120 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
for more than twenty years. When the great James Hall Collection 
of fossils was purchased for the American Museum, the services of 
Professor Whitfield were secured for its care, and he entered upon his 
duties as Curator of Geology in January, 1877, being the only curator 
that the institution then had. His first year was devoted to arranging 
the geological and paleontological material in the exhibition hall as- 
signed to it in the new building of the Museum, and when this building, 
which is now known as the North Wing, was opened to the public, 
December 22, 1877, the collections in his charge were by far the most 
important from a scientific standpoint among all the possessions of the 
Museum. 
Throughout his whole career, the mechanical skill developed in the 
tool and instrument shops stood Professor Whitfield in good stead, and 
it was of material assistance to him in the development of his talents as a 
draftsman. His first efforts at making drawings for publication were in 
the delineation for the State Survey of the correct relations of the compli- 
cated remains of fossil crinoids, or sea lilies. He soon surpassed the 
other draftsmen in the accuracy of his observations and in the skill and 
brillianey with which he used his pencil in representing fossil forms, 
and it was not long before he became the head draftsman of the Survey. 
In this capacity he executed several thousands of drawings before 
the termination of his connection with the organization. ‘This training 
as a draftsman was of material assistance to Professor Whitfield in all 
his studies. His recognition of old and new features amounted almost 
to an instinct, and there is little question that for nearly half a century 
he had no superior in this country in the identification of fragmen- 
tary invertebrate fossils. 
In addition to his work for the State of New York and this Museum, 
he studied and described the fossils which were gathered by the Clarence 
King Geological Survey of the Fortieth Parallel, Jenney’s and Ludlow’s 
expeditions to the Black Hills of South Dakota and much of the material 
gathered for the geological surveys of Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and 
New Jersey. 
Soon after he came to the Museum, he began to urge the establish- 
ment of a medium for the publication of the results of the scientific work 
done in the Museum. ‘This led to the institution, in 1881, by President 
Morris K. Jesup, of the Museum “Bulletin,” the first five articles of 
which, comprising all that was issued during the first year of its existence, 
