from the St. Lawrence river to Alabama, the results of which he published in numerous works, and in 1888 summarized before the International Congress of Geologists in London. He was especially interested in the study of remains of ancient life; and in 1891 he was appointed chief paleontologist to the United States geological survey, two years later being made geologist in charge of its branches of geology and paleontology. The broad scope of work given him in this position was further widened in 1894, when he succeeded Major Powell as director of the survey. Shortly afterward he was awarded the Bigsby medal by the Geological Society of London, in honor of his long-continued work of research.
Doctor Walcott has continued active in the work of exploration and the development of the natural resources of the arid region of the West. The great task at present under his direction is that of carrying out the immense plans for irrigating this enormous arid region recently undertaken by the government. In 1897-98 he served also as assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in charge of the National Museum; and since 1902 he has been secretary of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He has added to the treasures of the National Museum several valuable collections of invertebrate fossils.
Doctor Walcott has been honored with the degree of LL.D. from Hamilton college, and from the universities of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, and Pennsylvania. He has been chosen to membership in several foreign geological societies; and he is a member of the National Academy of Science, the American Philosophical Society and of other scientific organizations of the United States and Europe. His several works have become authorities on the subjects treated, the most famous of them being his monograph on the fauna of the Lower Cambrian, which deals with the oldest known forms of life.
Married June 22, 1888, to Helena Burrows Stevens, Doctor Walcott has a family of four children. In religious affiliation he is a Presbyterian. The influences to which his life work has been due were largely those of his home surroundings and private study; but especially he was urged on by an inborn passion for research. In scientific research he found recreation as well as labor; in field work in geology, in camping out, tramping, horseback riding, quarrying, etc., he has found a perennial source of enjoyment and of good health. In his view success in life is largely dependent upon "the
