Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/275

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SKETCH OF GEORGE FREDERICK WRIGHT.
261

the chronology of the human race supposed to be given in the Bible. This subject is discussed in his Studies in Science and Religion (Andover, 1882) and Divine Authority of the Bible (Boston, 1884), and is dismissed in the book on the Ice Age with a reference to those works as containing all that it seems to be necessary for him to say on the point, and with the additional remark that "I see no reason why these views should seriously disturb the religious faith of any believer in the inspiration of the Bible. At all events, it is incumbent on us to welcome the truth, from whatever source it may come." The summer of 1890 was spent by Prof. Wright in the lava fields of Idaho and California, in careful investigations and verification of the evidences of man's antiquity recently found there, of which mention has just been made.

In the summer of 1891 Prof. Wright visited Europe, where his fame as a specialist in glacial geology had gone before him. Meeting the British geologists, he was warmly received by them, and was able to give them, through conclusions drawn from his American studies, information and light concerning the glaciation of their own islands and to bring about a satisfactory settlement of questions that had been in controversy among them. The results of his additional studies in Europe were given in an article in the American Journal of Science for January, 1892, and are more fully stated in his volume in the International Scientific Series, on Man and the Glacial Period, just published by D. Appleton & Co. In the winter of 1891-92 Prof. Wright gave a second course of lectures in the Lowell Institute, to uniformly large audiences.

A movement has been set on foot among the alumni of Oberlin College living in Cleveland, Ohio, to endow a chair in that institution to be known as the Cleveland Professorship in Oberlin College of the Relation between Science and Revelation, which shall first be held by Prof. Wright. The call of the committee in charge of this enterprise mentions as a motive inspiring it the desire to enlarge and extend the work of the college in the direction of scientific investigation and instruction, and adds: "There are strong local and personal reasons relating to Prof. Wright's position and future work which urge immediate action in this matter. His ability and faithful services for many years in the department of New Testament Literature are appreciated. But there are other men, it may be, who can do this work as well as he; while, unquestionably, there is a field which he has made peculiarly his own, and which he is qualified, by tastes, studies, original researches, and authorship, still further to enrich and adorn. He has gathered facts from a wide range of investigation and proposed and proved theories which make him an authority