Two COMMONWEALTH BUILDERS. 205 developed into an entrancing vision of what and of how God had wrought here. Under the spell of this vision the faith of many wavering under the shock and confusion from the then newly sprung theory of evolution, was led to a higher plane. He was so deeply concerned about this spiritual interest of his fellowman, because life to him as he lived it day by day was an affair of the soul. Thus he made it his mission to minister to its strength and serenity. So original were his investigations in his field, so large and deep his comprehension of their significance that when the full history of the theory of evolution is written his name will stand among those of its chief collaborators. Such was his part in enlightening the thought of the world at large. His second great ministry consisted in his giving the people of the Pacific Northwest the full possession of this land as their home. Of course the earlier pioneers were using it to furnish food and raiment for their bodies, but Thomas Condon more than any other man has made this region the source of material of thought and sentiment. Before his work the civil- ized man could exist on its surface. Thomas Condon's genius and labors prepared the key that opens to us glorious vistas into the past of this region and into all the phases of the pro- cesses of Nature here so that man can be at home here as the Athenians were on the Acropolis and can engage all the higher faculties of his being. The story and word pictures in his ' ' Two Islands ' ' give us and our posterity, more than any other single source, an indefeasible birthright to what God has created here for the sustenance of soul life. The following account of his life, investigations, and services as a teacher, is found in a memorial volume recently published by the University of Oregon : ' ' There was a limestone quarry near the home of Mr. Con- don 's childhood that must have made a deep impression upon his thoughtful mind and shed the affectionate glamour of early association over his study of the rocks, for his interest in geology began with his childhood. "Fortunately for him his family left the old home in South-
