1893. ] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 163 
it is understood to-day, and his admissions of the apparent 
failure of plants to sustain the general law of development 
might have then been justified. 
“Of Dr. Newberry’s early pioneer work on the Carboniferous 
flora of America, I do not profess to be a competent judge, but 
I believe it was as good as could have been done at that time. 
His determinations of the Jater forms have not all stood the 
test of time, but the same can be said of every worker in this 
field. He was no species-monger, and not prone to found 
species on insufficient material. His descriptions were all 
governed by strong common sense, and, unlike many other 
paleobotanists, he never forgot that he was dealing with real 
things. His discussions, therefore, of doubtful or unknown 
forms were always directed to ascertaining what they really 
were and not merely to deciding what they should be called.* 
Dr. Newberry’s first published paper, 1851, had reference to 
fossil fishes, and twenty-four publications, distributed through 
the years, prove his continuous interest in ichthyic paleontology. 
In the later years of his life this branch seemed to have the 
greatest fascination for him, and he never wearied of talking 
about the remains of the remarkable Devonian fishes which he 
had described in the Ohio reports and deposited in the Colum- 
bia Museum, As early as 1856 he began publishing descrip- 
tions of the paleozoic fishes of Ohio, and in Vol. L., Pt. II., and 
Vol. II., Pt. IL, of the Ohio Survey Reports, he described the 
most remarkable of fossil fishes, the Dinichthys, which has 
probably attracted more attention from the scientific world 
than any other single description in his original work, 
The reports upon the fossil fishes for the Illinois Geological 
Survey were made by Dr. Newberry and published in 1866 and 
1870. In addition to Monograph XIV of the United States 
Geological Survey, on the “Fossil Fishes and Plants of the 
New Jersey and Connecticut Trias,’’ above referred to, he 
published an elaborate work in 1889, Monograph XVI of the 
United States Geological Survey, on ‘‘ The Paleozoic Fishes of 
North America,” 
Dr. Newberry kept himself informed as to the work done by 
others in ichthyic paleontology, and was very familiar with the 
older writers. His discoveries were numerous and important, 
and his detailed work was thorough and conscientious. He 
knew more about paleozoic and mesozoic fishes than any one 
else in this country. He gave little attention to the taxonomy 
* Extracted from a letter to the writer by Prof. Lester F. Ward. 
