Hitchcock

stone of the Connecticut Valley. Deane sent
these tracks to Hitchcock and thus started a se-
ries of investigations in which Hitchcock al-
ways remained the dominant figure. The tracks,
while strongly resembling those of birds, were
after years of study by the highest authorities of
the day ascribed to a dinosauric origin.

Hitchcock was the first chairman (1840) of
the Association of American Geologists and
Naturalists which in 1847 became the American
Association for the Advancement of Science.
In 1856, while continuing his connection with
the college at Amherst, he assumed the proffered
position of state geologist of Vermont, and in
1861 presented his completed Report on the Geol-
ogy of Vermont in the form of two quarto vol-
umes, with thirty-six full-page plates and a geo-
logical map. One of the observations of this
survey which excited considerable interest at the
time was the flattening and other distortion of
quartz pebbles in conglomerates. This phenom-
enon Hitchcock had first noted in Rhode Island
in 1832, but it was not until 1861, and in con-
nection with the Vermont survey, that he was
able to establish beyond question the accuracy
of his first observation. He early became inter-
ested in the problems of the drift, though he
never quite accepted Agassiz's glacial theory.
His paper on the river terraces of the Connecti-
cut Valley, Illustrations of Surface Geology
(1857), published by the Smithsonian Institu-
tion, was for its time a classic. He was a prolific
writer on a variety of subjects. He wrote five
volumes and thirty-seven pamphlets and tracts
on religious themes, the most notable being The
Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences
(1851); three volumes and as many tracts on
temperance; fourteen volumes, five tracts, and
some seventy-five papers on botanical, miner-
alogical, geological, and physical subjects, and
twenty-seven others, including a tragedy, Eman-
cipation of Europe; or the Downfall of Bona-
parte (1815), which during his principalship of
the Deerfield Academy was "acted with great
success before his neighbors" (C. H. Hitchcock,
post, 134, 139). His Elementary Geology, pub-
lished in 1840, passed through thirty editions and
was then revised. In 1863 he published Rem-
iniscences of Amherst College.

Hitchcock is pictured as the typical New Eng-
land clergyman of his day, a trifle stern, digni-
fied, and smoothshaven. His ability is nowhere
better shown than in his skilful handling of so
delicate a question as that relating to geology
and the Scriptures. Since he had nearly ruined
both health and eyesight early in his career by
overwork, it is remarkable that he did so much

Hitchcock
and did it so well. He was married in 1821 to
Orra White of Amherst, an artist of ability who
drew many of the illustrations for her husband's
works. Six of the children born to them lived
to maturity, and two, Edward and Charles Henry
CM-V.], became distinguished in the fields of
education and geology respectively.
[Autobiographical notes in Hitchcock's Reminis-
cences of Amherst College; memoir by J. P. Lesley in
Nat. Acad. Set. Biog. Memoirs, vol. I (1877) ; M. L. J.
Hitchcock, The Geneal. of the Hitchcock Family
(1894) ; C. H. Hitchcock, memoir, with excellent bibli-
ography, in Am, Geologist, Sept. 1895; Pop. Sci. Mo .
Sept. 18951 W. S. Tyler, Hist, of Amherst College
(1873); J. M. Nickels, "Geol. Lit. on North America,"
Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey, 746, 747 (1923-24); Boston
Transcnpt, Feb. 29, 1864.] G.P.M.
HITCHCOCK, EDWARD (May 23, 1828-
Feb. 15, 1911), educator, first professor of phys-
ical education in an American college, was born
at Amherst, Mass., of sturdy New England
stock, a son of Professor, later President Ed-
ward Hitchcock [#.#.]> of Amherst College, and
of Orra (White) Hitchcock, an educated and
profoundly religious woman. Almost his entire
life was spent in the beautiful valley about Am-
herst and along the Connecticut River. He grew
up a healthy, active youth, developed in body
largely by the many chores required of him but
fond of the simple sports of the times. The phys-
ical benefits from these early years were evident
in his vigorous, virile manhood. He had no pa-
tience with effeminacy in young men. He at-
tended Amherst Academy, Williston Seminary,
and Amherst College, where he graduated in
1849. After completing his medical course at
Harvard in 1853, ne taught natural sciences and
elocution at Williston Seminary until 1860,
when, deciding to devote his life to the study of
comparative anatomy, he went to England to
become the private pupil of Sir Richard Owen
of the British Museum. On his return to Amer-
ica in 1861 he was unexpectedly called to the
head of a recently organized "Department of
Hygiene and Physical Education" at his alma
mater, a position which he held for half a cen-
tury. His acceptance of this call changed the
whole course of his life. Credit for the origin
of this department, which was put on an equal-
ity with the others in the college, belongs to
President Stearns, but the laying of the founda-
tions of a department previously unknown in
American colleges must be attributed to Hitch-
cock.
His precedents were the modern developments
in popular, school, and military gymnastics in
Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and England; the
gymnastic program, of Charles Follen and
Charles Beck [qq.v.] in Cambridge, Mass., and