Earmarks of Genius
From the column
JOURNAL WAYFARER
BY ALICE FROST LORD
Earmarks of genius are the early enthusiasms of youth
who later fill many niches in statistical data of “Who’s Who.” Such was the
case with a Norway family, the Verrills.
The contemporary author, who is famed as a
naturalist, explorer and illustrator, is Prof. Alpheus Hyatt Verrill. He
happened to be born in New Haven. Conn., but he took special courses in zoology
with his father; and the latter was Addison Emery Verrill who belonged in
Maine.
In an old History of Norway (Lapham’s)
considerable space is given to this earlier professor at Yale. For he was born
in 1839 in Greenwood, in this State, later moving with his father to Norway.
The youngster’s aptitudes did not require any modern academic tests. His traits
were marked. It is recorded:
“When he wore pinafores he would
frequently stray away into the fields and pastures, fill his lap with curious
stones—and Oxford county is full of precious ones—and refuse to return to the
house unless his treasures could be taken along with him.
“Birds and reptiles attracted his
childish attention, and his mother found it no small task to remove, after he
had retired for the night, the hoards of natural objects he had gathered and
brought into the house during the day.”
Of course, many a small boy has
exasperated his mother doing like things. But these had a continuing meaning in
the life of this older Verrill who was to become distinguished in this field.
The historian continues.
“He mastered the branches taught in the
public schools with remarkable facility, especially mathematics, and was well
up in all branches of English before he entered the academy.
“He nearly began to make a
collection of objects in natural history, and his collection of stuffed birds
was, a
marvel, considering his years and opportunities.
“When 19 years of age he wrote to Prof.
Agassiz and made his own arrangements with that distinguished savant to become
his pupil. * * * He also became an adept in fine drawing so essential
to the accurate study of conchology.”
Well, the older Verrill became a professor at
Harvard and curator of Peabody museum on the Cambridge campus; and later was
professor of zoology at Yale. At one time he was in charge of dredging for deep
sea fauna in connection with the United States Fisheries.
Prof. Addison Emery Verrill also married a
Maine girl, Flora L. Smith of Norway.
Such is the
background for Prof. Alpheus Hyatt Verrill, whose biography in “Who’s Who” has measured exactly
six inches of the finest print.
Probably many Maine people are not aware
that it was this man who invented photography in natural colors; or that he has
been an explorer in Bermuda, the West Indies, Guiana, Central America, Panama,
and is credited with rediscovering the (supposedly) extinct solenodon paradoxus
in Santa Domingo—which is a peculiar insectivorous mammal, furry, long snouted
and long tailed.
Another unusual achievement was a series
of oil paintings of South and Central American Indians, done from life.
Spectacular also was his supervision of recovering
a Spanish galleon that had been sunk in the 17th century off the West Indies. It
is interesting, also, that his home has been in the historic De Soto area in
Florida.
Two generations of Verrills in the
professorial field! What will later ones supply? Are they, too, stone and
bug-minded!