Obituary. 163 



Obituary. 



John Bell Hatcher, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology 

 in the Carnegie Museum at Pittsburgh, died of typhoid fever at 

 Pittsburgh on July 3, 1904. By his death Paleontology has lost 

 an investigator and writer of unusual ability, a man who had few 

 equals in his chosen line of research. 



Born at Cooper, Green County, Iowa, October 11, 1861, his 

 early years were passed among surroundings and under condi- 

 tions which developed a character of absolute integrity and of 

 rare self-reliance and determination. He entered the Sheffield 

 Scientific School of Yale University in his twentieth year, when 

 he improved to the utmost the educational facilities offered to 

 him. Although a few weeks before the graduation of his class, 

 in 1 884, he expressed himself as being still uncertain in his choice 

 of future occupation, it is on record that during his college course 

 he gave especial attention to those studies in Natural History 

 which fitted him for his life's work. Probably Hatcher's marked 

 ability had already become known to the late Professor O. C. 

 Marsh of the Yale University Museum, who secured his services 

 as field collector. Hardly waiting until the close of his gradua- 

 tion exercises, he left New Haven on June 25, 1884, for the 

 West, where he collected in Kansas and Nebraska for about a 

 month, under the direction of Charles H. Sternberg. Later he 

 commenced work by himself, and remained in the field alone 

 until the approach of winter, when he returned to New Haven. 

 When not in the field, much of Hatcher's time was spent in pre- 

 paring and studying the fossils he had collected, and in making 

 himself generally familiar with them as an aid to further collect- 

 ing. He also pursued advanced studies in Botany with the late 

 Professor D. C. Eaton, who became sincerely attached to the 

 young scientific worker, and who always expressed the highest 

 regard for his character and ability. In 1885, after collecting 

 Permian fossils in Texas, Hatcher returned to Kansas and con- 

 tinued his work in the Pliocene formations. The seasons of 1886 

 and 1887, which were spent in the Bad Lands of Dakota and 

 Nebraska, won him renown as a collector. From the famous 

 " Brontotherium Beds," he shipped to the East carload after car- 

 load of fossils, including the bones upon which Marsh founded 

 his genera Brontotherium and Protoceras. In fact, Hatcher's 

 labors in the field were of inestimable value, and the collections 

 made by him, more than those of any other of his scientific 

 assistants, furnished to Professor Marsh the material for his 

 paleontological work. 



By this time, Hatcher's services had become so valuable that 

 Marsh kept him constantly in the field. The winter months 

 were spent in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. The 

 variegated red and gray clays conspicuous between Baltimore 

 and Washington had long been a puzzle to geologists. Many 

 collectors had visited the outcroppings, but had failed to obtain 

 characteristic fossils at the typical localities. Hatcher, whose 



