SECTION C PALEONTOLOGY 



(Hall 11, September 22, 10 a. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR WILLIAM B. SCOTT, Princeton University. 



SPEAKERS: DR. A. S. WOODWARD, F.R.S., British Museum of Natural History, 



London. 



PROFESSOR HENRY F. OSBORN, Columbia University. 

 SECRETARY: DIRECTOR JOHN M. CLARKE, State Museum, Albany, N. Y. 



THE RELATIONS OF PALEONTOLOGY TO OTHER 

 BRANCHES OF SCIENCE 



BY ARTHUR SMITH WOODWARD 



[Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of the Geological Department, British Museum. 

 b. Macclesfield, England, May 24, 1864. Educated in Macclesfield Grammar 

 School; Owens College, Manchester. (Hon.) LL.D. Glasgow. Connected with 

 the British Museum since 1882, occupied with researches in extinct vertebrata, 

 especially fishes. Received Wollaston Fund from the Geological Society of Lon- 

 don, 1889 ; Lyell Medal, ibid. 1896. Fellow of the Royal Society of London ; also 

 of the Linnean, Zoological, Geological, and Royal Geographical Societies; Mem- 

 ber of Societe" Beige de Geologic; New York Academy of Sciences; Boston So- 

 ciety of Natural History; Secretary of Paleontographical Society. Author of 

 Catalogue of Fossil Fishes in British Museum,; Outlines of Vertebrate Paleon- 

 tology; and various memoirs and papers in scientific journals.] 



THE satisfactory interpretation of fossils depends on knowledge of 

 so many kinds that it is not surprising the study of them was scienti- 

 fically pursued for nearly half a century before it received a distinct- 

 ive name. Even after paleontology had been added to the roll of 

 the sciences, the universities still regarded it as a department of 

 geology, zoology, or comparative anatomy. In fact, to this day there 

 is no separate ordinary chair of paleontology in any of the European 

 universities, and there are very few chairs devoted to this science even 

 in the more progressive universities of America. It is the general 

 custom for the professor of geology to treat the invertebrate fossils, 

 with special reference to their use in determining the age of rocks; 

 while the professor of zoology or comparative anatomy usually 

 includes the vertebrate fossils in his course, to supply some of the 

 many links which are missing in the surviving chain of life. Under 

 such circumstances, there is no difficulty in recognizing that paleon- 

 tology is intimately related to other geological and biological sciences. 

 The obstacle to a correct appreciation of the subject is rather that 

 the divided teaching fails to impart to the student any adequate 

 idea of its fundamental broad principles and their true meaning. 



