Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/281

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RILEY
RILEY

St. Paul in Dieppe, Prance, and three years later went to Bonn, Germany. In 1860 he came to the United States and settled on a farm in Illinois, where he acquired a practical knowledge of agri- culture. Subsequently he became editorially con- nect rd with the " Evening Journal " and the " Prai- rie Farmer " in Chicago. He relinquished these ap- pointments in May. 1864, to serve with the 134th Illinois volunteers : and when his regiment was disbanded, toward the close of the war, he resumed his connection with the " Prairie Farmer." In 1808 he accepted the office of state entomologist of Mis- souri, which he held until 1877, and then he was appointed chief of the U. S. entomological commis- sion that had been formed under the auspices of the department of the interior for the purpose of investigating the Rocky mountain locust. He was made entomologist to the department of agricul- ture in 1878, but soon gave up this office and re- turned to his work in the entomological commis- sion, for which he edited and wrote the more im- portant original and practical portions of its four large report? (1S77-'8C. In 1881 he organized the entomological division of the department of agri- culture, to which the work of the commission was transferred, and he had since continued in charge of that division, also holding the office of curator of insects in the U. S. national museum, to which he presented his private entomological collection of more than 115,000 mounted specimens, including about 15.0(111 sprcies. This is now the largest gen- eral collection in the United States. He had lec- tured on entomology at Cornell university, Kansas slate agricultural college, Washington university, and Missouri state university, which institution conferred on him. in 187o, the honorary degree of Ph. D. Prof. Riley's great services to the com- munity have been aivomplMird by his valuable researches on the insects most injurious to Ameri- can agriculture, including the Rocky mountain locu-t. the army worm, the chinch-bug, the canker- worm, the cotton-worm, the potato-beetle, and the phylloxera. His researches on the latter attracted the attention of the French authorities, and in 1873 he was presented by that government with a gold medal that was designed for the occasion. In 1884 he received a gold medal fora collection of insects that he made at the International forestry exhibition in Edinburgh. He was a member of many scientific societies in the United States and abroad, was general secretary of the American as- sociation for the advancement of science in 1881, and vice-president of the section of biology in 1888, president of the St. Louis academy of sciences in 187G-'8, and first president of the Entomological society of Washington in 1883. In 1878, with Benjamin D. Walsh, he founded " The American Entomologist," but it was discontinued at the end of its second volume. It was resumed in 1880, but given up again at the close of the volume. Prof. Kiley had contributed largely to the press and to cyclopaedias. The titles of his separate papers are about 2,000 iu number, and he has published in book-form " Reports on the Noxious, Beneficial, and other Insects of the State of Missouri " (9 an- nual volumes, Jefferson City, 1869-'77) ; " Potato Pests" (New York, 1876); "The Locust Plague in the United States" (Chicago, 1877): and " Annual Reports as Entomologist of the Department of Agriculture " ; also a number of bulletins from the entomological division (Washington, 1881 et seq.).


RILEY, Henry Chauncey, P. E. bishop, b. in Santiago, Chili, 15 Dec., 1835. He was graduated at Columbia in 1858, studied theology in England, was ordained in 1866, and went to Mexico, where he labored as a missionary. He devoted his strength and his fortune to building up an Episcopalian or- ganization in that country, which was called the Church of Jesus, and was consecrated bishop of the alli-y of Mexico in 1879. Differences arose be- tween him and other clergymen interested in the undertaking, and in 1884 he resigned his office.


RILEY, Henry Hiram, lawyer, b. in Great Bar- rington, Mass., 1 Sept., 1813 ; d. in Constantine. Mich., 8 Feb., 1888. He was left an orphan at the age of ten, received a common-school education in New Hartford, N. Y., learned the printer's trade in Hudson. N. Y.. worked in New York city as a jour- neyman printer from ls:-!4 till 1S37. and from 1837 till 1842 edited the "Seneca Observer," a Demo- cratir paper, at Vatertown, N. Y., at the same time pursuing the study of law. He sold this and went to Kalamazoo, Mich., where he was admitted to the bar, and entered into practice in Constantino, taking a high rank in his profession. He was prosecuting attorney for St. Joseph county for six years, a member of the state senate in 1850-'!, a delegate to the Democratic convention of 1860 at Charleston, where he supported the candidacy of Stephen A. Douglas for the presidency, a state sena- tor again in 1862. an active member of the commis- sion that revised the state constitution in 1873, and afterward judge of the circuit court. He contrib- uted to the " Knickerbocker Magazine," under the pen-name of " Simon Oakleaf," a series of articles called " Puddleford Papers, or Humors of the West," which were followed by " Puddleford and its People." The latter was issued in book-form (New York, 1854), and the earlier papers, which were partly humorous and partly descriptive of nature, were subsequently published in a volume in a revised form, and attained popularity (1857).


RILEY, James, mariner, b. in Middletown, Conn., 27 Oct.. 1777 : d. at sea. 1