Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/707

Rh unusual date. Both clergymen and people denounced the almanac because of this supposed misstatement. Defense was made that the ordinary rules for determining this festival were useless for that year, as it was a peculiar case, occurring only once in several hundred years. Soon afterward the bishop of the diocese issued a circular sustaining the almanac. 6. Classical training came in connection with teaching. First came the ordinary labor of making translations and grammatical construction. Then he kept a note-book for putting down the most striking sentiments of an author, such as would answer for mottoes and quotations. To obtain the choicest sentiments he carefully looked up all the references made from rare authors. Thus he became familiar with the best thoughts of the classical authors, and by fixing them in his memory obtained a fair substitute for the more extended college training.

Daring his connection with Deerfield Academy, Hitchcock became interested in botany and mineralogy, through the influence of Prof. Amos Eaton. With two associates, the list of plants and minerals of the neighborhood was soon made exhaustive. He had correspondence with the elder Prof. Silliman, of Yale College, respecting difficult questions, and the two maintained for each other a lifelong friendship. It was probably this correspondence which led Hitchcock to join the newly opened theological department at New Haven. He furnished contributions to the first volume of Silliman's American Journal of Science and Art, and to many later issues. In all, his name is prefixed to fifty-two papers, notices, and reviews on topics relating to geology, mineralogy, ichnology, surface geology, physics, meteorology, and botany, in this journal.

Hitchcock chose the ministry for his profession. He was settled as a pastor over the Congregational Church in Conway, Mass., from 1821 to 1825. While in this office he studied natural history to some extent, for the benefit of his health. It was at this time that he discovered and described that small but widely distributed fern, Botrychium simplex. In 1825 he was appointed Professor of Chemistry and Natural History in Amherst College. Twenty years afterward he became president of the same institution, and continued in the office for nearly ten years. For the remainder of his life—nearly ten years—he taught geology and natural theology in the same institution.

Like scientific men of his time, Dr. Hitchcock was familiar with several departments of learning—being an author, educator, theologian, and explorer. His career as a geologist is the best known. Starting as a student of the rocks of the Connecticut Valley, his home, he is soon found at both extremities of the State—at Martha's Vineyard and Berkshire County. With larger