Charles Emerson Beecher

thumb|Charles Emerson Beecher Charles Emerson Beecher (October 9, 1856 – February 14, 1904) was an American professor of paleontology at Yale University and chief curator at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. Known for his scientific research at the eponymous Beecher's Trilobite Bed, he was elected in 1889 a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and in 1899 a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Quotes It is now generally known that the youngest stages of trilobites found as fossils are minute ovate or discoid bodies, not more than one millimetre in length, in which the head portion greatly predominates. Altogether they present very little likeness to the adult form, to which, however, they are traceable through a longer or shorter series of modifications. Since Joachim Barrande Barrande ... first demonstrated the metamorphoses of trilobites, in 1849, similar observations have been made upon a number of different genera by Ford, ... Charles Doolittle Walcott Walcott, ... Matthew, ... John William Salter Salter, ... Charles Callaway Callaway, ... and the writer. ... The basic facts in the ontogeny have thus become well established and the main features of the larval form are fairly well understood. The Larval Stages of Trilobites The American Geologist 16 Geological Publishing Company Minneapolis, Minnesota https://books.google.com/books?id=87N8pzcen0EC&pg=PA166 166–197 September 1895 With the possible exception of the barnacles, the group of arthropods has received more varied treatment by specialists than the trilobites. This taxonomic uncertainty had been due mainly to a lack of knowledge of the structure, and to certain real or fancied resemblances to Limulus. Article VIII.—Outline of a Natural Classification of the Trilobites The American Journal of Science, 4th Series 1897 4 14 86–106 pdf at archive.org Quotes about Charles Emerson Beecher John Boyd Thacher State Park Indian Ladder in the Helderberg Escarpment Helderberg Mountains was always a favorite and fertile spot for him, dating back to his Albany clays. It is one of the most beautiful and picturesque regions in the Helderbergs. He collected there slabs of limestone containing fossils which were silicified in the most perfect condition for development by etching with acid. From such material he etched numerous large or minute specimens of surpassing beauty and scientific interest. Besides adult fronds of Bryozoa, Brachiopoda, Crustacea, and other fossils in most perfect preservation, he obtained minute embryos and small species in large numbers in literally wonderful condition of perfection. Robert Tracy Jackson, Obituary: Charles Emerson Beecher The American Naturalist June 1904 38 450 407–426 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/278422 (quote from p. 411) External links Category:1856 births Category:1904 deaths Category:Academics from the United States Category:Curators Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:Paleontologists from the United States Category:University of Michigan alumni Category:Yale University alumni Category:Yale University faculty