Thomas Sterry Hunt (September 5, 1826February 12, 1892) was an American geologist and chemist. Biography 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. Upon arriving in Canada, Hunt began studying the crystalline rocks of eastern Canada, sulphate and phosphate deposits, the composition of mineral waters, and the oil resources in Enniskillen Township. In the Report of the Geological Survey for 1849-1850, Hunt analyzed a one hundred pound sample of bitumen from Enniskillen Township, noting that the mineral could be used to create asphalt, caulking material for ships or illuminating gas. Hunt's report drew attention to the bitumen despots in Southwestern Ontario and helped ignite the first oil boom in Enniskillen Township. In December 1860, Hunt travelled to the Enniskillen oil fields and recorded that James Miller Williams and other entrepreneurs had sunk over 100 oils wells and mined somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 gallons of oil. 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 1857, he invented a particular kind of ink while teaching at Université Laval, in response to an appeal for measures to fight counterfeiting. The ink ended up being used on various bank notes, including the US government's Civil War bank notes. This is the origin of the term "Greenback (1860s money)". 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