TYPES OF LATE CENOZOIC GASTROPODS 



IN THE FRANK COLLINS BAKER COLLECTION, 



ILLINOIS STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 



A. BYRON LEONARD 



ABSTRACT 



Types of late Cenozoic fossil gastropods that are in the Illinois State Geological Sur- 

 vey collections are listed, illustrated by photographs, and accompanied by essential data, 

 including catalog number, original description, type locality, and name of collector. Of 

 the 34 types, all were described by Frank Collins Baker, except the one species from loess 

 deposits in Illinois described by H. A. Pilsbry. A brief outline of Baker's scientific activi- 

 ties and a selected bibliography of his studies of fossil gastropods are included. 



THE FRANK COLLINS BAKER 

 COLLECTIONS 



The molluscan materials that Frank Col- 

 lins Baker studied during his professional life 

 of more than fifty years are widely dispersed 

 among several collections. Baker began his 

 study of Mollusca as a Jesup Scholar at the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadel- 

 phia ; in this capacity he took part in a scien- 

 tific expedition to Mexico sponsored by the 

 Academy in 1890. 



The next two years (1891-92) Baker spent 

 at Ward's Natural Science Establishment, 

 Rochester, New York, where he was in 

 charge of the invertebrate collections. The 

 following year he assisted in setting up 

 Ward's scientific exhibits for the Chicago 

 World's Fair. He remained in the Middle 

 West to become Curator of Zoology in the 

 Field Columbian Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, Chicago, but after one year accepted the 

 position of curator in the museum of the Chi- 

 cago Academy of Sciences, where he remained 

 from 1894 to 1915. 



The museum of the Chicago Academy of 

 Sciences houses the collections upon which 

 Baker based his "Mollusca of the Chicago 

 Area" (1902). "Lymnaeidae of North and 

 Middle America" (1911), written while 

 Baker was at the Chicago Academy, was 

 based largely upon his private collections of 

 gastropods of that family, collections that 

 the Smithsonian Institution acquired after his 

 death. 



After spending two years as a special 

 zoological investigator at the University of 

 Syracuse in New York, Baker became Cura- 

 tor of the Museum of Natural History at 

 the University of Illinois in 1918, a position 

 he held until his retirement as Curator Emeri- 

 tus in 1939. 



The summers of 1920 to 1923 Baker spent 

 in study of the fresh-water mollusks of Wis- 

 consin, under the auspices of the Wisconsin 

 Geological and Natural History Survey. 

 These studies resulted in two impressive vol- 

 umes (1928) that discuss the fresh-water gas- 

 tropods and pelecypods of Wisconsin in ex- 

 haustive detail. The collections of Wiscon- 

 sin Mollusca, housed at the University of 

 Wisconsin at Madison, include many new 

 species described by Baker. 



Several significant publications, along with 

 a great number of shorter papers, resulted 

 from Baker's study of Illinois Mollusca. 

 "The Life of the Pleistocene" ( 1920) and his 

 "Fieldbook of Illinois Land Snails" (1939) 

 are outstanding examples. Before his death 

 in 1942, Baker was vigorously pursuing a 

 study of the Planorbidae of the world. Part 

 of this study was assembled and published 

 (1945), after Baker's death, by the late 

 Harley Van Cleave of the University of Illi- 

 nois. The studies on the Planorbidae were 

 based largely on Baker's private collections 

 of planorbid gastropods; these, like the col- 

 lections of the Lymnaeidae, went to the 

 Smithsonian Institution. 



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