Condon, Thomas

From Lane Co Oregon

THOMAS CONDON

Born in Ireland, Dr. Thomas Condon (1822-1907) is Oregon’s most famous geologist, widely recognized as an authority on geological development in the Pacific Northwest. His 1902 book, The Two Islands, included his popular writings on the John Day and Willamette valleys. Condon actually came to the territory in 1852 as a missionary, having received theological training while a young man in New York. With his ability to lecture on both religion and science, he was named to the University of Oregon’s first faculty in 1876, where he taught for almost thirty years. The numerous honors to his memory include Condon Hall and the Condon Lecture Series at the university.

Upon his death, Eugene merchants closed their stores the afternoon of his funeral. Tributes came from far and wide, including a special memorial edition of the UO Bulletin, which contained a reminiscence from former student Charlotte F. Roberts. They were studying insects in class, Roberts recalled, and Condon gave a short lecture, presumably on the caddis-fly. “Students,” he said, “have you ever walked on the edge of a pond in the summer time and noticed a beautiful, gauzy-winged insect floating in the air over the pond? That is the caddis-fly.” The larva first makes a cocoon of meed and fine gravel, which appears to be just an ugly mud roll, Condon said. “But to the intelligent observer these mud rolls contain life, and in process of time you will see the ugly mud casement breaking open and an exquisitely beautiful and dainty creature emerging from its prison cell. Students, I have thought the chrysalis stage of these beautiful flies a fitting illustration of our lives here — limited, confined, often appearing to the world ugly and unattractive, but some day to be transformed into glorious beauty.”

But is the caddis-fly aware of this marvelous change daily taking place? “Oh, no! no! no!” the professor continued. “And neither can we know the transformation going on in these prison walls of ours which will some day be burst asunder, and each one of us shall be revealed a glorious, immortal being with different powers, different privileges, and an entirely new life.”