THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZfflfe^ 



■ NEW SERIES. DECADE VI. VOL. IV. U fy 



No. V.— MAY, 1917. 



MAY 15 1917 



OEIG-IITAL ARTICLES. 



\ 



I. — Eminent Living Geologists. 

 Henry Fairfield Osborn, LL.D. (Princeton, Columbia, Hartford), 

 Sc.D. (Cambridge, Princeton), Ph.D. (Christiania), A.B. (Prince- 

 ton) ; Foreign Member of the Linnean and Geological Societies 

 of London ; President of the American Museum of Natural 

 History, New York. 



(WITH POETKAIT, PLATE XII.) 

 7\0R nearly half a century geologists have followed with great 

 _ interest and admiration the discoveries of fossil vertebrate 

 animals in the west of North America. From the early days when 

 western pioneers brought back scattered fragments for study by 

 Leidy, to the seventies and eighties of last century when Cope and 

 Marsh led or encouraged adventurous expeditions to collect fossils 

 in the territories then occupied by hostile Indians, the continual 

 succession of new' forms of extinct reptiles, birds, and mammals met 

 within an unusual state of preservation, excited increasing attention. 

 So remarkable, indeed, were these finds and so sporting was their 

 pursuit, that rivalries arose and passed beyond the state of friendly 

 emulation which is good for real progress. It was thus fortunate 

 for American palaeontology that a younger generation of well-trained 

 enthusiastic students was then ready to enter the field, and especially 

 fortunate that their leaders were imbued with a harmonious spirit of 

 •co-operation. Among these leaders was the subject of our present 

 biographical sketch, who has perhaps done most by his personal 

 influence to maintain the happy relations which now exist between 

 all workers in vertebrate palaeontology in America. 



Henry Fairfield Osborn was born on August 8, 1857, at 

 Fairfield, Connecticut, and began his education at the Lyons 

 Collegiate Institute, New York. He next proceeded to Princeton 

 University, where he graduated as A.B. in 1877. In 1879-80 he 

 followed post-graduate studies under F. M. Balfour at Cambridge, 

 and under Huxley at the Royal College of Science, London. In 

 1881 he became Assistant Professor of Natural Science at Princeton, 

 and from 1883 to 1890 he was Professor of Comparative Anatomy in 

 the same University. In 1891 he removed to New York, where he 

 had been appointed Da Costa Professor of Biology in Columbia 

 University and Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology in the American 

 Museum of Natural History. In 1 896 his Professorship was restricted 

 to Zoology alone, and in 1910 he resigned both this and his Curator- 

 ship, being nominated Research Professor of Zoology in Columbia 



DECADE VI. — VOL. IV. — NO. V. 13 



