140 



OBITUARIES 



GEOEG BAUR 



Bokn, January 4, 1859. Died, June 25, 1898 



The premature death of Dr Georg Baur, of the University of Chicago, 

 removes one of the most brilliant investigators of vertebrate morphol- 

 ogy from the ranks of the present generation of naturalists. He was 

 born nearly forty years ago at Weisswasser, in Bohemia, where his 

 father was at the time Professor of Mathematics. Most of his youth 

 was passed in Hesse and Wiirtemberg, and his final school was the 

 Gymnasium at Stuttgart. In 1878 he entered the University of 

 Munich, devoting his attention chiefly to zoology, palaeontology, 

 geology, and mineralogy ; and in 1880 he removed to Leipzig, where 

 he studied under Credner and Leuckart. Two years later he re- 

 turned to Munich to take his degree of Ph.D., and from 1882 to 1884 

 he acted as assistant to Prof, von Kupffer. Dr Baur was then 

 invited by Prof. Marsh to assist him in his work on extinct verte- 

 brata in the Peabody Museum of Yale University at New Haven ; 

 and from 1884 onwards he made his home in the United States of 

 America. He visited England in 1886, and again in 1888, and returned 

 to Germany on several short holidays. In 1890 he resigned his assist- 

 antship at Yale, and became lecturer in the Clark University at Wor- 

 cester, Mass. In 1892 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Com- 

 parative Osteology and Palaeontology in the newly-founded University 

 of Chicago ; and in 1895 he was finally promoted to the rank of 

 Associate Professor, the position he held at the time of his death. 

 He was always intensely active and absorbed in his favourite studies, 

 and the continuous mental strain eventually led to a serious collapse 

 in health last autumn. A few months' rest seemed to revive him, and 

 he returned to Chicago in December ; but he was soon compelled to 

 relinquish work again, and the University granted him an extension 

 of leave to visit his relatives in Germany. Paralysis unfortunately 

 supervened, until his mind became completely deranged, and a wide 

 circle of friends has now to mourn his sad and untimely loss. 



Dr Baur's researches related chiefly to two subjects — the skeleton 

 of the vertebrate animals, and the natural history of the Galapagos 

 Islands. He was the author of about 150 notes and papers detailing 

 the results of these researches. He also published the first part of a 

 special work entitled Beitrage zur Morphogenie des Carpus und Tarsus 

 der Vertebratcn (Jena, 1888). He was especially interested in the 

 skeleton of reptiles ; and although he often arrived at conclusions too 

 hastily, and frequently changed his views, his papers were always 

 filled with suggestiveness and brilliant generalisation, which none 

 interested in the progress of knowledge could afford to overlook. His 

 writings on osteology, indeed, though brief, are among the classics of 

 the subject. Dr Baur's interest in the Galapagos Islands was first 

 aroused by the extinct giant tortoises of North America and the possi- 

 bility of their close kinship with those of the distant archipelago off 

 the South American coast, It was not until 1891, however, that he 



