Talmadge
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JAMES EDWARD, an American geologist, born at Hungerford, Berkshire, England, in 1862. He came to the United States in 1876 and became a member of the Mormon Church. He was educated at Brigham Young Academy, Lehigh University and Johns Hopkins University. From 1884 to 1888 he was professor of chemistry and geology at Brigham Young Academy; from 1888 to 1893 president of Latter Day Saints College; and from 1894 to 1897 president of the University of Utah. After his resignation from the presidency he retained the chair of geology until 1907, since which time he has been a consulting and mining geologist. He was also director of the Deseret Museum, Salt Lake City, from 1891 to 1919, and was ordained one of the twelve apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1911. He traveled extensively in Europe and frequently lectured in the British Isles on geology and other features of life in the western United States. He was a member of various British and American geographical and geological societies and wrote, besides many articles on geological and microscopical subjects in technical journals: "First Book of Nature" (1888); "Domestic Science" (1891); "The Articles of Faith" (1899); "The Book of Mormon, an Account of Its Origin, Etc." (1899); "Tables for Blowpipe Determination of Minerals" (1899); "The Great Salt Lake, Present and Past" (1900); "The Story of Mormonism" (1907); "The Great ; "The House of the Apostasy" (1909); Lord" (1912); "The Philosophy of Mormonism" (1914); "Jesus the Christ" (1915); "The Vitality of Mormonism" (1919).
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's wrote in 1921 while its subject was still living and still an active apostle; the name is also misspelled, as he signed himself James E. Talmage. He continued in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles until his death in Salt Lake City on 27 July 1933, and helped draft the LDS First Presidency's 1916 doctrinal statement on the Father and the Son. The two books listed at the end of Collier's entry, "The Articles of Faith" (1899) and "Jesus the Christ" (1915), outlasted his geology: both are still in print, translated into many languages, and were used for decades as standard teaching and missionary texts in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His scientific work on the Great Salt Lake is now of chiefly historical interest, while his theological writing is what keeps his name known.
Written for this edition, 2026.