Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/661

Rh Riley organized the entomological division of the department, and became its head. At the same time he became curator in entomology of the United States National Museum, to which he donated his magnificent private collection of insects, containing more than fifteen thousand specimens. Dr. Riley at different times lectured upon entomology at various institutions—Cornell University, Missouri State University, Washington University, etc. He was a diligent writer. A man of energy and decision, he was also of most amiable character, and was much loved by his friends and colleagues. The honorary degree of Ph. D. was granted to him in 1873 by Washington University. The French Government, in 1873, and the Edinburgh Forestry Exhibit, in 1884, conferred upon him gold medals in recognition of his work.

In 1835 there came to St. Clair County, Illinois, a talented German, Theodore Erasmus Hilgard. A lawyer by training, he there settled down to country life. He introduced the culture of the vine into Illinois. The town of West Belleville was laid out upon his property and under his direction. He delighted in himself conducting the education of his family, and his three sons, Julius Erasmus, Theodore Charles, and Eugene Waldemar, all attained prominence in American science. In 1851 he returned to his native land by invitation of the Bavarian Government to aid in recasting the national laws regarding mortgages. Although he again visited this country, he did not remain here, but finally settled at Heidelberg, where he died in 1873. He was a poet and a man of letters. His second son, Theodore Charles Hilgard, was prominent in the academy's work for many years. He was born in Zweibrücken, Germany, February 28, 1828. While a young man in his Illinois home he collected botanical specimens for George Engelmann. Later, he studied medicine in European schools—Heidelberg, Zurich, Vienna, Berlin—and settled down to practice in St. Louis. In 1854 he published his Experimental Observations on Taste and Smell. At various times he presented papers on botany—especially on Phyllotaxis and kindred subjects—before the academy. These were printed in the Transactions. Obliged on account of failing health to abandon medicine, his studies were turned to microscopic forms of life and to terrestrial magnetism; in the latter subject he assisted his brother Julius, to whom it was professional work. He died in New York, March 5, 1875.

For two years James Buchanan Eads was president of the academy, and was associated with it for a much longer period. No member of the academy has had a more conspicuous career. It was "he who devised and furnished our Government with its first and most useful armored steamboats, who built the St. Louis Bridge; who