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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 65.djvu/384

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380
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hwe eliminated because of pohoto. (Wikisource contributor note)

Interior of the Le Conte Memorial Lodge. Photographed by Hallett-Taylor Co.

man though he did not publish his work. His uncle, John Le Conte, was a naturalist, whose son, John Lawrence, was an eminent entomologist. His brother was a prominent physicist. A nephew is one of our leading physicists, and his son is a scientific man. Joseph, John and John Lawrence Le Conte were all members of the National Academy of Sciences, whose membership has included approximately only the two hundred leading American men of science of the past half century. We have here a very clear case of scientific heredity or family tradition.

Le Conte belonged to the type of scientific man that can scarcely survive under the conditions of modern specialization. He taught practically all the sciences, including mathematics, with French added. He made contributions to geology, zoology and psychology, and wrote much on the theory of evolution and the relations of science to religion. We can not here undertake to give an account of his life, not in itself eventful but covering a wide field and a long time, touching the south, the north and the west. We must refer readers to the autobiography for an account of the life and life-work of a single-minded and truly great man.

SIR WILLIAM FLOWER.

Flower was one of the notable group of naturalists who gave distinction to Great Britain during the second half of the nineteenth century. He can not be ranked with Darwin, scarcely with Huxley, but his contributions to comparative anatomy and to museum administration were of the highest importance. Five years after his death a memoir has been prepared by Mr. C. J. Cornish with the cooperation of his son and of Lady Flower. The title page states that the work is 'a personal memoir.' In view of this explicit statement it would perhaps be unfair to criticize the book for paying more attention to Flower's high character, his beautiful family life, his christian faith and his relations with the nobility than to his contributions to science and