locke in l lie "History of Bethel, Me.." published in 1891, bj Dr. 
Wm. B. Lapham. Col. ('has. Whittlesey also gave a brief, appreciative 
sketch of him in the Magazine of Western History. 1885, p. 84. In the 
Am. .lour. Sci. (2), wii. p. 801, is a brief obituary notice, of thirteen 
lines. There is also a sketch in the "Locke genealogy," Boston, 1853. 
