RICHARD RATHBUN.i 
By Makcus Benjamin. 
[With 1 plate.] 
American science has lost one of its distinguished authorities on 
invertebrate zoology, and the United States National Museum its 
honored chief by the death of Richard Rathbun in the city of Wash- 
ington early on the morning of July 16, 1918. 
Richard Rathbun was born in Buffalo, New York, on January 25, 
1852, and there studied in the public schools until he reached the age 
of 15 years, when he entered the service of a firm of contractors, with 
which he remained for 4 years, acquiring a thorough knowledge of 
business methods, that was of special value to him during his later 
years. 
At that time, attracted by the specimens of fossils that abound in 
western New York, he began the study of paleontology to which he 
assiduously devoted his evenings and holidays. The collection in the 
museum of the Buffalo Society of National Sciences was made by him 
and he was appointed curator of that subject with charge of its col- 
lections by the society. 
In 1871, he met Charles Fred. Hartt, then professor of geology at 
Cornell University and a pupil of the elder Agassiz, who persuaded 
him to give up business pursuits and devote himself to science. Young 
Rathbun accordingly entered Cornell and followed the regular aca- 
demic course with the class of 1875, specializing, however, in geology 
and paleontology. 
The collections of Devonian and Cretaceous fossils previously 
obtained by Hartt in Brazil were assigned to him to work up and re- 
sulted in the publication of his first paper : " On the Devonian Bra- 
chiopoda of Erere, Province of Para, Brazil," in the Bulletin of the 
Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences for 1874 ^ followed by a " Pre- 
liminary Report on the Cretaceous Lamellibranchs Collected in the 
Vicinity of Pernambuco, Brazil," in the Proceedings of the Boston 
Society of Natural History for 1874.^ 
In the preparation of his paper on the Devonian fossils, he spent 
some time in Albany, New York, where he came under the influence 
^ Reprinted by permission from Science, N. S., Vol. XLVIII, No. 1236, September 6, 
1918. 
2 Vol. 1, pp. 236-261. 
«Vol. 17, pp. 241-256. 
523 
