MEMOIR OF R. P. WHITFIELD 25 



first large acquisition of scientific material the purchase of the James 

 Hall collection of fossils. This really was a great collection, made by 

 Hall from his own pocket when the State funds proved inadequate for 

 his purposes, and it exceeded in size the State collection itself. A com- 

 mittee of the New York legislature, after investigating Hall's claim to 

 this material, pronounced it valid but declined to buy. As Mr. Whitfield 

 had acquired an intimate acquaintance with the collection through his 

 long service, it seemed to Mr. Bickmore of prime importance that he 

 should go to New York with it, and thus he went in 1877, assuming in 

 the new museum the title and duties of curator of geology, to which was 

 added the custodianship of the collections of recent shells. The new 

 charge that had fallen to Professor Whitfield was a dignified and im- 

 portant one, assuring him reasonable independence of action and a field 

 for individual development, from which conditions at Albany had re- 

 strained him. He was infiuential in establishing the Bulletin of the 

 American Museum, and its early numbers are given up almost exclu- 

 sively to his scientific papers. Now, as opportunity in the labors of cus- 

 todianship permitted, he proceeded to carry out his investigations in 

 paleontology into various lines and was the author of many very excellent 

 descriptive papers, brilliantly illuminated by his admirable drawings. 

 Yet I think it is questionable if any scientific work of these years, which 

 he handled independently, will be as enduring as that he had accom- 

 plished at Albany under the scrutiny of an older and always critical eye. 

 Yet we must not fail to emphasize the importance of his extensive inves- 

 tigation, published while at the American Museum, of the fauna of the 

 Fort Cassin beds, in which he brought to public notice a Lower Siluric 

 assemblage of fossils exceptional in preservation, in geologic and mor- 

 phologic interest from a formation — the Beekmantown — of which till 

 that time very little had been learned. And I should add as a specially 

 noteworthy item of his contributions the description of the only known 

 scorpion from the Siluric rocks of this country. His name has entered 

 permanently in the records of his chosen science; twice it has been used 

 as a generic term among the brachiopods, and the species which carry his 

 name as sponsor are legion. 



In other directions Professor Whitfield was substantially productive. 

 We have observed that with Hall he was author of reports on the Pale- 

 ontology of several of the States, and he prepared independent accounts 

 of the invertebrate fossils collected by Federal expeditions and surveys — 

 King's of the Fortieth Parallel, Jenney's and Ludlow's of the Black 

 Hills. For the second Ohio Survey he gave the report on the inverte- 



