ir. GJarlrtott iioffmatt $?an 



Dr. Bean died at Albany, N. Y., on December 28, 1916, 

 at the age of seventy years, as the result of injuries 

 received in an automobile accident. He was one of the 

 older members of the Society, his membership dating 

 from 1884, and in 1908 he was elected to the presidency 

 of the Society. 



In the death of Dr. Tarleton Hoffman Bean, American 

 ichthyology loses one of its brightest ornaments and 

 American science one of its most valuable exponents. 

 He was one of that group of Americans who built up a 

 new branch of scientific research, and one in which 

 American genius has been peculiarly conspicuous. It is 

 therefore especially fitting that one who has been thrown 

 into intimate relations with him, and who has himself 

 been a student along the lines in which Dr. Bean so 

 greatly distinguished himself, should try to tell what he 

 accomplished and show how greatly he will be missed. 



The scientific study of the sea and all that therein is, 

 has been especially a field for American effort. The 

 work that was begun by Commodore Matthew F. Maury 

 and Lieutenant John M. Brooke on the physical geogra- 

 phy of the ocean, the geology of the sea floor and the 

 causes and courses of the oceanic currents was inter- 

 rupted by the breaking out of the Civil War, but as soon 

 as peace was restored, it was resumed in the magnificent 

 set of surveys preparatory to the laying of the first At- 

 lantic cable. The deep-sea sounding apparatus devised 

 by Brooke was improved and elaborated by Captain 

 Charles G. Sigsbee, U. S. N., and the explorations made 

 by the various vessels under the direction of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, the National Museum, the Commission 

 of Fish and Fisheries, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, 

 and the U. S. Navy Department, have enabled American 

 scientists to add greatly to the sum of human knowledge 

 of the animal and vegetable life in the sea, the meteor- 



