HENRY SHALER WILLIAMS 
1847-1918 
Professor Henry Shaler Williams died in Havana, Cuba, on 
July 31, 1918, at the age of seventy-one years. During his lifetime 
he had been one of the leaders in his profession and was a pioneer 
in the modern practice of studying fossil faunas as units for investi- 
gation, as contrasted with the practice of collecting and describing - 
fossil species. 
Professor Williams spent his college days at Yale, where he 
graduated in 1868. His interest in natural science led him to con- 
tinue his studies as a graduate student, a rather unusual practice 
in those days, and he was granted the Ph.D. degree in 1871. The 
following year he held the position of professor. of natural history 
in the University of Kentucky, after which time a break occurred 
in his scientific career. For eight years he was engaged in business 
with his father and brothers, in Ithaca, New York, but during this 
whole period his real interest was in natural science, and he never 
gave up the idea of devoting his life to the pursuit of ‘science. 
Although his early scientific work in Yale had been in zodlogy, 
and he had made some contributions to the literature of that sub- 
ject before 1872, when he returned to scientific work in 1880 he 
entered the faculty of geology in Cornell University. His earlier 
zoological interests naturally directed his geological work toward 
the field of paleontology, and he entered his new field of activity 
with the point of view of a man of science rather than as a profes- 
sional geologist. His lack of close association with scientific work 
during the period immediately preceding his connection with the 
Cornell faculty led him to enter his new work with an independent 
attitude of mind, which is perhaps responsible, in part at least, for 
his early pioneer work. He at once set about the search for prob- 
lems to solve, and he found them in plenty right at home. His own . 
experience during those early days at Cornell led him to advise 
his students always to search for and solve the problems that were 
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