John Lawrence Leconte Author(s): George H. Horn Source: Science, Vol. 2, No. 46, (Dec. 21, 1883), pp. 783-786 Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1759871 Accessed: 02/06/2008 15:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aaas. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We enable the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org SCIENCE. decided tastes for studies FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1883. natural-history out- side of the scholastic course, greatly to the alarm of his tutors. The father, on being ap- LECONTE. JOHNV LA WRENCE prised of this, was greatly pleased, and direct- AMERICAN science has suffered a sad loss in ed that the tendencies should not be repressed, the death of one of its best-known exponents. inasmuch as the boy exhibited no deficiency in An advanced his regular stud- leader in his own ies. His progress department, pro- in the study of found and accu- mathematics and rate in his labors, languages was rapid and thor- ough, and doubt- panion and a true as less laid the foun- friend., - such a dation for the man was Le- accuracy and re- Conte. tentiveness of his memory, so Conte, the son of an marked in his ma- Major John Eat- iisaxiii} turer years. Af- ton LeConte and ter the completion of the college rence, was born course, he re- May 13, 1825, in turned to his na- New-York City. tive city, and en- When but a few tered the College weeks old, his of physicians and mother died, and .r~ surgeons of New the fatther thence- York, receiving forward devoted his medical degree himself to the caire in 1,846. and development For many years of his only child. Major LeConte The father died in had been in cor- 1860, liaving seen respondence with his son rise to a European ento- foremost place e PI inologists, nota- among the natu- bly Dejean, and ralists of his day. laid the founda- On arriving at suitable age, he was placed in tion of the cabinet, now greatly enlarged, which St. Mary's college, Maryland, from which he made the basis of the future labors of the son. In 1844 the first essays of the latter in original work made their appearance, with unmistaka- thorough. Early in his pupilage he exhibited ble evidences of his youth and inexperience. No. 46. - 1883. 784 SCIENCE. [VOL. II., NO. 46. During 1849 he made several visits to the lic and private museums; and his wonderful Lake-Superior region, once in company with memory of the species of his own cabinet en- Professor Agassiz, collecting largely, and pub- abled him to settle many doubtful points of lishing the results in Agassiz' work on that synonymy. Those who met him abroad were r.egion. In the autumn of 1850 he visited deeply impressed by his thorough scholarship, California, remaining the greater portion of and his quick and accurate perception of the the following year, stopping for a while at affinities of Coleoptera which he had never Panama, collecting largely in many depart- before seen. On his return he resumed his ments of natural history in a region in which labors, which continued, with slight interrup- nearly every thing was new to science, extend- tions by ill health, until within a week of his ing his explorations through the Colorado des- death. ert and as far east as the Pima villages. The LeConte's career in science began in 1844 material collected in these regions was care- with his first paper in the proceedings of the fully studied on his return, and the results pub- Philadelphia academy, followed by others in lished in the annals of the New-York lyceum. other journals: these gave but little evidence In 1852 the LeContes removed to Philadelphia, of the future powers of the man, until, in 1850, where the greater portion of the scientific labors his ' Monograph of Pselaphidae ' appeared, in of both have since been published. For a few which an arrangement of these minute forms months in 1857 LeConte accompanied the Hon- was proposed which remains at present the basis duras interoceanic survey, under the late J. C. of the general classification of these insects. Trautwine, publishing his observations in the Shortly after appeared his ' Attempt to classify report of that expedition. -Ie visited at the the longicorn Coleoptera of America, north of same time the Fuente de Sangre, contributing Mexico,' - a work of far wider application than an account of that phenomenon in Squier's indicated by its title, in which numerous sug- ' Nicaragua.' gestions of new characters and wider applica- After these voyages, LeConte's scientific tions of old ones are foundc labor was uninterrupted until the breaking-out To follow his papers from this period would of the war. In 1862 he was appointed surgeon be a history of scientific coleopterology in of volunteers, and shortly after made medical America. Their importance and utility at- inspector with the rank of lieutenant-colonel; tracted attention abroad, and many were re- in which position he remained until 1865, ex- printed in whole or in part. As to their hibiting a capacity for organization and direc- scope, they cover nearly every family in the tion in a wider field than the cabinet to which order: and in every case his work is an im- he had hitherto confined himself. provement on what preceded it; he always left During the summer of 1867 he acted as a subject better than he found it. geologist of the survey for the extension of Several of his works require a special notice. the Union Pacific railway southward to Fort IHis edition of the entomological writings of Craig, under the command of Gen. W. W. Say, in which he was assisted in their depart- Wright. His report, which in no way de- ments by Baron Osten-Sacken and Mr. P. R. tracts from his reputation as an entomologist, Uhler, proved of inestimable value to students was published as part of the report of the sur- by placing within easy access the works of that vey. pioneer of American science. The volumes In the autumn of 1869 he started for Eu- appeared in 1859, have run through several rope with his family, remaining abroad until editions, and are still in demand. Realizing near the close of 1872, visiting, in the mean that his favorite branch needed greater encour- time, Algiers and Egypt. His residence abroad agement, he undertook, in 1860, the 'Classifi- interrupted somewhat his authorship, but not cation of the Coleoptera of North America,' his studies. He visited all the accessible pub- with the accompanying list of species, and de- DECEMBER 21, 1883.] SCIE NCE. 785 scriptions of new forms. This work was never moment. He has contributed a number of completed, but extended to the end of the articles on vertebrate paleontology, and several Cerambycidae. The interruption of the work on existing mammals. His 'Zo6logical notes of by the war made an interval of time in which a visit to Panama' (Proc. Philad. acad., 1852) the edition of the earlier-issued parts became illustrate the extent of his study in another exhausted, and, to a certain extent, antiquated direction. At least one article on purely social from more recent studies. The results of this science has emanated from his pen. book are abundantly shown in the vast increase In a general review of his writings, LeConte in the number of intelligent students and col- is found remarkably free from controversial lectors, accompanied by a further demand for tendencies. He gave to science the best re- the exhausted edition,'rendering a new one sults of his labor, knowing that what was necessary. worthy would in time be adopted. I know Before the new edition could be prepared, it that he was better pleased to have errors of became imperative to study the Rhynchophora; his own corrected than to correct those of an- and at this point LeConte made one of the other. He was above the limit of those petty boldest strokes of his career in the isolation of jealousies which too often prevail between active that series from other Coleoptera, and by pro- workers in the same field. Those who sought posing a classification of them as remarkable his advice or assistance, either in person or by in novelty as it was true to nature. This was correspondence, were always made welcome; followed by the ' Species of Rhynchophora,' and the numerous cabinets determined by him published as a separate volume by the Ameri- gave evidence alike of his industry ana lib- can philosophical society.