ALPHEUS HYATT: MEMORIAL MEETING. 417 
followed by an explosion from Hyatt with the exclamation, There 
goes my objective again! ” And this occurred day after day. I 
must mention another incident illustrating how thoroughly he 
would become absorbed in his studies. He was specially working 
on certain principles of classification, the outlines of which were 
then dawning upon him. He sat down at a table opposite me to 
write out some views we had been discussing. The table was 
covered with books, the inkstand being on my side of the table. 
So absorbed was he, that no unconscious cerebration led him to move 
the inkstand to the middle of the table whence it would have been 
easily accessible. On the contrary he was forced to reach his pen 
over a few of the books in order to get at the ink. Noticing this, I 
began to hedge the inkstand in with books more completely; book 
after book was added to the impedimenta. Without once noticing 
the obstructive ramparts I was building up, he had partially to rise 
from his chair in order to fill his pen. Finally I perched a huge 
dictionary on top of the pile, and then only, when he had fairly to 
stand up in order to get at the ink, he broke out with, Confound 
it, Edward, what have you been doing! ” 
I have rarely conversed with one who was so stimulating as Mr. 
Hyatt. Every idea brought up in discussing some problem of clas¬ 
sification excited a response which in turn opened new avenues of 
thought. As students, we learned Agassiz’s “Essay on classifica¬ 
tion ” by heart. So eloquently did Agassiz set forth the embryolo- 
gical system of von Baer that it made a profound impression upon us. 
The physio-philosophical system of Oken and the high praise 
accorded him by Agassiz also had its influence, and Hyatt was 
led to consider his investigations from points of view induced by 
the ideas enunciated by these great men. 
I have always believed that Hyatt’s studies of the features attend¬ 
ing old age and ultimately his theory of acceleration and retardation 
received their first impulse from a graphic lecture given by Agassiz 
on the ammonites of the Jura. In the upper beds of the Jura, as 
it is well known, the ammonites assume bizarre forms, the whorls 
become uncoiled, free, and variously turned. In this lecture, 
Agassiz, by way of metaphor, compared the appearance of these 
ammonites to the contortions and death struggles preceding the 
extinction of the group. In referring to these curious forms he 
said: “As if the contortions of death was an idea on which the 
