Irving

executor of Washington Irving, he used this
material and a vast collection of notebooks and
letters to write his four-volume biography, The
Life and Letters of Washington Irving (1862-
64). This work is full of prejudices, but must
always remain a source book for our knowledge
of Washington Irving. In 1866 Pierre edited
Irving's Spanish Papers and Other Miscellanies,
and died ten years later, known chiefly as the
biographer and interpreter of his more famous
kinsman.

[Sources for our knowledge of Pierre Mtinro Irving
exist only in the above-mentioned biography and in in-
cidental allusions in the correspondence of Washington
Irving, chiefly in the collections of the New York Pub-
lic Library and Yale University.] 5. T. W.

IRVING, ROLAND DUER (Apr. 29, 1847-
May 27, 1888), geologist and mining engineer,
was born in the city of New York. His father,
Pierre Paris Irving, son of Ebenezer and Eliza-
beth (Kip) Irving, was an Episcopal clergyman
and a nephew of Washington Irving [q.vJ]; his
mother, Anna Henrietta (Duer) Irving, was a
daughter of John Duer [q.v,,], an eminent New
York lawyer and jurist. That young Irving was
"well born" and came naturally by his literary
and general scholastic habits is evident. In 1849
the family moved to New Brighton, L. I. As a
youth, though strong and robust in appearance,
Irving was frail, subject to frequent and alarm-
ing attacks of illness, and handicapped by weak
eyes. For these reasons his early education was
gained at home under the instruction of his fa-
ther and sisters. At the age of twelve he was
sent to a classical school where his teacher was
accustomed to take long walks with his favorite
pupils on Saturday afternoons. During these
rambles the boy interested himself in collecting
rocks, ores, and minerals, and gave the first evi-
dences of his tendency toward the natural sci-
ences. Notwithstanding this bent he entered
upon a classical course at Columbia in 1863, but
was forced to abandon it a year later on account
of his eyes. At the end of a six months' holiday
spent in England he returned to the United
States, and in 1866 entered upon a course in the
Columbia School of Mines. Still troubled by his
eyes, he found it necessary to have much of the
text of his studies read to him. This slow and
laborious method of acquiring an education un-
doubtedly had much to do with the development
of the remarkable memory for which he later be-
came noted. Soon after his graduation in 1869,
he became superintendent of smelting works at
Grenville, N. J,, and in 1870 accepted the chair
of geology and mineralogy in the University of
Wisconsin, where he developed to an unusual de-
gree the dual facilities of instruction and in-

Irving

vestigation. With the establishment in 1873 of a
geological survey of Wisconsin under Prof. T.
C. Chamberlin [q.v."], Irving was appointed one
of the three assistant geologists and assigned for
the first year to the study of the Penokee iron
range; the second and third years being devoted
to the Paleozoic and Archaean areas of the cen-
tral part of the state. The results of these labors
appeared in Geology of Wisconsin, Survey of
1873-79 (4 vols., 1882-83). He also contributed
a number of articles to the American Journal of
Science, notably to the issues of July 1874, June
1875 and May 1879. In 1880, under the auspices
of the United States Geological Survey, he en-
tered upon a series of investigations of the geol-
ogy of the Lake Superior regions, involving
both the iron and copper-bearing rocks. To this
task he devoted himself most assiduously until
his death in 1888. His achievement here was
given its "best single expression/* according to
Chamberlin (post), in his Copper-Bearing
Rocks of Lake Superior (1883), published as a
monograph of the United States Geological Sur-
vey. His work, which lay in a most difficult field,
was distinguished for its thoroughness and hon-
esty of purpose. He was one of the first among
American geologists to enter the field of genetic
petrography and show convincingly its full util-
ity. His most important single work was prob-
ably the determination of the origin of the iron
ores of the region.

In personality, Irving was of a modest, retir-
ing disposition, but he possessed a "rollicking
brusque humor" that greatly endeared him to his
associates. He was married in 1872 to Abby
Louise McCulloh of Glencoe, Md. They had a
daughter and two sons, one of whom, John Duer
Irving [g.v.], became distinguished in his fa-
ther's profession.

[Ninth Ann. Report, U. S. Geol. Survey, 1887-88
(1889); T. C. Chamberlin, in Am. Geologist, Jan.
1889; Am. Jour. Sci., July 1888; Science, June 15,.
1888; bibliography of Irving's writings in J. M. Nickles,"
"Geologic Literature on North America," U. S. Geol.
Survey Butt. 746 (1923) ; Cuyler Reynolds, Geneal. and
Family Hist, of Southern'N. Y. and the Hudson River
Valley (1914), vol. Ill; Madison Democrat, May 31,
1888.] G. P.M.

IRVING, WASHINGTON (Apr. 3, 1783-
Nov. 28, 1859), author, was born in New York,
the son of Deacon William Irving, of the Orkney
family of Irvine, a former British packet officer,
a patriot during the Revolution, and a successful
merchant Irving's mother was Sarah (Sanders)
Irving, the grand-daughter of an English curate.
The youngest of eleven children, among whom
were the politician and poet, William [q.v.'], the
business man, Ebenezer, and the writer, Peter
[g.z;.], Washington Irving was reared in a home

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