MEMOIR OF RALPH DUPUY LACOE 511 



Survey of Pennsylvania. The acquaintance ripened into a warm friend- 

 ship between paleobotanist and patron that lasted until the death of 

 Lesquereux in 1889. Meanwhile Lacoe's work in the Carboniferous flora 

 had broadened out to include the plant life of the entire Paleozoic, and 

 he had set about gathering the great collection to which we owe a large 

 portion of our knowledge of the Paleozoic floras in America. Not only 

 did he gather material from the Pittston-Wilkesbarre Coal Measures in 

 the Northern anthracite field, but he extended his efforts to the other 

 anthracite fields, to the Lower Carboniferous and Devonian of eastern 

 Pennsylvania and the southern Virginian region, and to the Coal Measures 

 of southern Tennessee, of Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, 

 and Rhode Island. In this work he hired collectors from time to time, 

 besides purchasing many additional collections. He traveled in Great 

 Britain and Europe, and by purchase or exchange procured Paleozoic 

 plant collections from the British, French, and German coalfields, as 

 well as from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Later he added collec- 

 tions from the Trias of New Jersey and Virginia, from the Dunkard 

 formation of West Virginia, the Permian of Colorado, the Dakota of 

 Kansas and Nebraska, the Upper Cretaceous of Colorado and Montana, 

 and the Green River group of Wyoming. After a time he became inter- 

 ested in the remains of insect and myriapod life, which are seldom 

 found except in association with plant remains, and concerning which 

 very little was known ; and this interest increased to the end of his life. 

 In his later 3^ ears he also added a large number of crustacean, fish, and 

 molluscan fossils to his already enormous collection. 



It would be wrong to conclude that Lacoe was a mere collector, even 

 though systematic, or that his main object was the accumulation of a 

 surpassing collection of fossils, duly accompanied by labels and orna- 

 mented by showy specimens. Realizing the very great handicap to the 

 progress of paleontology due to the enormous labor and expense of dis- 

 covering, exhuming, and intelligently preparing the fundamental ma- 

 terials from which the paleontologist must work out his results, he chose 

 for his first service to science the task of securing this material and prop- 

 erly placing it in the hands of the paleontologists. His purpose was to 

 systematically gather and put before the most eminent specialists the 

 raw material which should contribute to our knowledge of the nature 

 and characters of the plant and insect life of the ancient epochs; which 

 should show the horizontal and vertical distribution of the types and 

 their significance regarding genetic sequences and stratigraphical char- 

 acteristics, and which should throw light on the questions of conti- 

 nental relations and climatic conditions. This raw material he sub- 

 mitted for elaboration to Lesquereux, Dawson, Scudder, Cope, Hall, and 



