Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/274

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ture, showing the bearing of the earth's physical features upon every department of human interest.

Another pre-eminent service which Guyot rendered to America was the work he did in meteorology, a science which had received very little attention when he arrived in this country. From 1851 to 1859 he worked at the preparation of the "Meteorological and Physical Tables," published by the Smithsonian Institution, and also superintended the construction of accurate meteorological instruments. In connection with Professor Henry he must be regarded as the founder of the system of weather observations and reports which has resulted in the Government Signal Service.

In 1854 Guyot was elected to the chair of Geology and Physical Geography at Princeton, a post which he filled for the thirty remaining years of his life. Until compelled to cease by the increasing infirmities of age, he devoted all his vacations and spare time to his favorite investigations, making elaborate and careful examinations of the mountains from New England to South Carolina. This work involved an immense amount of hardship and fatigue, and he was fond of describing with quaint picturesqueness and humor his experiences in roughing it in the mountains of Pennsylvania and the Carolinas. In 1861 he published in the "American Journal of Science and Arts" the results of his work up to that time, "a memoir which remains to this day the best existing description." Again, in 1880, he brought out another memoir on the same subject, devoted chiefly to the Catskills, some of the rough work for which was done after he was seventy years old. Many shorter papers on meteorological, physical, and geographical subjects were written at intervals, but no complete list of them has ever been prepared. His work during this period is a noble example of what may be done without appropriations or endowments, for in those days Princeton was very poor, and he had to do as best he could without assistance.

As a friend and teacher Guyot will ever be held in loving remembrance till the last of his hundreds of students shall have followed him to the grave. His lectures were wonderfully fascinating, leading his hearers step by step to heights whence they could survey the whole field. His broad culture, gained by the combination of the humanitarian and scientific studies, had given him an extraordinary power of generalization, stimulating his students by showing them the relations of any subject which he handled to the whole realm of knowledge. He was able to depict these sciences in their true perspective without distortion or exaggeration, a power which is unhappily very uncommon. Those who had the rare privilege of pursuing advanced courses of study under his supervision will long remember the great stimulus to earnest work which they received from him, and the clear, philosophical views of Nature which he expounded.

For many years Guyot labored under great disadvantages from the