Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 13.djvu/113

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
SKETCH OF PROFESSOR EDWARD S. MORSE.
103

him at work. They said to him in effect, "We do not want the religion, nor the morality, nor the politics of your people, but we want your science." Prof. Morse was accordingly induced to accept the chair of zoölogy in the Imperial University of Tokio. He established a zoölogical station at the Bay of Yeddo, and made large collections for the museum at Tokio, besides a great number of specimens for exchance with American societies. He also discovered the traces of early man in Japan, found a large quantity of ancient pottery, and, in an address before the Asiatic Society at Tokio, he communicated the results of these researches.

Prof. Morse's most important contributions to science have been his investigations on the Brachiopoda, which he has pursued with indefatigable industry, going deeply into the question of their structure and affinities. By the help of embryological analysis he has thrown new and important light upon their systematic position in the scheme of invertebrate life. He maintains the view that the Brachiopods must be removed from the division of mollusks and classed with the worms. These ideas have been adopted by many leading naturalists both here and in Europe.

Prof. Morse has made all his expeditions for scientific investigation at his own private expense, and, not being a man of wealth, he has been compelled to lecture much during the winter season to get the means of carrying on his researches during the summer. He has given courses of lectures before the Lowell Institute of Boston, the Peabody Institute of Baltimore, and the Cooper Institute of New York, and has also given courses and single lectures in all the principal cities in the Northern and Western States. Of his. rare qualities as a popular scientific lecturer, the thoroughness of his information, his vivid, free, and forcible style as a speaker, and his great skill of rapid delineation upon the blackboard, we have previously spoken.

Prof. Morse is a man of irrepressible activity and an inexhaustible flow of spirits, genial and hearty in manners, a fluent and fertile talker, a copious story-teller, a lover of music, and passionately fond of children. He is a patient, assiduous worker, and has contributed largely to the proceedings of scientific societies and to scientific periodicals. The following are among the most important of his publications:

1. "Description of New Species of Helix" (Helix asteriscus), (Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. vi., 1857, p. 1).
2. Description of New Species of Helix" (Helix milium), (Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. vii., 1859, p. 1).
3. "The Haemal and Neural Ptegions of Brachiopoda" (Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. is., 1862, pp. 3).
4. "On the Normal Position of Cephalopods" (Proceedings of the Portland Society of Natural History, vol. i., 1863).
5. "On the Occurrence of Rare Helices in Ancient Shell-Heaps" (Proceedings of the Portland Society of Natural History, vol. i., 1863).
6. "Synopsis of the Terrestrial and Fluviatile Mollusks of Maine" (published by the Author. 1864, pp. 4).