368 C. SCHUCHERT THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE OF PALEONTOLOGY 



nition of paleontology of any kind in our universities, and the reason for 

 this will be pointed out later. At the present moment, however, I would 

 like to drive this fact deep into the minds of American invertebrate 

 paleontologists, that our work is lopsided, and that the splendid realm 

 of pure paleontolog}^, biogenesis as studied from the fossil evidence, is 

 almost completely neglected. We all know that paleontology is the 

 biology of all time, while botany and zoology are but the studies of the 

 organic terminals of some of the life that has lived through a thousand 

 million years. The theory of evolution was made possible through the 

 chronogenetic record as discerned by the paleontologists and through the 

 phylogenies of living plants and animals. Nor can the distribution of 

 modern floras and faunas be determined without a study of the life of the 

 past, or the rate or speed of evolution and the origin of many organic 

 trends be understood without a knowledge of the climates of the past. 

 The fact that American invertebratists and paleobotanists are doing so 

 little along these lines is a blot on our science — all the more so because 

 of the good example set us by Hyatt and his school, and by the verte- 

 bratists. There is no continent with a better array of well preserved 

 fossils or a longer geologic sequence of them. Let me, therefore, ask you 

 young men of today, which of you will become the future high priests of 

 biogenesis as based on invertebrate paleontology and paleobotany ? 



The vast field of Mesozoic iuA^ertebrate paleontology is husbanded to- 

 day by but two American leaders, and one of these has largely gone into 

 administration. Paleozoic and Cenozoic paleontologic stratigraphy go 

 forward with leaps and bounds, but Mesozoic paleontology lags far be- 

 hind. Not a single one of the many, many States and provinces whose 

 territory consists mainly of Mesozoic strata now has a paleontologist, 

 and New Jersey and Kansas alone among them have in the past given 

 this aspect of the work adequate attention. 



At the outset of my remarks it was pointed out that there are about 

 112 paleontologists in America recognized as such. Now let us see where 

 their workshops are. In the colleges and universities there are 50, in 

 the public museums 25, on the national and State surveys 23, and 17 are 

 following paleontology as a side issue. The vertebratists are almost 

 wholly in teaching institutions (17) and museums (15), while the inver- 

 tebratists are placed in the main in the colleges (30), surveys (21), and 

 museums (7). These figures bring out some marked shortcomings, and 

 the lesser one is that only 25 are working in museums and but 23 on the 

 national and State surveys. In the United States there are about 38 

 State or university State surveys, and yet on all of them there are but 9 

 official paleontologists, and 7 of these are located in three places. Five 



