His life-work, [says Professor Osborn,[24]] bears the marks of great genius, of solid and accurate observation, and at times of inaccuracy due to bad logic or haste and over-pressure of work. The greater number of his Natural Orders and Natural Laws will remain as permanent landmarks in our science. As a comparative anatomist he ranks, both in the range and effectiveness of his knowledge and his ideas, with Cuvier and Owen.... As a natural philosopher, while far less logical than Huxley, he was more creative and constructive, his metaphysics ending in theism rather than agnosticism.
Elliott Coues.—Distinguished as an ornithologist, Elliott Coues (1842–1899) became favourably known also for researches in biology and comparative anatomy. After taking degrees at the Columbian University in 1861–1863, he entered the Union Army as assistant surgeon, studying flora and fauna wherever he went. In 1873–1876 he was surgeon and naturalist to the United States Northern Boundary Commission and in 1876–1880 was connected with the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. He helped found the American Ornithologists’ Union and edited its organ, The Auk. His “Key to North American Birds” (1872, rewritten 1884 and 1901) is of great significance. He wrote also on “Birds of the Northwest” (1874), “Birds of the Colorado Valley” (1878), and with Winfrid A. Stearns, “New England Bird Life” (1881).
David Starr Jordan.—David Starr Jordan (born in 1851) has in recent years been regarded chiefly as an educator; he became known through his studies on fishes. Entering Cornell University in 1868, he was appointed instructor in botany in 1870 and graduated M.S. in 1872. After teaching and studying science for some years, he was made (1879) professor of zoölogy at Indiana University, of which he became president in 1885. Since 1891 he has been president of Stanford University. Some of his books are “A Manual of the Vertebrate Animals of the Northern United States” (1876), “Science Sketches” (1887), “Fishes of North and Middle America” (1896–1899), “Footnotes to Evolution” (1898), and “The Food and Game Fishes of North America” (1902). He is a leader both in his chosen scientific field and in educational thought.
Asa Gray.—The best-known botanist of his epoch was Asa Gray (1810–1888) a native of Paris, Oneida County, New York. He graduated in medicine at Fairfield College in 1831, but soon gave up medicine for botany and in 1842 was elected to the Fisher professorship of natural history in Harvard University. Any adequate narrative of Gray’s tremendous activity as a writer and teacher is out of the question here; we can only say that his widely known and long standard text-books on botany (beginning with the “Elements of Botany,” 1836, which grew into the “Structural and Systematic Botany” of 1879, and including his “How Plants Grow,” 1858, and “How Plants Behave,” 1872) represent but a small part of his literary activity. With Dr. Torrey he began (1838) the “Flora of North America”; he wrote also valuable botanical memoirs and many valuable articles for The North American Review and The American Journal of Science.
Edward Hitchcock.—Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864), a Congregational clergyman, and for thirty-nine years a professor of science in Amherst College, was especially devoted to geological study. A large number of his books and papers relate to geological subjects, which he helped to make popular; among these books are “Economical Geology” (1832), “Geology of Massachusetts” (1841), “The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences” (1851), and “Ichnology of New England” (1858). He was the first president of the Association of American Geologists, and was president of Amherst College from 1845 till 1854.
Louis Agassiz.—The celebrated naturalist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1807–1873) was of Swiss birth and did not come to America to live until he was forty-one years of age, and had already become famous for those studies of glacial phenomena set forth in “Études sur les glaciers” (1840) and “Système glaciaire” (with Guyot and Desor, 1847). For twenty-five years (1848–1873) he was professor of natural history at Harvard, and in that time, besides training some of the most eminent of living American scientists, he did much to arouse popular interest in science and scientific progress. Of the “Contributions to the Natural History of the United States” which he planned to publish in ten volumes, he lived to issue only four (1857–1862). For Agassiz Nature was “the expression of the thought of the Creator.” In opposing the Darwinians as to the origin of species, Agassiz unfortunately took the wrong side of the question of how the Creator expressed His thought; but he remains nevertheless distinguished both as a scientist and as an educator; a singularly great and gentle nature, strong and true.
Arnold Henry Guyot.—Less distinguished than his compatriot Agassiz, but of enduring fame, was the geographer Arnold Guyot (1807–1884). Born near Neuchâtel, Switzerland, he studied there and in Germany, receiving the degree of Ph.D. from Berlin in 1835. Like Agassiz he became known for his glacial discoveries; and like Agassiz he came to America in the troubled year 1848. From 1854 until his death he was professor of geology and physical geography at Princeton. His text-books and maps revolutionised the teaching and study of geography. He wrote also many scientific papers and memoirs, among which may be noted especially those describing his studies in the Appalachian Mountains. American science owes much to his unselfish devotion.
James Dwight Dana.—James D. Dana (1813–1895), born in Utica, New York, was attracted by the fame of the elder Silliman to Yale College, where he graduated in 1833. To the Sillimans he became allied by his marriage with Henrietta F. Silliman in 1844; and like them he had a long and notable career closely connected with Yale College, where he became (1835) Silliman professor of natural history and geology. He wrote many reports on geological, zoölogical, and mineralogical subjects, besides “A Manual of Mineralogy” (1851), “A Manual of Geology” (1862), “On Coral Reefs and Islands” (1853), “Science and the Bible” (Bibliotheca Sacra, 1856–1857), and “Corals and Coral Islands” (1872).
Alexander Winchell.—Another noted geologist was Alexander Winchell (1824–1891). Graduating from Wesleyan University in 1847, he became a teacher of science in various schools, and in 1853 professor of physics and civil engineering in the University of Michigan; being soon transferred to the chair of geology, zoölogy, and botany. He afterward taught at Syracuse and Vanderbilt Universities. From the latter institution in 1878 he was dismissed because his views on evolution were “contrary to the plan of redemption.” The next year he was recalled to Michigan. Besides being a leading spirit in forming the Geological Society of America, and in establishing The American Geologist, he was a voluminous writer, especially of scientific works for popular use, and endeavoured in these works to show the essential harmony between science and Christian dogma. Thus he did the work of a peacemaker in what has long been a heated conflict.