Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/862

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was by no means united on most questions—to the professorship of Geology and Paleontology in that institution. He went back under much more favorable conditions for scientific advancement than had existed when he left the institution seven years before. "His duties at that time were spread over the whole field of geology, zoölogy, botany, museum and microscopical work. When he returned, the faculty embraced a Professor of Geology and Paleontology; a Professor of Mineralogy and Economic Geology; a Professor of Zoölogy; an Assistant Professor of Botany; an Instructor in the Microscopical Laboratory; and a Curator of the Museum—all of whose duties devolved upon one man in 1872." He began on his return to the university the preparation of an extended syllabus of a course of instruction in general geology, accompanied by copious references to sources of information. He presided over the Section of Anthropology at the Montreal meeting of the American Association. He spent the summer of 1886 in connection with the Geological Survey of Minnesota in field work in the extreme northern part of the State, north of Lake Superior. His work extended into twenty-four townships, where he noted and studied the outcrops at eight hundred and ninety localities, and he spent much time in the succeeding winter in the study for his first Minnesota report of the Archæan problems thus developed. The observations made in this survey were important, and were found to throw much light on some of the problems of Archæan geology. The plan of the next year's survey extended over the original Huronian area, and also over the iron regions of Michigan and Wisconsin and into the area of the Animikie in northern Minnesota. He entered into the study and discussion of practical questions touching the stratigraphic relations of the older terrenes and accumulated a large mass of data, the discussion of which he was never able to complete. He planned for a thorough discussion and examination of the data of the Archæan rocks, including their field relations and petrographic characters, and for the sake of it declined all but the most important invitations to lecture. In pursuance of this work he communicated to the eighteenth report of the Minnesota Survey (1889) a review of American opinion on the Presilurian rocks, and presented further results of his work in northern Minnesota at the Toronto meeting of the American Association. His last year (1890) was one of his busiest, and was occupied with lectures, attendance on scientific meetings, geological excursions, and the preparation of plans for enlarging the laboratory of the university. Prof. Winchell was a leading spirit in the formation of the Geological Society of America and in the establishment of the American Geologist.

His biographer in the American Geologist believes that Dr.