340 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1422 



and 1915. During this last year Dr. Coles 

 took a female specimen 18 feet wide, cut it up 

 into segments of whicli he made plaster easts, 

 and sent material and easts to the American 

 Museum. From these Mr. J. C. Bell of our 

 department of preparation made the life- 

 sized east which is one of the chief prizes of 

 oui' Fish Hall. 



The most complete account of the natural 

 history of Manta is contained in an article 

 by Dr. Theodore GiU, "The story of the devil- 

 fish." Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 

 1908, vol. 52, pp. 155-180. 15 figs. 



E. W. GUDGER 



American Museum of 

 Natural History 



JOHN CASPER BRANNER 



John Casper Branner, geologist and 

 Pi-esident Emeritus of Stanford University, 

 was born in New Market, East Tennessee, 

 July 4, 1850, and died in Palo Alto, Cali- 

 fornia, on March 1, 1922. He entered Cornell 

 University in 1870, soon after its organiza- 

 tion, graduating in 1874 as Bachelor of 

 Science, subsequently receiving the degree of 

 Ph. D. from Indiana University and that of 

 LL. D. from the University of California. In 

 1883 he married Susan D. Kennedy of Oneida, 

 New York, and left three children: John K., 

 architect, George C, geologist-philosopher, 

 and Elsie, Mrs. Frederick Hall Fowler. 



His advanced work at Cornell was under a 

 great teacher of Geology, Charles Frederick 

 Hartt, who (during vacations) acted as Im- 

 perial Geologist of Brazil. Thus with Orville 

 A. Derby, Richard Rathbun, Herbert H. Smith, 

 and other student assistants, Branner went to 

 Brazil where, upon the death of Hartt in 1875, 

 he became director of the Imperial Geological 

 Commission. Afterward, Brazil having become 

 a republic, he entered the service of the Sao 

 Cyriaco Mining Company at Minas Geraes as 

 engineer and interpreter. Later he again went 

 to Brazil and to Argentina as special botanist 

 for Thomas A. Edison in search of wood fitted 

 for certain electrical uses, and still later 

 represented the United States Department of 

 Agriculture in the former country. Return- 



ing to America in 1883, he served as topo- 

 graphical geologist of the Survey of Pennsyl- 

 vania, a position resigned to accept that of 

 professor of geology in the University of 

 Indiana, where his eoUege friend, the present 

 writer, had just been appointed President. In 

 1891, he entered the faculty of the newly 

 founded Stanford University as professor of 

 geology, later becoming vice-president of the 

 institution. In 1913 when the title of Chan- 

 cellor was created for me that I might be free 

 for public service, he was elected President of 

 the University, and held that office up to his 

 retirement as Emeritus in 1917. 



Branner directed three scientific expeditions 

 to Brazil : one under the patronage of Alex- 

 ander Agassiz in 1899, one in 1907 supported 

 by Richard A. F. Penrose, a former assistant 

 professor at Stanford, and a third in 1911 for 

 the BraziKan government. This last made a 

 geological and biological study of the coast 

 north and south of the mouth of the Amazon 

 river, the especial purpose being to detennine 

 the effect of the gi-eat volume of fresh water 

 brought into the ocean by the Amazon upon 

 the marine life of the ocean. 



His publications include a volume on the 

 Geology of Brazil, with a large number of 

 special papers, and a grammar of the Portu- 

 guese language. His other memoirs on Geol- 

 ogy and Physical Geography are very nu- 

 merous; his "Bibliography of Clays and Arts" 

 is an important contribution to that subject. 

 Branner was a fellow of the Geological So- 

 ciety of America, a member of the Geological 

 Society of London, of the Societe Geologique de 

 France, the National Academy of Sciences, the 

 American Philosophical Society. He was also 

 a member and for a time president of the 

 American Seismologieal Society, and associate 

 editor of the Journal of Geology. lu 1906 

 he was appointed to the California Earthquake 

 Commission, and in 1915 served the United 

 States government on the commission to in- 

 vestigate the land slides on the Panama Canal. 

 In 1911 the Hayden Medal was conferred ■ 

 upon him by the Academy of Natural Science 

 of Philadelphia "in recognition of the value 

 of contributions to geological science, and of 



