THE 



AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 



CHARLES EMERSON BEECHER. 



One of America's leading paleontologists, in the fullness of 

 intellectual power, suddenly passed away on February 14, 1904, 

 in the midst of his family and work. Few men were better 

 prepared and more promising of great results for the next 

 twenty years than Charles E. Beecher. " There is no doubt 

 that in the death of Professor Beecher, not only has Yale sus- 

 tained a serious loss and paleontology a severe blow, but the 

 ranks of those capable of bringing to the study of fossils keen 

 insight and a philosophical spirit of enquiry, guided by prin- 

 ciples whose value can hardly be exaggerated, are diminished 

 by one whom science could ill afford to lose, and to whom, 

 humanly speaking, there should have remained many years of 

 industry and fruitful research." (W. H. Dall, Science, March 

 18, 1904.) 



Like most successful students of organic life, Beecher was 

 a born naturalist. As a boy of twelve years he began to make 

 a collection of recent shells and fossils, continuing to add to 

 this for the next thirty years, when, in 1899, he presented 

 Yale University, "unconditionally," with upwards of 100,000 

 fossils. In the field few excelled Beecher as a collector. 

 When twenty years of age he published his first paper — a list 

 of the land and fresh-water shells of Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

 For the next eight years he published nothing, his second 

 paper appearing in 1884, and in 1888, when he left Albany, 



Am. Jour. Sci. — Fourth Series, Vol. XVII, No. 102. — June, 1904. 

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