Mineral Industries and Geology of Certain Areas - Vermont Agency ...

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REPORT OF THE VERMONT STATE GEOLOGIST.
without, together with the great modifications of structure and
position of strata within, that disguised their true character and
relationship, made the order and age of the rocks such a hard
problem. Time, diligence, ability were needed. And we have
seen how Mr. Wing solved it. It was to him a ten-years'
problerri.
Mr. Wing had been slow to make know-n his researches,
wishing apparently to put his theory beyond any possible overthrow
by adverse criticism. Typical localities were re-examined
that every weak point might be strengthened. He at
length was clear in his own conclusions. He now wished thegeological
world to share with him in the results of his labors.
It was a rare day to Mr. Wing when he secured the promise
from Professor J. D. Dana to look into the facts, the basis
of his theory. By arrangement a party consisting of Professors
Dana, Genth, Prime and Blake came together on July 9, 1875,
at Great Barrington, Mass. A friend acquainted with the facts
writes: "It was the climax in his life when Mr. Wing met
Professor Dana and a party of geologists at Great Barrington,
Mass., and there began to unfold his theory, verifying each
position as they traveled through the Berkshire hills and
Hoosac valley, and made their way north, traversing the entire
length of his native State, crossing and recrossing the Green
mountain range, by which time his theory had given place to a
deep conviction that it was correct. To Mr. Wing this, without
doubt, was a moment of great triumph, when the great
importance of his contribution to science was thus recognized
by the highest authority in America—perhaps the highest in the
world."
It is not to be asserted that all obscurities of the region, such
as the relations of the lower to the upper Potsdarn, the slates at
the middle and southern part of the State, the exact age of the
most disturbed and metamorphosed strata near the quartzyte,
have been fully removed. But in the main what was to be done
had been done, and Mr. \Ving made good his early assertion,
REPORT OF THE VERMONT STATE GEOLOGIST. 29
"That all the rocks in Addison, Rutland and Bennington counties
between the great break on the west and the quartzyte on
the east were Lower Silurian." The minor facts he could put
over for later time, or leave indeed to others who should catch
enthusiasm from the work and the success of the master.
It would have been fortunate for science if Mr. Wing could
have written out his observations and discoveries. This work
he fully intended to do. But he found so much in the field that,
as he thought still demanded his attention, the writing was
put off. He was ever finding his delight, as well as his reward,
in his discoveries; so he neared his bound without having received
personally the appreciative acknowledgment his fellowworkers
would have gladly accorded him.
The work in the field of the season of 1875 had been severe
and exhausting to him, now advancing in age, and he retired
to Whiting, Vt., to accept the ministries of a sister and her
family. Here this stalwart man, with large frame and great
heart, with the broad intellectual range of the mature man, and
yet with the simplicity of a child, of great good nature and
incapable of resentment, overflowing with enthusiasm and kindling
like enthusiasm in others, came to take a needed rest.
Undiscovered truths of his loved science were beckoning him
on. But there were other discoveries and other beckonings.
A fever set in; his peaceful death came too soon for science,
for on January 19, 1876, he made the great discovery.
As before intimated there is no bibliography. And yet his
line has gone out into all the recent literature of the rocks of
his region. Probably a part of Mr. Wing's work has been lost
beyond recall; but from field notes, letters, and incomplete
papers, these latter evidently designed to be elaborated for publication,
the greater part through Prof. James D. Dana's sympathetic
labor has been recovered.
This writing gives but an inadequate idea of the real work
of vIr. \Ving, and so the writer most earnestly requests the
reader to turn to an article in the American Journal of Science,