Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, the distinguished Harvard geologist, poet,
historian, and sociologist, was born at Newport, Kentucky, February
20, 1841. He was graduated from Harvard in 1862, where he had the
benefit of almost private instruction from the great Agassiz. Shaler
returned to Kentucky, and for the next two years he served in the
Union army. In 1864 he was appointed assistant in palentology at
Harvard; and four years later he became assistant in zoology and
geology in the Lawrence Scientific School and head of the department
of palentology. In 1873 the Governor of Kentucky appointed Professor
Shaler director of the Kentucky Geological Survey, and he devoted
parts of the next seven years to this work. He was the most efficient
State geologist Kentucky has ever known, and his work for the Survey
pointed out the path trodden by his successors. His assistant,
Professor John R. Proctor, followed him as Director, and he stands
next to his chief in the work he accomplished. _The Kentucky
Geological Survey_ (1874-1880, 6 vols.), volume three of which,
entitled _A General Account of the Commonwealth of Kentucky_
(Cambridge, Mass., 1876), was written entirely by Shaler, are
excellent memorials of the work he did for his native state. In 1884
Shaler was placed in charge of the Atlantic division of the United
States Geological Survey; and in 1891 he was chosen dean of the
Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard. This position he held until a
year or two before his death. Dean Shaler published _Thoughts on the
Nature of Intellectual Property_ (Boston, 1878); _Glaciers_ (Boston,
1881); _The First Book of Geology_ (Boston, 1884); _Kentucky: A
Pioneer Commonwealth_ (Boston, 1885), the philosophy of Kentucky
history summarized; _Aspects of the Earth_ (New York, 1889); _Nature
and Man in America_ (New York, 1891); _The Story of Our Continent_
(Boston, 1892); _Sea and Land_ (New York, 1892); _The United States_
(New York, 1893); _The Interpretation of Nature_ (Boston, 1893);
_Domesticated Animals_ (New York, 1895); _American Highways_ (New
York, 1896); _Outlines of the Earth's History_ (New York, 1898); _The
Individual_ (New York, 1900); _Elizabeth of England_ (Boston, 1903,
five vols.), a "dramatic romance," celebrating "the spacious times of
great Elizabeth"; _The Neighbor_ (Boston, 1904); _The Citizen_ (New
York, 1904); _Man and the Earth_ (New York, 1905); and _From Old
Fields_ (Boston, 1906), a book of short poems. Besides these books,
Dean Shaler wrote hundreds of magazine articles, reports, scientific
memoirs, miscellaneous essays. He died at Cambridge, Massachusetts,
April 10, 1906, just as he was about to make ready for a final journey
to Kentucky. Dean Shaler was loved and honored more at Harvard,
perhaps, than any other teacher the University has ever known.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The World's Work_ (June, 1906); _Science_ (June 8,
1906); _The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, with a
Supplementary Memoir by his Wife_, published posthumously (Boston,
1909), is a charming record of his days at Harvard and in Kentucky.