236 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
Mr. Bouve’s Work in Geology and Mineralogy. 
BY W. O. CROSBY. 
During the thirty years prior to 1870, when he became President 
of the Society, Mr. Bouv6 was continuously Curator of either Min¬ 
eralogy or Geology or both, but we search in vain through his 
admirable history of the Society’s first five decades for any adequate 
account of his own labors in its behalf. However, although belong¬ 
ing to a later generation, T have had abundant opportunity to learn 
with what rare zeal and fidelity he served the Society in these 
capacities; and I feel justified in stating that our extensive and 
efficient collections of minerals, rocks, and fossils were in a large 
measure created by him. It was throughout, evidently, a labor of 
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love on his part; and that fact alone can explain how he was able 
to find in these busiest years of his life the great amount of time 
which this work must have required. Nor did his devotion to these 
departments cease with his accession to the Presidency. It was my 
privilege, during the greater part of the decade when he was at the 
head of the Society’s affairs, to work with him or under his direc¬ 
tion in the care of these collections; and I can, therefore, speak 
from intimate personal knowledge of his methods. What most 
strongly impressed me were his affectionate regard for the speci¬ 
mens and his absolute conscientiousness in every detail of the work. 
I often recall with much profit his painstaking investigations of 
individual specimens. He spared no pains to remove the last modi¬ 
cum of doubt as to the authenticity of species, variety, locality, 
composition, or formation, nor hesitated to use the query mark when 
the desired result could not be attained. Both catalogue and labels 
were written with great care in the round, print-like, and eminently 
legible script with which many of us are so familiar. I have fre¬ 
quently remarked to him that I could see little advantage in the 
substitution of printed labels for his beautifully written ones. 
Working in this methodical manner, progress could not be rapid 
when measured by hours. But what was done was well done ; and 
he came again the next day and the next, for half an hour or an 
hour in the morning and as long as daylight lasted in the afternoon, 
making this work, which he loved so well and called his recreation, 
a part of his daily routine. Thus month by month, without haste 
or faltering, important and enduring results were accomplished. 
