388 



AXNALS XEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Professor Whitfield was engaged in this work, which resulted in his 

 permanent engagement in July, 1850. 



The immediate occasion leading to this radical change of life was the 

 serious illness which Professor Wliitfield incurred from metallic poison- 

 ing. The constant employment of copper wire in an atmosphere more 

 or" less surcharged with floating particles of metal induced a chronic 

 intestinal trouble, which, throughout his life, attacked him periodically 

 with severity. In Albany, the scientific influences were deepened and 

 strengthened, educational facilities increased, and a continuous inter- 

 course with workers and leaders in science began. Nothing could have 

 been more helpful. Meek. Hunt, Logan, Billings, Leslie, Safford, Agas- 

 siz, Conrad and Hayden were a few names among the crowd of visitors to 

 Professor Hall's home, and in this multifarious circle. "Whitfield's ac- 

 quaintance with men, facts and literature was greatly extended. Among 

 his new acquaintances, none so beneficently infiuenced his subsequent 

 career as Professor Xewcomb. This well known conchologist took an 

 evident interest in the young student, opened up to him his cabinet of 

 shells, explained the characters of the genera, the limits of species, and 

 distinctly started him on the path of original investigation. 



Professor Whitfield soon gave evidence of his morphological instinct. 

 His keen appreciation of form, together with liis increasing skill in 

 drawing, made him a most valuable adjunct to the Paleontological Sur- 

 vey of the State and the varied work outside of the State, then engaging 

 the attention of Professor Hall. One of the first drawings, if not the 

 first, made by Professor Whitfield which secured publication was a dia- 

 gram of Actinorrinu^ lonqirostris Hall, in the Geolosfv of Iowa, Vol. I, 

 Pt. 2. p. 590. This drawing had some significance. In this drawing. 

 Professor Whitfield elucidated the structure of the crinoid upon a differ- 

 ent scheme than any ]ireviously employed by Hall, and although De 

 Konick had made use of the same plan, his interpretation was unknown 

 to Whitfield. He showed the radial construction of a criuoid and cor- 

 rected the misunderstanding of the symmetry of the plates, based on a 

 concentric scheme. Hall adopted this device at once. 



Professor Whitfield was now continuously engaged in drawing, the 

 preparations of specimens, comparison of species and the making of 

 critical notes. Meek had preceded Wliitfield in this work, and the plates 

 of the Iowa Paleontology and also a large number of tliose of the tliird 

 volume of the Survey of Xew York were his. With him was associated 

 F. J. Swinton. Beyond the Tenth Annual Eeport of the Eegents of the 

 University, the figures appearing in the subsequent reports were almost 

 exclusively Whitfield's, while, with the exception of three plates, all the 



