PKOCEEDINGS OE THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
117 
Professor Hartt was a man of marked personality and unbounded in¬ 
fluence with young men. In this contribution the author presents him 
in a two-fold aspect: 1, as the teacher; 2, as the man of science. His 
career at Cornell was comparatively brief (1868-1878 nominally, but real¬ 
ly much less), yet he left a deep and lasting impression upon the institu¬ 
tion. 
The lesson of his life is wholesome and encouraging to those who 
would aspire to either a professional or a scientific career. The key-note 
of his influence is expressed in this paragraph: But the greatest source of 
our inspiration lay in the fact that our teacher earned on his private 
work in our presence. His industry, patience, and devotion served us 
as an example; his enthusiasm aroused us—we seemed to share his labor. 
Research, investigation, they had for us a different meaning now—had 
we not seen the Truth-seeker as he unraveled Nature’s secrets? Manu¬ 
scripts, drawings, publications, conversations in the brief intervals of 
rest—all kept the youthful mind in a glow of healthful excitement. 
And soon, under his fostering care, some of the advanced and special 
students began the preparation of original papers. 
Hartt’s scientific career began in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 
His discovery of insect-remains in the Devonian shales, “Fern Ledges,” 
near St. John, at the time the oldest fossils of the kind known, gave him 
widespread fame. Upon the invitation of Professor Louis Agassiz he 
went to Cambridge (1863) to study, and later accompanied his distin¬ 
guished teacher to Brazil as one of the geologists of the Thayer expedi¬ 
tion (1865). Becoming interested in the empire, it was thereafter 
the field of his scientific labor. In 1867 he returned for further investi¬ 
gations and study, and in 1870 and 1871 he conducted the first and 
second Morgan expeditions. On the first of these he was accompanied 
by a large party of his Cornell students, which added not a little to his 
care and responsibility. “If,” he wrote, “to discover a new carboniferous 
fauna will repay a journey to Brazil, of how much greater importance 
is the discovery of a new naturalist! Had the expedition produced no 
other result than to have added four new men to science, I should have 
considered time and money amply well spent.” 
Hartt’s final trip to Brazil was made in the autumn of 1874, and the 
following spring he was made chief of the Imperial Geological Commis¬ 
sion. The succeeding years of his life were full of activity and responsi¬ 
bility. Doubtless, at times, he suffered from the severe nervous strain at¬ 
tendant upon the management of such an enterprise. The end came 
suddenly. In -the spring of 1878 he fell ill, dying rather unexpectedly 
on the 18tli of March—a victim, it was supposed, of yellow fever—at 
the comparatively early age of thirty-seven years and seven months. 
Of his many investigations, mention may be made of his work upon 
