MEMORIAL OF C. R. EASTMAN 29 



From the study of placoderms, Eastman's studies extended naturally 

 to the contemporary lung-fishes and ganoids, and to our knowledge of 

 these early forms he made numerous contributions. Xow and again he 

 would hark back to the group of sharks, trying ever to bring order into 

 this primitive and difficult group. Port Jackson sharks, with their curi- 

 ously modified dentition, which enabled them to crush the shells of shell- 

 fish, suggested new lines of evolutional changes, and his work on these 

 forms from Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Xebraska showed new 

 sequences and enabled him to fill out the gaps in their history. Certain 

 of these early sharks became so similar to lung-fishes in their dentition 

 that on this evidence alone the two great groups of fishes might readily 

 have been merged. 



During the last decade of his work Eastman's attention was drawn 

 more closely to types of modern fishes. This was perhaps due to the fact 

 that he had been able to bring to this country the famous collection of 

 a Belgian paleontologist, de Bayet, and install it in the Carnegie ^Museum 

 at Pittsburgh. On the fishes of this collection, especially those from 

 northern Italy (Monte Bolca), he published a number of beautiful me- 

 moirs. 



In matters relating to the phylogeny of fishes, Eastman was conserva- 

 tive. Thus, following Smith Woodward, he maintained that the group 

 of placoderms which the latter defined as Arthrodira was definitely re- 

 lated to primitive lung-fishes. He had little S3'^mpathy with those who 

 believed that they had solved the riddle of Tremataspis and Bothriolepis 

 by associating them with arthropods. As a systematist, Eastman was 

 thorough, and the forms which he described will rarely need revision. 



No one can recall Doctor Eastman without bringing to mind his keen 

 appreciation of ancient literature. He read the classical texts fluently, 

 and Aristotle and Pliny had to him the interest of modern authors. Per- 

 haps he knew them and their kind better than did any living paleontolo- 

 gist. For bibliographical work, Eastman had ever a distinct leaning, for 

 to know what others had done in a definite field was only an honest be- 

 ginning of any research. It was this interest which led him to accept the 

 invitation of the America Museum of Natural History to undertake the 

 editorship of a Bibliography of Fishes which the Museum was engaged 

 in publishing, and it was ujider his supervision that the first two volumes 

 of this work appeared — ever to lighten the labors of workers in this field. 



One may record, finally, the posts held by Doctor Eastman : Instructor 

 in Paleontology and Historical Geology at Harvard, 1894-95, and at 

 Eadcliffe College, 1895-97. Curator in charge of Vertebrate Paleon- 

 tology at Harvard Museum, 1895-1910. 



