BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR JOSEPH LE CONTE. 1823-1901, BY EUGENE W. HILGARD. Heap before the National Academy of Sciences April 18, 1907. WASHINGTON, D. C. .JUDD A DETWEILER, INC., PRINTERS 1907 University of California • Berkeley The Peter and Rosell Harvey Memorial Fund Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/biographicalmemoOOhilgrich cx^c^cO BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF JOSEPH LE CONTE. 1823-1901. BY EUGENE W. HILGAKD. Head before the National Academy of .Sciences April 18, 1907. (17) . 147 mattonal acaftcmi? of Sctencee. Arnold Hague, Home Secretary. WASHINGTON, D. C, May 15, 1902. ^ University of California, BerlKieley , California . Dear Sir: - At a meeting of the National Acadeniy of Science held April 16, 1902, you were appointed by President Agassiz to prepare a biographic memoir of our colleague Profes- sor Joseph Le Conte, to be presented to the Academy. The memoir will be printed as one of the publications of the Academy, Yours respectfully, Secretary: . /^ Pm. PEEFATOKY NOTE. In writing the memoir of the life and scientific work of Dr. Joseph Le Conte, it has seemed to me proper and best to follow, so far as practicable, his autobiography, in which the facts, events, and motives are presented by himself in their proper connection and order, better than could be done by any .one else. In the abridgment of his text I have purposely striven to retain in a great measure his own mode of diction and ex- pression, considering it desirable that he should appear essen- tially in the light in which he viewed himself; and that the some- what exceptional mode of mental growth of a man so highly gifted, undei- conditions now fast becoming extinct, should be succinctly i)ut on record in connection with the discussion of his broad scientific work, to which is due (he length of this paper. The writer's long-continued and close personal relations with the subject of this memoir have afforded some side-lights which do not so clearly appear in Le Conte's published writ- ings, and it gives him pleasure -to fulfill herewith a promise mutually mndi* as to the service the survivoi- shonld render to his frieufl. E. W, HiLGARD. Bkkkeley, California, March, 1907. 149 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF JOSEPH LE COiNTE. DESCENT OF THE LE CONTE FAMILY, The distinction achieved by several of the members of the Le Conte family renders it interesting to trace their origin as far back as possible, particularly in the interest of the question of the heredity of mental and intellectual traits. Owing doubtless to the dissensions of the times during the persecution of the Huguenots under Louis XIV, Guillaume, the ancestor of the American Le Contes, adopted the name of his mother, of the house of the Barons de Xonant, in N'ormandy. His paternal name has not been traced by the family. There is a tradition that he was warned of impending danger by King Louis himself. He fled to Holland, from where he joined the great Stadholder, William of Orange, in the invasion of Eng- land, He subsequently also served with distuiction in the Eng- lish war for the conquest of Ireland, and in 1698 emigrated to America, whither two cousins of the Nonant line had preceded him. Like many other Huguenots, he settled at New Rochelle, N'ew York, where at that time we find domiciled also another group of Le Contes or Le Comtes, apparently unrelated. In 1701 Guillaume married Marguerite de Valleau, of Mar- tinique. The report that he married twice appears to be un- founded. Both died of yellow fever in 1710. Three children were born of this marriage, viz., Guillaume, Pierre, and Esther, of whom the latter probably died in childhood. Guillaume the younger married Elise Anne Beslie, of New Rochelle, by whom he had one child, a daughter, from whom descended Mother Seton, the founder of the Sisters of Charity in this country, and the late Archbishop Bayley, of Baltimore. The second son of Guillaume the elder. Dr. Pierre Le Conte, who lived in 'New Jersey, married twice. His second wife wai? Valeria Eatton (related to the Biddle, Baird, and Berrien 151 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. families), by wliom he had five children — William, John Eatton, Margaret, Thomas, and Pierre. William became a lawyer and took a prominent part in the E evolutionary struggle in Georgia, whither he, as well as Thomas and Pierre the younger, had moved. The latter two never married. John Eatton, from whom all subsequent Le Contes are de- scended, was bom in 1739, and died in New Jersey in 1822. He spent his summers in New York and his winters on his plantation, "Woodmanston," in Liberty county, Georgia. Like his brother William, he was accounted a "malignant" and rebel. In 1776 he married Jane Sloane, of New York, by whom he had three sons. The eldest, William, died unmarried. Louis, born in 1782, went to Georgia and there married Anne Quarterinan, who became the mother of John and of Joseph Le Conte, the subject of this sketch. John Eatton, the third son, became a major in the U. S. Corps of Topographical Engineers, and married Ann Lawrence, who became the mother of John L. Le Conte, the distinguished entomologist. Louis, the father of Joseph Le Conte, born in New Jersey in 1782, was educated in New York, graduating at Columbia College when only seventeen years old. He studied medicine imder Dr. Hosack for some time, but is not known to have graduated as a physician, his main object being probably to practice on his owti plantation. He was, however, called "doctor." Louis Le Conte was a remarkable man, and his influence on the characters and life pursuits of his sons was so great that his life and character must be briefly considered. He lived on the "Woodmanston" plantation in Liberty county, Georgia. The region had been settled by a community of English Puritans, who originally founded Dorchester, Massachusetts; they were very morai and somewhat clannish and exclusive, so that when Louis came among them he was considered an outsider; but eventually, after his marriage with one of the members of the exclusive set, the warmest mutual relations were established. He was greatly interested in scientific pursuits, especially chem- istry and botany; and in the then unexplored field by which he was surrounded he identified the described species and discovered many new plants, but never named or published them, and 152 JOSEPH LE CONTFJ. freely gave his material to his scientific friends. His beautiful garden became known all over the United States and brought many visitors, who wei*e hosi)itably entertained. His botanical insight disliked the mechanical arrangement of the Linncan system, so that he always referred his plants to their natural relationships. He was also a skillful mathematician. Aside from these intellectual pursuits, he attended personally to the management of his large plantation, with 200 slaves, whom he regarded as a heavy responsibility and constantly strove to con- trol by religious and moral instruction, for wbich special "praise- houses" were established in the community. The negroes were greatly attached to him and proud of calling him "master." Tfe also exerted himself in belialf of tbe instruction and general betterment of the condition of the white "crackers" inhabiting the pine woods souie distance away. 'I'hough not a member of any particular church, his benevolence and charity made him universally beloved and respected. It was under these influences, to which was doubtless added the inheritance of their mother's highly artistic temperament, together with natural surroundings of great beauty and scientific interest, in which the children were free to roam at will, that their characters and temperaments were shaped. The issue of Louis' marriage were four sons and three daughters, of whom one died in infancy. The other six children grew up to marry and have children of their own. The mother, however, died early (in 1826), so. that her direct influence upon Joseph could have been but slight ; but her death prostrated the father, who remained plunged in gloom for years, until by the marriage of the elder children, William and Jane, grandchildren came to dispel, in a measure, the cloud of sadness. But the in- ter^^ening period of sorrow had greatly impressed its seriousness upon the children and influenced their temperaments. BOYHOOD AND COLLEGE EDUCATION OF JOSEPH LE CONTE. Joseph Le Conte was born February 26, 1823, being the fifth child and the youngest son. \Yitli his three brothers, of whom Lewis was the nearest to him in age, he was accustomed to range the woods, fields, and swamps of the region freely, in quest of game, fish, and specimens of natural history, upon which the 153 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. father then commented instructively. Joseph became a good marksman, fisherman, swimmer, and athlete; in the latter ac- complishment he afterwards greatly excelled. Of necessity, play- things, marbles, bows and arrows, canoes, and even rudimentary firearms, were made by the boys themselves. Joseph's formal schooling was scanty, in a country school supported by a few families and which was constantly changing teachers ; but among the latter there was for two years Alexander H. Stephens, sub- sequently United States Senator and Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy, with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. His imagination was much excited by the tales told and accounts given by imported negroes, of things in their native land, and of border warfare in which they had participated. His country schooling and boy life ended in December, 1838, when, as he was about to go to college at the age of not quite 16 years, his father died from accidental blood-poisoning, at the age of 55 years. This event, which he had always put away from himself as almost impossible', stunned and dazed him; but, in obedience to his father's expressed wishes, he left home a week afterward, with his brothers John and Lewis, for the college at Athens, Georgia, 300 miles away; he up to that time having never been more than eight miles away from home. It was a week's Journey, mostly by stage, and brought him in con- tact with an unfamiliar world — not very attractive to him, for he suffered severely from nostalgia for several months. The temptations usually supposed to beset young students entering college seem to have been no temptations to him; all coarse- ness and vulgarity merely repelled him, and he simply and naturally kept away from them and their devotees. During the first year he received a letter from his eldest brother, William, a deeply religious man of the old orthodox type and his legal guardian. This letter "ajluded with distress and doubt to their father's dying outside of the pale of any church" and vehemently urged upon Joseph the necessity of "fleeing from the wrath to come." This letter greatly distressed and impressed him, and at a religious "revival" he and his brothers, with many other students, joined the Presbyterian Church, although the church at Midway was of the Puritan-Congregationalist faith ; but they concluded that the Presbyterian was "good enough" for them. 154 JOSEPH LE CONTE. He refers to tliis as a great crisis in his life, having experienced a sudden, almost miraculous conversion, followed by great joy and relief. He says that "the change was a sense of the de- liverance from the fear of death and the hereafter — not the establishment of a new relation, but the discovery of the true relation existing." But his elder brother's admonition that he might feel it liis duty to become a minister of the gospel did not prevail, and he remarks that "one may be a preacher of right- eousness in more ways than one." Although a member of one of the college literary societies, he never became a good debater; but he greatly delighted in the society of refined women, and entertained toward women in general a romantic feeling, as toward superior beings, which he declares to be "tlie greatest of all safeguards for the purity of young men." Le Conte does not attribute to himself any unusual diligence in study while in college; yet he was both a junior and senior orator, the titles of his addresses being "True Greatness" and "Love of Ti-uth, the Highest Incentive to Effort." The manu- scripts of these efforts he afterwards destroyed because dis- satisfied with them. "The skillful putting together of common- places of literature into a brilliant patchwork" he states he could never do, and that "the ability to write anything of value iCame late," and not until he "had independent thoughts of his own." During his college course at Athens the natural-history sciences were almost wholly neglected, these being but feebly represented in the faculty. Charles F. McCay seems to have impressed him as the only strong man in the faculty, he repre- senting mathematics and physics. Le Conte's college life was uneventful, not even accompanied by the usual "pranks." His vacations were passed at the old plantation or with his brother William, at Cedar Hill, where he renewed his old sports of hunting, fishing, &c. In January, 1841, that brother died — "the second great affliction I have suf- fered by death." 155 IS'ATIONAti ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. POSTGRADUATE STUDIES AND TRAVELS. Le Conte and his brother Lewis graduated from the Athens College in August, 1841. Their sister Anne having graduated about the same time, the three agreed to make a tour of the Northern States. During this first excursion into the outer world, they visited first the city of Washington, with the mag- nificence of whose buildings and monuments they were greatly impressed, as also by the oratory of Webster, Calhoun, and Clay in Congress. After a week at the capital they visited Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and Cambridge, returning via New York, where there was a family reunion, their married sister, Jane, and their brother John, lately married, gathering at the house of their uncle, John Eatton Le Conte, the father of John Lawrence, the entomologist, the latter then but sixteen years of age. Eeturning in November, all stayed during winter at Woodmanston plantation, with their sister Jane. On this occasion Joseph become acquainted with John T. Nisbet, the uncle of his future wife. Hunting, fishing, and excursions oc- cupied their time. In spring and summer more extended. ex- cursions were made, from Macon and Athens into the mountains of Georgia. Thereafter Joseph began the study of medicine under Dr. Charles West, at Macon, until the beginning of winter, which he again passed at the old plantation, riding, hunting, and fishing in company with his cousin, John L., who had come on I visit which was greatly enjoyed by both. About this time the great comet of 1843 appeared, and greatly impressed him. This summer he first met his future wife at the house of his friend Nisbet, but at that time he was not per- manently impressed; in fact, another fair face held his atten- tion just then. Le Conte now determined^ to take up medical studies in New York, and attended the winter course (1843-1844) of four months at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Among his instructors were Dr. Torrey and Dr. Lewis Sayre. He charac- terizes the course as a period of regular cram and hard work, such as, it will be noted, had not fallen to his lot during any of his previous rather care-free life. 15(3 JOSEPH LE CONTE. It was doubtless the taste for outdoor and more or less physic- ally strenuous life that led him to undertake, in company with his cousin, John \j., an excursion to the then Far West, the headwaters of the Mississippi, via Niagara, Buffalo, Detroit, and the Great Lakes. This trip he considers as a very important phase in his development, as it attracted his attrition perma- nently to the great geological features passing before him, and gave renewed and definite direction to his subsequent chief work. Hence some space must be given to its discussion. His comments on the conditions then prevalent in what are now some of the chief centers of commercial and industrial activity are very interesting. Buffalo and Detroit were then small towns, with little indication of their future greatness; tlie University of Michigan was ni its beginnings. At Detroit, where they passed a week in pleasant company, they were per- suaded to visit the Lake Superior country, to which they pro- ceeded by the regular steamer via Lakes Huron and Michigan, stopping at Fort Mackinac and at Chicago, then a budding city of 5,000 inhabitants. At Mackinac they first saw birch-bark canoes, which, upside down, were serving as sleeping quarters for the Indians. Captain Scott, the commander of the fort and a noted hunter of -the time, to whom they had letters of in- troduction, entertained them hospitably and introduced them to some of the salient features of the Far West. From Mackinac they went by canoe to Sault Ste. Marie, having provided them- selves with buffalo robes at a cost of one dollar each. At the Sault they met Colonel Gratiot, who was on the way from St. Louis with a party of miners to explore the copper mines at Keweenah Point. The Le Contes were invited to join the party, and passed three delightful weeks at Eagle Harbor, which town they thus helped to found, taking an active part in the building of log cabins, and hunting and fishing between-times. The copper mines do not seem to have attracted Joseph Le Conte's special attention at the time. From Eagle Harbor they again took sailing vessel to La Pointe, then an Indian agents' station and also that of the American Fur Company. Here they found a camp of about 300 Indians, whose pagan Sunday services they attended in the 151 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. afternoon, after taking part in a Christian service in the morn- ing. Le Conte graphically describes this Indian ceremony. At .T.a Pointe they made arrangements for their trip to the headwaters of the Mississippi, which was to be made by canoe np the St. Louis Eiver, thence by portage across to the head- waters of th^ Mississippi, which they were to descend to Fort Snelling. The crew of the 24-foot. birch-bark canoe, hired from the Fur Company's agent, consisted of two Canadian voyageurs, with whom their verbal communication was somewhat difficult. Their agreement was for forty days and they provisioned them- selves accordingly. They started on July 8, passing through the group of Apostle Islands, whose wave-worn rock caverns they explored, camping one night. They then skirted the south shore to the mouth of the Bois Bnile Kiver, and thence crossed over to the north shore, which they desired to see, and after camping there over night proceeded to the mouth of the St. Louis River, the present site of the city of Duluth. Next day began the voyage up the river, passing numerous Indian villages. While in camp at the Dalles of the St. Louis, where a long portage had to be made, Le Conte surprised a crowd of visiting Indians by swimming the rapids repeatedly; but although they cheered him, his invitation to them to join him in the exploit was not accepted. He com- ments on the effects of training in man as compared with ani- mals, and his belief that "blood will telF' in physical man as well as in beasts. Farther up the river they were much an- noyed by mosquitoes and "brulos," a minute sand-fly. Le Conte notes that instead of getting to drier country as they ascended to greater elevation, the ground grew marshy and dotted with shallow lakelets. A portage of a few miles then carried them to the waters of the Mississippi, and they descended to Sandy Lake, where there was an Indian agency, where they refitted for the descent of the Mississippi. Here also Le Conte raced with an Indian boy in swimming and diving, the Indian beating him in the latter art. The voyage down the river was uneventful; Indians were frequently met and their villages used for night camps, but only one white man was seen down to the Falls of St. Anthony, a distance of between four and five hundred miles. Reaching the 158 JOSEPH LE CONTE. falls at noon one day, they drew the canoe up on a beach at tlie very spot where Minneapolis was founded five years later. There was then a single log cabin, owned by a white trader. Le Conte examined with much interest the structure of the gor^e below the falls, the rapids of which they "shot" in their canoe, and he even then compared the gorge to that of Niagara, as being formed by the recession of the falls from the escarpment at Fort Snelling; but, as he failed to publish these observations, the priority fell to others. After a week's pleasant stay at Fort Snelling, during which they visited what is now known as Minnehaha Falls, on the origin of which in connection with the Falls of St. Anthony Le Conte commented at the time, they took the steamer down the river to Galena, where they stopped to examine the lead mines, also visiting Dubuque. Le Conte mentions passing a small village named St. Paul, and also Nauvoo, where the Mor- mon excitement connected with the killing of Joseph and Hyrum Smith was then at its height. On reaching St. Louis they found their stock of money exhausted, and had to borrow funds to enable them to return east by boat to Pittsburg, and thence by rail to N"ew York. At New York he resumed his medical studies — "the old grind," as he expresses it. During this time and until his graduation, in April, 1845, he became acquainted with many distinguished men, among them Giraud, Bell, Baird, and espe- cially Audubon, wliom he frequently visited at his residence, 10 miles out of ilio city, together with his brother John; greatly enjoying the intercourse and ofioji boaiing on the river witli the sons, John and. Victor. Though graduated as a physician, Le Conte did not intend to practice as such, but considered the medical course as being (at that time) the best preparation for a scientific career. His reading of the "Vestiges of Creation" about this time was his first introduction to the subject of evolution. Going south shortly after graduation, and while making a round of visits to relatives and friends, he made a large col- lection of birds, which he afterwards presented to the Smith- sonian Institution. Eeturning from a series of excursions to the mountains of Georgia in November, he planned to make a 159 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. tour through Florida on horseback with his cousin, Lewis Jones, to study the geology and natural history of that region, then little known; but this trip was brought to naught by com- plicatio% with an affair of the heart, he having again met Miss Bessie Nisbet, his future wife, this constituting the second great crisis in his life. The following year seems to have been spent altogether in visits and excursions, among these one to Yonah and to Stone Mountain, returning in September to Liberty county. There he finally became engaged to Miss Msbet, whom he married in January, 1847. The following year was also devoted to excursions and travel, with riding, hunting, swim- ming, &c. Shortly after the birth of his first child, in December, 1847, Le Conte was taken with a severe attack of measles wliile on a visit at Savannah. Getting up too early in the impatience to return to his wife and child, his recovery was slow and tedious, and it was several years before he recovered his usual vigorous health. But now, having assumed the responsibilities of a father of a family, he felt that it was time to terminate the free-and-easy, pleasurable life he thus far led, and he concluded that lie must become "a worker in the social hive,'' without, however, regret- ting the time spent in his former pursuits, feeling that they had had a rounding and broadening effect. Xot wishing to seclude his family on the plantation, he settled, to practice medi- cine, at Macon, Georgia, and so continued for two years and a half (to July, 1850), deriving but a very moderate income from his profession and enjoying more the instnu-tion of a few students. He became conscious that he had not yet found his proper place in life, his taste being altogether scientific. In 1849 he read his first paper before the Georgia State Medical Society, Its title being "The Science of Medicine." But he felt unhappy, as though he were wasting his life. Finally, in the spring of 1850, his cousin, Lewis Jones, visited Macon and told him of his purpose to become a pupil of Louis Agassiz, who had been appointed professor of Geology and Zoology at Harvard. He at once joined in this plan, the purpose being to make special preparation for the teaching of these subjects, in which he had become strongly interested through the works of Eichard Owen, 160 JOSEPH LE CONTE. especially that on the Archetype and Homologies of the Verte- brate System. He left with much regret the circle of genial friends he and his wife had made at Macon, and in August 1850 arrived at Cambridge, where he took a dwelling-house on the Campus. The regular session at Harvard did not open till October, but as he and his friend had come only to study with Agassiz and the latter was at home, they went right to work. "The first task Agassiz set us was very characteristic of the man. He thought awhile, then pulled out a drawer containing from 500 to 1,000 separate valves of Unio, and said : Tair these valves and classify into species; names no matter; separate the species.' Then he left us alone, very severely alone." They worked zealously for weeks, with an occasional silei^t visit from the professor. When they reported that they had done the best they could, he ex- amined their work carefully and expressed himself much pleased, remarking to a visitor that they had just correctly amended the classification of Lea, the great authority on these shells. The same system of instruction was continued, but as they progressed their teacher became more communicative and engaged them in most interesting talks on biological philosophy. Le Conte comments enthusiastically on Agassiz as a greal teacher — one of those who are greater than all their visible re- sults, in that their personalit}' is magnetic and their spirit and enthusiasm contagious. Xo his fifteen months' intimate asso- ciation with Agassiz for eight or ten hours daily, in all his ex- cursions with Hall in the fossiliferous areas of New York, and along the shores of Massachusetts and Florida in zoological re- search, he ascribes much of the direction and success of his later work. The exploration of the Florida coral reefs with Agassiz was especially fruitful, and he dwells upon it at length. He was most reluctant to leave his family, but, his wife urging him not to miss the opportunity, they started on the first of January, 1851. The work was undertaken at the request of Superintendent A. D. Bache, of the Coast Survey, for the investigation of the laws of the growth of coral reefs, which render navigation in the waters of southern Florida very hazardous to shipping. Le Conte and Agassiz' son Alexander, then sixteen, went as assist- 161 NATIONAL ACADEMY OP SCIENCES. ants, the expenses being borne by the Government. They left Cambridge in a snowstorm, but during most of the six days of the voyage to Key West they sailed in summer seas, with excel- lent opportunities for observing marine life, from sharks to the exquisite Physalias and growths of corals. They worked incessantly, "sometimes visiting the reefs in a Government steamer, sometimes exploring the Everglades in one direction, sometimes the Dry Tortugas in another — always observing, noting, and gathering specimens. Sometimes for several days we would be out all day on the reefs collecting, generally waist-deep m the water; then for several days we would study our specimens with the microscope, draw, and pack away. In the evenings we would gather in Agassiz' room and discuss the day's work and the tonclusions to be drawn there- from. I never saw any one work like Agassiz; for fourteen hours a day he would work under high pressure, smoking furi- ously all the time. The harder he worked, the faster he con- sumed cigars." They were greatly helped in their collecting by the sailors and 'longshore population, three or four hundred of whom took part in the task, and were greatly pleased when Agassiz manifested "almost childish glee" at some new dis- covery of theirs. Longer excursions were made by the party on board a Coast Survey steamer commanded by Captain (subsequently Admiral) John Rodgers, and in a sailing vessel commanded by Captain Frye. In the latter they visited the Marquesas and the Dry Tortugas. From the latter point he was detailed by Agassiz, with Dr. Jones, to explore a small island ten miles away, where the vessel was becalmed for two days. Le Conte enjo3'ed the leisure time by bathing and diving in the clear warm water, gathering Gorgonias and sponges from the sea-bottom. Going back to t lie fort in a boat^ he noted the killing of the new growths of the Madrepore corals on which the boat grounded, as a re- sult of the annual depression of the water level; thus furnish- ing a basis for the determination of the age of coral reefs and islands. On his arrival at the fort he found that Agassiz had made the same observation during his absence, on reefs of Maeandrina. The evenings on the steamer around the dining-table Le Conte 162 JOSEPH LE CONTE. mentions as specially enjoyable, as there were on board several scientific men connected with the Coast Survey, among whom he mentions J. E. Hilgard and Count Pourtales. On one occa- sion Agassiz expressed himself quite forcibly regarding the in- tolerance of society in America, he having experienced the effects of the odium theologicum on account of his views on the diver- sity of the origin of man; and he commended Austria as the country where a man of science could utter his views most freely, so long as he let politics alone. The party left Key West for Cambridge after a stay of six weeks, passing from summer to winter in the course of a few days. The main scientific results of this expedition were published by Agassiz inHhe Eeport of the Coast Survey for 1851; some extensions of the same were by Le Conte himself read at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1856, and published in the Proceedings of that body, and also in the American Journal of Science for January, 1857. This pul)lication Le Conte considers to have been his first really scientific paper. The rest of tlic yeai* was passed at Cambridge in study, as before, only even more earnestly. In addition to zoology and geology, Le Conte took a course of botany under Asa Gray. He and Jones still had the advantage of having Agassiz almost to themselves, some wealthy New York youths who joined the class finding themselves out of their depth and leaving very soon. Tn May the two friends wont with Agassiz to study the New York Paleozoic in the Catskill and Mohawk region, this being the first field work in geology done by Le Conte. In June, Agassiz suggested that the two students should take degrees at the Lawrence Scientific School, which was then in its first year and for which it was desired to make a showing. Although already possessed of three degrees, Le Conte concluded to take another under the auspices of Agassiz, and took as the subject of his thesis the Homologies of the Eadiata. Upon this thesis he bestowed a great deal of thought and work. He was examined on it by Agassiz, and also publicly by him and Wyman on zoology and geolog;\\ Thus Joseph Le Conte, Lewis Jones, David A. Wells, and John D. Eunkle formed the first graduating (18) 163 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. class of the Lawrence Scientific School, and probably the first strictly postgraduate class in the United States. Le Conte's thesis^ however, never reached publication, the manuscript being destroyed in the burning of Columbia, South Carolina, at the end of "Sherman's raid. Le Conte, however, did not stop at graduation. He continued work in Agassiz' laboratory and excursions, or by himself. The "galaxy of stars" then at Harvard was so attractive and stimu- lating that he hesitated to leave. There were Agassiz, Guyot, Wyman, Gray, Peirce, Longfellow, Holmes, Felton, Emerson, • and also Eichard Dana, whom he met three times daily at meals. Moreover, Boston being near by, afforded an opportunity for hearing and seeing the great artists of the time, such as Jenny Lind, Parodi, and others, and of attending the meetings of sci- entific bodies. Le Conte designates as the third critical mental period of his life the fifteen months of his study with Louis Agassiz, and here discusses ■ briefly the points (more elaborately presented later, in a memorial address made at San Francisco) in which Agassiz' methods of study were novel and epoch-making in the natural sciences. The new departure most widely recognized is his dem- onstration of the stupendous agency of glaciers in shaping the present surface of the earth; but more fundamental than this achievement is the introduction of the study of nature itself in the development of the organic world, instead of mere labora- tory experimentation. The latter method is all right for inor- ganic nature, but in the development of organized beings experi- mentation introduces abnormal factors, and the observation of nature itself is first in order. "There are three subordinate series or methods leading to similar results; these are the natural-history series, the embry- onic seri4. 9. Comparative IMiysiology of Binocular Vision, Am. Jour. Sci., 109 : 164. A Journal of Ramblings through the High Sierra. San Fran- cisco, 1875. Republished, Bull. 3, Sierra Club, 1890. Instinct and Intelligence, Pop. Sci. Mo., 7 : 653. Rate of Growth in Corals, Am. Jour. Sci., 110 : 34. 1876. Evidences of Horizontal Crushing in the Formation of the Coast Ranges of California, Am. Jour. Sci., Ill : 297. 1877. Binocular Phenomena Observed by Prof. Nipher, Am. Jour. Sci., 115 : 252. Binocular Vision, Phenomena of : 10. Structure of Crystalline Lens and its Relation to Periscop- ism, Am. Jour. Sci., 114 : 191. 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