Thomas Sterry Hunt
| Thomas Sterry Hunt | |
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| Born | September 5, 1826 Norwich, Connecticut |
| Died | February 12, 1892 (aged 65) New York City |
| Occupation | geologist, chemist |
Thomas Sterry Hunt (September 5, 1826 – February 12, 1892) was an American geologist and chemist.
Hunt was born at Norwich, Connecticut. He lost his father when twelve years old, and had to earn his own livelihood. In the course of two years he found employment in a printing office, in an apothecary shop, in a book store and as a clerk. He became interested in natural science, and especially in chemical and medical studies, and in 1845 he was elected a member of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists at Yale – a body which four years later became the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In 1848 he read a paper in Philadelphia On Acid Springs and Gypsum Deposits of the Onondaga Salt Group. At Yale he became assistant to Benjamin Silliman Jr., and in 1846 was appointed chemist to the Geological Survey of Vermont. In 1847 he was appointed to similar duties on the Canadian Geological Survey at Montreal under Sir William Logan, and this post he held until 1872. He resigned to become professor of geology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1851.
In 1859 he was elected fellow of the Royal Society, and he was one of the original members and president of the Royal Society of Canada. He was made Chevalier or the Legion of Honor in France and an honorary doctor of laws of the University of Cambridge. He was a frequent contributor to scientific journals, writing on the crystalline limestones, the origin of continents, the chemistry of the primeval earth, on serpentines, etc. He also wrote a notable Essay on the History of the names Cambrian and Silurian (Canadian Naturalist, 1872), in which the claims of Adam Sedgwick, with respect to the grouping of the Cambrian strata, were forcibly advocated. Hunt was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1873.
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