THE PRESENT PROBLEMS OF PALEONTOLOGY 



BY HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN 



[Henry Fairfield Osborn, Da Costa Professor of Zoology, Columbia University, 

 Curator, vertebrate paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, Geolo- 

 gist and Paleontologist, U. S. Geological Survey, sometime Honorary Paleon- 

 tologist, Canadian Geological Survey, b. Fairfield, Conn., 1857. Graduate of 

 Princeton, 1877; Sc.D. Princeton, 1880; LL.D. Trinity College and Princeton 

 University ; D.Sc. Cambridge University. Professor of Comparative Anatomy, 

 Princeton, 188290. Member of numerous American and foreign scientific 

 societies. Author of From the Greeks to Darwin, and of numerous scientific and 

 educational papers in zoology, paleontology, comparative anatomy, psycho- 

 logy, biology, memoirs for the Canadian Survey, U. S. Geological Survey, etc.] 



I congratulate myself that it has fallen to my lot to set forth some 

 of the chief contemporary problems of paleontology, as well as to make 

 an exposition of the prevailing methods of thought in this branch of 

 biology. At the same time I regret that I can cover only one half of 

 the field, namely, that of the paleontology of the vertebrates. From 

 lack of time and of the special knowledge required to do a great subject 

 justice I am compelled to omit the science of invertebrate fossils and 

 the important biological inductions made by the many able workers 

 in this field. There is positively much in common between the induc- 

 tions derived from vertebrate and invertebrate evolution, and I believe 

 a great service would be rendered to biology by a philosophical com- 

 parison and contrast of the methods and results of vertebrate and 

 invertebrate paleontology. 



The science of vertebrate fossils is in an extremely healthy state at 

 present. The devotees of the science were never more numerous, never 

 more inspired, and certainly never so united in aim, as at present. We 

 have suffered some heavy personal losses, not only among the chiefs, 

 but among the younger leaders of the science in recent years; Cope, 

 Marsh, Zittel, Kowalevsky, Baur, and Hatcher have gone, but they 

 live in their works and in their influence, which vary with the peculiar 

 or characteristic genius of each. 



As in every other branch of science, problems multiply like the heads 

 of hydra; no sooner is one laid low than a number of new ones appear; 

 yet we stand on the shoulders of preceding generations, so that if our 

 philosophical vision be correct, we gain a wider horizon, while the 

 horizon itself is constantly expanding by discovery. 



In discovery the chief theatre of interest shifts from continent to 

 continent in an unexpected and almost sensational manner. In 1870, 

 all eyes were centred on North America, and especially on Rocky 

 Mountain exploration; for many ensuing years, new and even un- 

 thought-of orders of beings came to the surface of knowledge, revolu- 

 tionizing our thought, firmly establishing the evolution theory, and 



