Biographical S\etch 21 



palaeontology and embryology of fishes were unfortunately rather restricted, while the 

 demand and the means for the development of the collection of arms and armor at the 

 Metropolitan Museum of Art were growing rapidly, and that too, largely because of the 

 brilliance of his own success in this field. At any rate his extensive collection of Japanese 

 armor, chiefly made in 1900 to 1901, was loaned and later presented in large part to the 

 Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he was soon persuaded to prepare a "Catalogue of the 

 Loan Collection of Japanese Armor" which was issued in 1903. By 1905, he had com- 

 pleted and published the "Catalogue of European Arms and Armor" in the Metropolitan 

 Museum including the great collection of the Due de Dino. Later it began to appear 

 that the greatest private collection of armor in existence, namely that of William H. 

 Riggs of Paris, might probably find its way to the Metropolitan Museum if only Dr. 

 Dean's time and knowledge could be enlisted in this cause. Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, a 

 lifelong friend of Mr. Riggs, and at that time president of the Metropolitan Museum, 

 urged Dr. Dean to drop everything else and concentrate upon securing this superb col' 

 lection for the Museum. President Butler and the Trustees of Columbia University, 

 recognizing the urgency of the situation, granted Dr. Dean's request to be relieved of 

 classroom duties, and he was thereafter enabled to spend a great deal of time with Mr. 

 Riggs in Paris, going over the latter's great collection, making an inventory, and with 

 Mr. Riggs' help establishing the provenience of its individual specimens. Mr. Riggs con- 

 sulted President Morgan and Vice President Rutherfurd Stuyvesant about conditions in 

 the Museum and in 1913 he signed the deed of gift at Dr. Dean's house in Riverdale-on- 

 Hudson, with Messrs. Cleveland H. Dodge and George F. Perkins as witnesses. The 

 collection in a hundred odd cases arrived at the Museum in 1914 and Dr. Dean spent 

 the next year in accessioning, cataloguing and arranging it for exhibition. Early in 

 1915 the galleries containing these wonderful examples of the armorer's art were opened 

 to the public. 



Thus we enter the period of Dean's transition from zoology to the study of armor. 

 Inspection of his bibliography shows that in. the first five years of the period from 1903 

 to 1928 (inclusive) the number of his papers on zoological subjects as well as the number 

 of pages therein considerably exceeded those devoted to arms and armor or closely allied 

 subjects. In the next ten years (1908 to 1917 inclusive) there were 33 zoological papers 

 and 58 papers on arms and armor; in the remaining years of his life (1918-1928 inclusive) 

 he produced 178 papers, of which (apart from the third volume of the "Bibliography of 

 Fishes," edited by his colleagues, and apart also from a few very brief notes on zoological 

 matters) nearly all were devoted to arms and armor. 



In short, during the thirty-three years from the time of publication of his first 

 scientific paper (1887) to his death in December, 1928, Dr. Dean published 312 papers, of 

 which about 170 dealt with matters pertaining to biology. The first twenty years (1887- 

 1907) were devoted primarily to the science of ichthyology in its several aspects; after 

 1909 he published but little in zoology with the notable exception of his "Bibliography of 

 Fishes," which had been under way for many years. The subject of arms and armor, on 



