380 Ohituary — Professor G. Baur. 



Worcester, Mass. Two years later he was appointed to be Assistant 

 Professor of Comparative Osteology and Palaeontology in the newly- 

 founded University of Chicago, and in 1895 he became Associate 

 Professor — the position he held at the time of his death. Last 

 autumn his health began to fail, on account of excessive mental 

 strain. He then came to Europe to spend a holiday with his relatives 

 in Germany ; but his mental powers were never recovered, and the 

 disease rapidly culminated in death. 



Dr. Baur was a vertebrate morphologist of the modern school, 

 who looked as much towards extinct animals as towards the existing 

 fauna for the basis of his researches. He thus added greatly to our 

 knowledge of vertebrate palseontology, not so much in describing 

 new types, as in formulating new and clearer conceptions of forms 

 already named and made known by other workers. His contributions, 

 though mostly very brief, have had considerable influence upon the 

 classification of the Eeptilia now most widely adopted ; and some of 

 his papers contain important new facts concerning the skeleton of 

 the Ichthyosauria, Chelonia, and Mosasauria. 



Dr. Baur also made a valuable contribution to geology in his 

 researches on the Galapagos Islands, the well-known haunt of the 

 giant tortoises. He conducted an expedition to the islands in 1891, 

 and made large collections both of the animals and plants now living 

 there. His conclusion was that the Galapagos Islands were not of 

 the Oceanic type, as commonly supposed, but must be regarded as 

 the peaks of mountains which once existed on a western extension 

 of the Central American region now submerged. The Galapagos 

 tortoises were thus to be considered as the stranded survivors of the 

 large forms which were abundant on the American continent in the 

 middle part of the Tertiary period. 



The more important of Dr. Baur's papers having special reference 

 to vertebrate paleeontology are enumerated in the following list : — 



1. " Osteologische Notizen iiber Eeptilien," Fortsetz. i: Zool. Anz., 1886, 



pp. 733-743. 



2 . " Ueber die Homologien einiger Schadelknochen der Stegocephalen und Eeptilien ' ' : 



Anat. Anz., 1886, pp. 348-350. 



3. " On the Morphology of the Kibs" : Amer. Nat., 1887, pp. 942-946. 



4. " Ueber die Abstammung der amnioten "Wirbelthiere " : Biol. Centralbl., vol. vii 



(1887), pp. 481-493. 



5. " On the Morphology and Origin of the Ichthyopterygia " : Amer. Nat., 1887, 



pp. 837-840. 



6. "Ueber den Ursprung der Extremitaten der Ichthyopterj'gia," Bericht xx : 



Versamrol. Oberrhein. geol. Vereins, 1887, "with plate. 



7. "On the Phylogenetic Arrangement of the Sauropsida": Journ. Morph., 



vol. i (1887), pp. 93-104. 



8. "Osteologische Notizen iiber Eeptilien," Fortsetz. iii : Zool. Anz., 1888, 



pp. 4L7-424. 



9. ^'' FcdceohaUeria., Credner, and the Proganosauria " : Amer. Journ. Sci., 



vol. xxxvii (1889), pp. 310-313. 



10. " Mr. E. T. Newton on Pterosauria " : Geol. Mag., Dec. Ill, Vol. VI (1889), 



pp. 171-174. 



11. "The Systematic Position of Meiolania, Owen": Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. 



[6], vol. iii (1889), pp. 54-62. 



12. " On the Morphology of the Vertebrate Skull " : Journ. Morph., vol. iii (1889), 



pp. 467-474. 



