Hitchcock

became assistant to his father on the geological
survey of Vermont (1857-61), and during the
same period pursued theological studies at Yale
for a year and at Andover Seminary for two
years, with a view to entering the ministry. His
geological field work seems, however, to have
diverted his taste to another calling, and in 1861
he was appointed state geologist of Maine. From
1858 to 1866 he served also as curator of the
museum at Amherst, and was lecturer on zool-
ogy, 1858-64. He was non-resident lecturer for
Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, from 1866 to
1870, and in the decade 1860-70 served also in
a private capacity as an expert for various min-
ing interests in the Eastern states. During the
year 1866-67 he studied at the Royal School of
Mines in London and traveled in Europe, re-
turning to receive the appointments of state
geologist of New Hampshire (1868) and pro-
fessor of geology and mineralogy at Dartmouth
College.

Facilities for detailed geological work in
Maine were not such as to promote results of
consequence, and it was not until the survey of
New Hampshire was undertaken that Hitchcock
had a reasonable opportunity to display his abil-
ities as an administrator and geologist. This
survey continued for ten years, or until 1878;
and its results were given to the public—aside
from the brief annual reports—in three quarto
volumes, The Geology of New Hampshire
(1874-78). The glacial geology of the state nat-
urally received much attention. For a part of
each year from 1870 to 1896 Hitchcock was lec-
turer on geology at Mount Holyoke. In 1908,
after forty years at Dartmouth, he retired as
professor emeritus and took up his residence in
Honolulu, H. I., devoting his attention thence-
forth mainly to volcanic problems. His last pub-
lication, Hawaii and its Volcanoes, a volume of
314 pages with fifty plates, was issued in 1909.
He died at Honolulu ten years later, having
nearly reached the age of eighty-three.

Hitchcock was married, June 19, 1862, to
Martha Bliss Barrows of Andover, Mass., who
died in February 1892, leaving him two sons
and three daughters, On Sept. 4,1894, he mar-
ried Charlotte Malvina Barrows, a sister of his
first wife.

[Memoir by Warren Upham in Bull. Geol. Soc. of
America, vol. XXXI (1920), with full bibliography of
Hitchcock's publications; H. C. Graves, Hist, of the
Class of 1856 of Amherst Coll. (1896); Pop. Sci. Mo,t
Dec, 1898; M. L. J. Hitchcock, The Geneal. of the
Hitchcock Family (1894); Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
Nov. 6, 1919; Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Nov. 7,

I91^l G.P.M,

HITCHCOCK, EDWARD (May 24, 1793-
Feb. 27, 1864), geologist, educator, Congrega-

Hitchcock
tional clergyman, was the son of Justin and
Mercy (Hoyt) Hitchcock and was born at Deer-
field, Mass. His ancestry was English: the first
of the family, Matthias Hitchcock, came from
London to Boston on the bark Susan and Ellen
in May 1635 and settled in East Haven, Conn.,
after a short stay in Watertown, Mass. Justin,
the father of Edward, was fifth in line of descent
from Luke Hitchcock, brother of Matthias, who
took the freeman's oath in New Haven in July
1644 and afterward settled in Wethersfield. The
family was in moderate circumstances and Ed-
ward was to a large extent thrown upon his own
resources and those of the public school for his
education. Early developing scholastic tenden-
cies, with a fondness for natural history and
mathematics, he first attracted more than local
notice through his discovery of numerous errors,
which he corrected, in Blunt's Nautical Almanac.
Between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-six
he was principal of the Deerfield Academy, and
through the influence of Amos Eaton [#.z>.], then
a free-lance lecturer, he became interested in
botany and mineralogy. Choosing the ministry
for his profession, he entered the theological
school at New Haven. Here he was thrown in
association with Prof. Benjamin SilHman [#.£>.],
with whom he formed a life-long friendship.
From 1821 to 1825 he was settled over the Con-
gregational church in Conway, Mass., and in the
last-named year was at his own request dis-
missed on account of poor health and appointed
professor of chemistry and natural history in
Amherst College. Twenty years later he became
president of the college, holding that office for
ten years and then resigning to assume a pro-
fessorship of geology and natural theology.
Through Hitchcock's efforts there was estab-
lished in 1830 a geological survey of the state
of Massachusetts, of which he was made the
head. The work was continued for three years
and was the first of its kind in America to be
carried to completion. Its results were pub-
lished in Report on the Geology, Mineralogy,
Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts (1833).
In 1837 Hitchcock undertook a renewal of the
survey under state auspices, bringing the work
to completion in 1841 (Final Report on the Geol-
ogy of Massachusetts, 2 vols., 1841). Mean-
while, in 1836 he had been appointed geologist
of the first district of the newly organized sur-
vey of New York, but he resigned because the
duties of the position were too heavy in addition
to those he was already carrying. The matter
which first brought him into public notice was
the discovery made by James Deane and others
of enormous birdlike track$ in the red sand-