Joseph LeConte

Joseph LeConte was born on February 26, 1823 on the plantation "Woodmanston" in Liberty County, Georgia. He was the fifth child and youngest son in the family. His mother died of pneumonia when he was three. His father, who had trained as a doctor, but did not earn a degree, ran the family plantation and set up a chemical laboratory in his house and a botany garden for the education of his sons. As a boy LeConte frequently ranged the backwoods of Liberty County with his older brothers and took an interest in nature. He attended a country school set up by several of the plantation families and among his teachers was Alexander Hamilton Stephens, who was later a U.S. Senator and vice-president of the Confederacy, and with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship.

He attended Franklin College which later founded the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. He graduated in 1841. After graduation he began studying medicine under Charles West in Macon, Georgia and then he attended the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, graduating with a medical degree in 1845. He practiced medicine for three years in Macon, Georgia and then studied history at Harvard University, in Boston, Massachusetts, studying under Louis Agassiz. After graduation in 1851, he accompanied an expedition lead by Agassiz to the Florida Reef. After the expedition he became a professor of natural science at Oglethorpe College in Midway, Georgia. From 1852 to 1856 he was a professor of natural sciences and geology at Franklin College and from 1857 to 1869 he was a professor of chemistry and geology at South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina) in Columbia, South Carolina. During the American Civil War he continued teaching, but also ran a niter works used to produce explosives. In 1869 he moved to California, taking a job as the first professor of natural history and geology at the newly founded University of California, at Berkeley. He remained there until his death.

LeConte was primarily a geologist but he also wrote papers on monocular and binocular vision. He was also an early proponent of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. LeConte was one of the early supporters of the theory of contraction formation of mountain ranges. The theory was that when the earth was formed it was a molten ball  and as it cooled ridges on the surface developed. These ridges are the mountain ranges we see today. This theory of mountain range formation has been replaced by plate tectonic theory. LeConte was also an ardent conservationist. He was friends with John Muir, and with Muir was a co-founder of the Sierra Club. In 1874 he was nominated to the National Academy of Science. He served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1892 and president of the Geological Society of America in 1896.

He died on July 6, 1901 of a heart attack, while in Yosemite Valley. He was to be leaving on a Sierra Club trip the next day.


References:

LeConte, Joseph; "The Autobiography of Joseph LeConte", edited by William Dallam Ames; D. Appleton and Company; 1903

Hilgard, Eugene W.; "Biographical Memoir of Joseph LeConte: 1823-1901"; in Biographical Memoirs; National Academy Press; 1907

Joseph LeConte Wikipedia Entry

Charles Palache

Charles Palache was born in San Francisco, California on July 18, 1869. His father, James Palache, had come to California from New York as a cabin boy in 1849 lured by the gold rush, and there set up as a merchant. His mother, Helen Whitney, had come to California in a covered wagon from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Charles, a sensitive child, showed an early interest in natural history and avidly collected rocks. During his childhood his family moved across the bay to Berkley. In 1887 he graduated from Berkley High School and entered the University of California Berkley, selecting to study mining, because of the emphasis on natural history in the program. He soon found out that he was "repelled by the prospect of life in the mine" but when assigned to make a map of the Berkley hills he found that he enjoyed the work. During the assignment he found a set of ponds up in the hills in a place unlikely for ponds. He returned to the ponds and mapped them with his professor. The lakes were actually a result of the rift that would eventually cause the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.


Palace graduated at the top of his class and stayed at Berkley to earn his doctorate under Andrew C. Lawson. In 1894 Palache went to study in Europe where he studied crystallography under Victor Goldschmidt, laying the foundation for the work he would pursue for the next fifty five years. Palache, after returning to California, received an offer to become an assistant at Harvard University. In 1899 he took part in the Harriman expidition to Alaska, postponing his wedding in order to do so. In 1902 he was named assistant professor, professor in 1910 and professor emeritus after his retirement in 1941.


Palache's major field of work at Harvard was morphological crystallography. There is scarcely a crystallized mineral that he did not work on. He was the first person to bring a Goldschmidt two circle reflecting gonometer to a America. A gonometer is an instrument used to measure the angles of crystals. Palache published over 150 papers on crystallography. In 1919 he helped organize the Mineralogical Society of America and two years later served as its president. He was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1934. In 1936 he was elected president of the Geological Society of America and in 1937 he was the first recipient of the Roebling Medal given by the Mineralogical Society of America. Palache's greatest achievement however was the comp

Plache's greatest achievement, however, was the preparation of the 7th edition of the Dana System of Mineralogy using the new tool of X-ray crystallography. This is the standard handbook used to identify minerals. The first volume was published in 1944 and the second in 1951.

Palache died on December 5, 1954

References:

Daly, Reginald;"Charles Palache: 1896-1954"; Biographical Memiors Vol. 30; National Academy Press; 1957

Frondel, Cliford; "Memorial of Charles Palache" at frankin-sterlilnghill.com

Charles Palache: 1896-1954 at pbs.org