■Obituary — Professor C. E. Beeclier. 285- 



0. C. Marsh, and in 1889 be received the degree of Ph.D. from Yale 

 University for his memoir on the Brachiospongidse, a remarkable 

 group of Silurian sponges. In the July of this year be made his 

 first geological trip to the far West, being sent by Professor Marsh 

 to join a party of collectors in Converse County, Wyoming, where 

 be remained till September. During this trip he obtained one of 

 the largest complete skulls of Triceratops, now in the Yale Museum. 

 Shortly after this Professor Marsh arranged for Dr. Beecher to visit 

 England and make studies in the British Museum, accompanied by 

 the late Dr. Baur. [Here he made the writer's acquaintance, and 

 became an intimate friend and correspondent respecting their mutual 

 studies upon the Arthropoda. — H. W.] He also, with Dr. Baur, visited 

 France and Germany. During the preparation for his degree at Yale, 

 Beecher had taken geology under the late Professor Dana, and in 

 1891-92, when the latter was ill. Professor Beecher conducted the 

 classes in geology for him. In 1892 he was made Assistant-Professor 

 of Historical Geology in the Scientific School, holding the post till 

 1897, when he was appointed Professor of Historical Geology and 

 a member of the Governing Board in the Sheffield Scientific School. 

 On March 10th, 1902, he was made University Professor of 

 Palseontology at Yale. 



Professor Charles Schuchert writes : — "In 1893 there was 

 discovered in Lower Silurian shales near Eome, New York, a thin 

 band not more than one-foui'th of an inch thick, in which nearly all 

 the Trilobites (Triarthrus and Trmwc/eits) preserve antennae and legs. 

 Trilobite legs had been known before in a few isolated and very 

 imperfectly preserved specimens, and from a series of about 250 

 sections cut from more than 3,000 enrolled individuals of a species 

 found near Trenton Falls. Antennas had not previously been seen. 

 This important discovery hj a local worker induced Professor 

 Beecher to take out several tons of the shale, and later many 

 hundred individuals were developed by mechanical means to show 

 the ventral anatomy. But few can appreciate the great amount of 

 time and the remarkable skill required to free these Trilobites from 

 the adhering black shale, and to Beecher we owe our detailed 

 knowledge of the ventral anatomy of Triarthrus and Trinudeus. 

 He published thirteen papers on these very primitive Crustacea, 

 including a classification in which all Trilobites are arranged in 

 three orders." [Special mention should also be made of his enlarged 

 models of the appendages of Triarthrus, and of the great Stylomirus 

 Zacoamis, which are most valuable and instructive for Museums. — 

 H. W.] " He was at work on an extensive treatise on these forms, 

 in which he pi-oposed to bring together all that is known regarding 

 their anatomy. Unfortunately, this work had not progressed beyond 

 the mechanical stage of preparation of material and the making of 

 drawings." 



In 1899 Professor Beecher succeeded the late Professor 0. C. 

 Marsh as curator of the entire geological collections in the Peabody 

 Museum at Yale, and became a member of the Board of Trustees of 

 that Museum. He also held the position of Secretary to the Boards, 



