390 AyyALS yEw york academy of sciEycEs 



of such a matter, but this statement is intended to have a significant 

 value in protecting Professor Whitfield's claim to the original work on 

 these fossils and the justice of an association of his name with Professor 

 Hall's in. their authorship. Later, as is well known, the Lamellibranchs 

 of the Xew York Survey appeared as a separate volume. The genera 

 were greatlv increased and the species in many instances renamed, but 

 Professor "Whitfield's drawings were used and. substantially, his delimita- 

 tions of many genera and species. 



Professor Whitfield, for a few years before his separation from the 

 Xew York Survey, had been engaged in lecturing at the Troy Polytech- 

 nical Institute, in the chair of Applied Geology. The classes were taken 

 on field excursions every spring, and in this way examinations were made 

 of the o^eolocfv of Xorthern Xew York and Xorthern Xew Jersev. 



In March. 1ST 6. Professor Whitfield resigned his position in Albany 

 and came to the American ^luseum of Xatural History, where he re- 

 ceived and installed, with the writers assistance, the Hall Collection of 

 Fossils and remained the Curator of the Department of Geolog}" until 

 about four months before his death, when he was made Curator Emeritus. 

 Professor Whitfield's scientific work has been entirely confined to 

 paleontological studies. He possessed a very remarkable memory of 

 form and names and was qiiick to discover analogies in organic function. 

 His love for nature was very great, and he exhibited to the last day of 

 his life enthusiasm in collecting. 



Besides the work on the Xew York Survey. Professor Whitfield was 

 engaged in work for the Ohio. Wisconsin. Xew Jersey and the Black 

 Hills Surveys, while papers furnished to journals of science and the 

 series of special studies published in the Bulletin of the American ^lu- 

 seum of Xatural History complete his life of scientific activity. Before 

 Professor Whitfield left Albany, the plans for a revision of Brachiopoda 

 had been outlined, and a number of preliminary studies completed. In 

 this work. Professor Wliitfield made a number of preparations of the 

 brachiopoda. an occupation that led Davidson once to say of him that he 

 and the Eev. ^Mr. Glass 'liad probably revealed more of these structures 

 than any other paleontologists.'' It was Davidson who, in this connec- 

 tion, created the genus Whiifieldia from Meristella tumida Dalm.. a 

 genus which completes the developmental phases of the loop in these 

 brachiopods. 



In his convictions relative to the development of life. Professor Whit- 

 field was an evolutionist, though he never emphasized anv special views ; 

 he believed in the mutabilitv of a species, the inheritance of acquired 

 characters and the modifying influences of environment. His work was. 



