MEMORIAL OF L. M. LAMBE 91 



Lawrence Lambe's work in this capacity has fully justified the opinion 

 expressed by Dr. Osborn in advising his appointment. 



Analysis of Lambe's publications shows three stages of his development 

 as a scientific worker. His first three papers dealt with living marine 

 sponges. His contributions to zocilog}' all relate to sponges and extend 

 over a period of thirteen years, beginning in 1892. His first contribution 

 to invertebrate paleontology appeared in 1896, four years after he had 

 begun publishing on sponges. Two years later his first paper on verte- 

 brate fossils was published. His papers published since 1900 relate, with 

 few exceptions, to vertebrate paleontology, the subject with which his 

 name in recent years has been chiefly associated. Lambe^s most im- 

 portant work on invertebrate fossils relates to the corals. For a short 

 period after the death of Dr. J. F. Whiteaves, the determination of all 

 of the paleontological collections of the Canadian Geological Survey fell 

 to Mr. Lambe — a task which few paleontologists could have ventured to 

 undertake. After 1910, Lambe was able to devote his energies exclusively 

 to vertebrate paleontology. He had, too, during the later part of his 

 career, the good fortune to have the assistance of the Sternbergs, who 

 collected for him a wealth of dinosaur and other material from the Alberta 

 Cretaceous. 



Lambe's interest centered in the office elaboration and description 

 rather than in the collection of fossils. Himself an accomplished artist, 

 he took the greatest care in supervising the execution of the drawings 

 which illustrate the remarkable series of fossils which he has described 

 during the last eight years. Among these were the first specimens of 

 horned dinosaurs which had ever been found showing the character of 

 the skin. The vertebrate fauna described by Lambe included many 

 enormous heavy-boned reptilian creatures of most fantastic appearance. 

 One of these, which bears the name of Styracosaurus alhertensis, pos- 

 sessed a skull six feet in length. The top of the skull extended backward 

 from the great hrK)ked mandibles, expanded like a shield over the neck, 

 where it was bordered by six powerful horns projecting from its posterior 

 margin. 



Among the impf>rtant papers wliicli he prepared in recent years were 

 those describing the Triassic fishes of the Rocky Mountains. We are also 

 indebted to him for important contributions to our knowledge oF the 

 Devonian fishes of Xew Brunswick. But it is with the wonderfully rich 

 and varied vertebrate fauna of the Bed Deer Biver valley of Alberta 

 collected by the Sternbergs that Lambe was chiefly occu])ied in recent 

 years. His various papers dealing with the Cretaceous faunas of the AVest 

 show admirable illustrations of many of the bizarre creatures of the 



