VOLUME XXIV NUMBER 3 



THE 



JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY 



APRIL-MAY iqi6 



ORVILLE A. DERBY 



JOHN C. BRANNER 

 Leland Stanford Junior University 



Orville Adelbert Derby, for many years one of the associate 

 editors of this Journal, was born at Kelloggsville, New York, on 

 July 23, 185 1, and died by his own hand at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 

 on November 27, 1915. 



After graduating at the high school, Derby entered Cornell 

 University in 1869, taking what was then called the scientific course. 

 While he was yet a Freshman, however, he became so interested 

 in geology and was such a promising student that he was selected 

 by Professor Charles Fred Hartt, then professor of geology at 

 Cornell, to accompany him on a trip to Brazil in the summer of 

 1870. That was the first trip made to Brazil by Derby; it deter- 

 mined both his career and the whole course of his life. On his first 

 voyage he visited Pernambuco, and made the first considerable 

 collection of fossils ever made at Maria Farinha, a locality that 

 has since been looked upon with especial interest by students of the 

 Mesozoic history of South America. 



In the summer of 187 1 he went to Brazil with Hartt again, this 

 time visiting the Amazon valley and making an important collec- 

 tion of Carboniferous fossils from the limestones at Itaituba on 

 the lower Tapajos River. 



Vol. XXIV, No. 3 209 



