Memorial and Bibliography xix 



to him for classification or verification, and samples of those sub- 

 mitted were added to his cabinet. At the time of his death, the two 

 families Lymnaeidae and Planorbidae were particularly well repre- 

 sented in the Baker Collection, which, as indicated elsewhere in this 

 volume, was presented to the United States National Museum. 



A member of many scientific societies, he cherished particularly 

 the election as Corresponding Alember of the Zoological Society of 

 London. He was a fellow of the Geological Society of America and 

 likewise of the Paleontological Society of America. At the time of 

 his death he was president of the American Malacological Union. 

 Other societies in which he held membership include: American 

 Association of Museums, Museum Association of Great Britain, 

 Ecological Society of America, American Limnological Society, Ot- 

 tawa Field Naturalist's Club, and Sigma Xi. He was a fellow of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science and held life 

 membership in the Chicago Academy of Sciences and in the Illinois 

 State Academy of Science. 



With the years, his zeal for research never waned. In fact, gradu- 

 ally increasing deafness which tended to shut him off from an earlier 

 appreciation of music and from easy communication with his friends 

 gave him opportunity for uninterrupted study in which he could 

 become so completely immersed as to ignore surrounding distrac- 

 tions entirely and to forget adversities, even when he faced some of 

 life's greatest tragedies. 



These statements regarding Mr. Baker, as a man and a scientist, 

 would not be complete without some narration of his early years and 

 background. 



Frank Collins Baker, son of Francis Edwin and Anna Collins 

 Baker, was born in Warren, Rhode Island, on December 14, 1867. 

 His family later moved to Providence, and there the boy received his 

 early education and for a time attended a business college. Still 

 struggling between the alternatives of business and science as a 

 career, he was for a time employed by the Gorham Silversmiths, and 

 there he learned the techniques of exactness and accuracy which he 

 later maintained were of value in his scientific work. 



He attended Brown University for one year (1888-89). Even be- 

 fore this time he had developed a consuming interest in shells which 

 he often remarked were the favorite childhood toys brought to him 

 from distant oceans by a seafaring grandfather. He left Brown to ac- 

 cept the Jessup Scholarship (1889-91) in the Philadelphia Academy 

 of Sciences and there, at the fountainhead of molluscan studies, the 

 die was cast for his scientific career. In later years he often referred 

 to the inspiration which he obtained from mere proximity to Joseph 

 Leidy and other notables in the library and in the programs of the 

 Academy. There likewise he became associated with H. A. Pilsbry, 

 and the tradition for sound molluscan studies, which has always been 

 an important aspect of the Academy program, gripped him. 



