1893.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 1(33 



it is understood to-du}', and his admissions of the apparent 

 failure of plants to sustain the general law of development 

 might have then been justified. 



" Of Dr. Newberry's early pioneer work on the Carboniferous 

 flora of America, I do not profess to be a competent judge, but 

 I believe it was as good as could have been done at that time. 

 His determinations of the later forms have not all stood the 

 test of time, but the same can be said of ever}' worker in this 

 field. He was no species-monger, and not prone to found 

 species on insuflficient material. His descrijitions were all 

 governed by strong common sense, and, unlike many other 

 paleobotanists, he never forgot that he was dealing with real 

 things. His discussions, therefore, of doubtful or unknown 

 forms were alwaj's dii'ected to ascertaining what the}' really 

 were and not merely to deciding what they should be called.* 



Dr. Newberry's first published paper, 1851, had reference to 

 fossil fishes, and twenty-four publications, distributed through 

 the years, prove his continuous interest in ichthyic paleontology. 

 In the later years of his life this branch seemed to have the 

 greatest fascination for him, and he never wearied of talking- 

 about the remains of the remarkable Devonian fishes which he 

 had described in the Ohio reports and deposited in the Colum- 

 bia Museum, As early as 185G he began publishing descriji- 

 tions of the j^aleozoic fishes of Ohio, and in Vol. I., Pt. II., and 

 Vol. II., Pt. II., of the Ohio Survey Reports, he described the 

 most remarkable of fossil fishes, the Dinichthys, which Las 

 probably attracted more attention from the scientific world 

 than any other single description in his original work. 



The reports upon the fossil fishes for the Illinois Geological 

 Survey were made by Dr. Newberry and published in ISGG and 

 1870. In addition to Monograph XIV of the United States^ 

 Geological Survey, on the " Fossil Fishes and Plants of the 

 New Jersey and Connecticut Trias,'' above referred to, he 

 published an elaborate Avork in 1889, INIonograph XVI of the 

 United States Geological Survey, on " The Paleozoic Fishes of 

 North America." 



Dr. Newberry kept himself informed as to the work done by 

 others in ichthyic paleontology, and was very familiar with the 

 older writers. His discoveries were numerous and important, 

 and his detailed work was thorough and conscientious. He 

 knew more about paleozoic and mesozoic fishes than any one 

 else in this country. He gave little attention to the taxonomy 



* Extracted from a letter to the writer by Prof. Lester F. Ward. 



