Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/412

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398 HALL graduated at Williams college in 1808, studied theology, offered himself as a missionary to the American hoard, and in 1812 sailed for India, where he passed the remainder of. his life. Be- sides ordinary missionary labor, he revised a translation of the New Testament into the Mahratta language, and published several ser- mons and tracts, of which the "Appeal in be- half of the Heathen " excited much attention, and in conjunction with S. Newell, " The Con- version of the World " (2d ed., 1818). HILL. ! James, an American judge and author, born in Philadelphia, Aug. 19, 1793, died near Cincinnati, July 5, 1868. He began the study of law, but joined the army in 1812, and served on the northern frontier. At the close of the war he went with Decatur in his expedition to Algiers. In 1818 he resigned his commission, and resumed the study of the law at Pittsburgh, Pa., and in 1820 removed to Shawneetown, 111., where he practised at the bar and edited a weekly newspaper. He was soon after appointed public prosecutor for a circuit which included ten counties and was infested by organized bands of counterfeiters, horse thieves, and desperadoes. He held this office four years, when he was elected judge of the circuit court, an office which was abol- ished three years later. He then became state treasurer, at the same time practising law and editing a newspaper at Vandalia. In 1833 he removed to Cincinnati, where he engaged in financial business and literary labors. Besides his numerous contributions to periodicals, he published " Letters from the West " (originally published in the " Port Folio," then edited by his brother, collected and published in London, 1829) ; " Legends of the West " (1832) ; " The Soldier's Bride, and other Tales " (1832) ; " The Harpe's Head, a Legend of Kentucky " (1833) ; " Tales of the Border " (1835) ; " Statistics of the West" (1836; reissued, with additions, as " Notes on the Western States," 1839); " Life of William Henry Harrison " (1836) ; " History of the Indian Tribes" (3 vols. fol., 1838-'44, written in conjunction with Thomas L. Mc- Kenney, and illustrated with 120 portraits of Indian chiefs, the price being $120); "The Wilderness and the War Path" (1845); "Life of Thomas Posey, Governor of Indiana" (in Sparks's "American Biography," 1846); and "Romance of Western History" (1857). A uniform edition of his works has been publish- ed (4 vols., 1853-' 6). II. John E., an American author, brother of the preceding, born in De- cember, 1783, died June 11, 1829. He gradu- ated at Princeton college, studied law, and in 1805 commenced practice in Baltimore, but soon after became professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres in the university of Maryland. He was severely wounded in the Baltimore riots of 1811, and was one of the nine thrown into a heap as dead. He edited " The Practice and Jurisprudence of the Court of Admiralty " (1809), and "The American Law Journal" (1808-'17). Having removed to Philadelphia, he was editor of the "Port Folio" from 1817 to 1827, edited "The Philadelphia Souvenir" (1827), and published " Memoirs of Eminent Persons" (1827). HALL, James, an American geologist and palaeontologist, born at Hingham, Mass., of English parents, Sept. 12, 1811. Destined at first for the medical profession, he soon turned his attention to natural history, which he pur- sued from 1831 to 1836, under Amos Eaton, in the Rensselaer polytechnic institute, Troy, N. Y., where he has since been for many years professor of geology. Being appointed one of the geologists for the survey of New York, he began in 1837 his explorations of the western district of the state. He published annual re- ports from 1838 to 1841, and gave in 1843 his final report in a large quarto volume, which forms one of the series of works on the natural history of New York published by the legisla- ture. In this volume he described in a very complete and exhaustive manner the order and succession of the strata, their mineralogical and lithological characters, and the organic remains which they contain. The field work of the survey being then completed, he was appointed palaeontologist to the state, and charged with the work of studying and describing the or-, ganic remains of the rocks. He still holds this post (1874), and has embodied the results of his studies in the " Palasontology of New York," one of the most remarkable monuments of scientific labor, zeal, and industry which this country has produced. It is as yet incom- plete, but some idea of its extent may be given by an account of the volumes already published and those now in progress. Beginning with the lowest member of the New York system of palaeozoic rocks, the first volume of the "Palaeontology " (338 pp. 4to, with 100 plates, 1847) contains descriptions of all the organic remains, both of plants and animals, up to the summit of the so-called Champlain division of the system, which terminates in the Hudson river group, corresponding to the Cambrian of Sedgwick or the Cambrian and lower Silu- rian of Murchison. The second volume (362 pp., with over 100 plates, 1852) continues the subject up to the base of the Onondaga or Sa- lina formation. The third volume (533 pp., with 128 plates, 1859) includes all the fossil remains of the water lime, the lower Helder- berg, and Oriskany divisions, except the corals and bryozoa. The fourth (the same, 1867) in- cludes the brachiopoda of the divisions known as the upper Helderberg, Hamilton, Portage, and Chemung, making together the Erian or Devonian. The fifth volume, now in progress (1874), will contain the larnellibranchiates of the last named divisions, besides a review of all the lamellibranchiate forms from the lower formations. The drawings and descriptions for two more volumes are also far advanced, in- cluding the gasteropoda, cephalopoda, and Crustacea of the Erian, with the crinoidea, bry- ozoa, and corals of the same. In addition to