The Field Naturalist: John Macoun, the Geological Survey and Natural Science by W.A. Waiser, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1989. Pp xxxiv + 253, ill., index. ISBN 0-8020-9. $30.00.

In 1975 the Danish Natural Science Foundation (SNF) and the Geological Survey of Greenland (GGU) initiated an investigation of the microplankton (dinoflagelIate cyst) of the Cretaceous and Tertiary sediments in central West Greenland. The purpose of this investigation is the establishment of a dinoflagelIate stratigraphy based on samples from measured sections to assist in a basin analysis. SNF provided the funds for the establishment of a laboratory for palynological preparation and investigation. They also funded a Leitz Orthoplan microscope with a Leica camera for the study of the microplankton, and two of the six Honda ATC 90 motor tricycles that facilitated the field work. The main field activity in 1975 has been outlined by Croxton (this report). As mentioned by Schiener & Henderson (1975), seven weeks field work were carried out in 1974 by the writer and T. Jürgensen. In 1974 ten sections (M1 - M10) totalling 2670 m of sediment were measured and 201 samples were collected. T. Jürgensen also measured a series ofsections (T2 -T14). In 1975 nineteen sections(M11-M29) were measuredand 837 samples were collected (see fig. II for localities).

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Benjamin F. Mudge: The First Kansas Geologist

Earth Sciences History ◽

10.17704/eshi.3.2.02034748x0446121 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 103-111 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Leroy Page

Keyword(s):

Natural Science ◽

The State ◽

Geological Survey ◽

Benjamin Franklin ◽

Marine Reptiles ◽

Agricultural College ◽

State Agricultural College ◽

Fossil Bird ◽

Geological Map

Benjamin Franklin Mudge (1817-79), originally from Massachusetts, was appointed State Geologist and Director of the First Geological Survey of Kansas in 1864. After failing to be reappointed in 1865 he became Professor of Natural Science at Kansas State Agricultural College, Manhattan, whose president, Joseph Denison, was an old friend and fellow Methodist. Mudge taught courses in all areas of science and spent his summers geologizing in western Kansas. An avid collector, he sent fossil specimens to Edward Cope, O. C. Marsh, and others. In the summer of 1872 he discovered a Cretaceous bird, Ichthyornis dispar, described by Marsh at Yale as the first fossil bird known to have teeth. In 1873 the KSAC regents replaced Denison by John Anderson, who dismissed Mudge and two others in February 1874 after they complained to members of the legislature about misuse of college funds and tried unsuccessfully to defeat legislative confirmation of some of the regents. Mudge then was employed by Marsh to collect fossil vertebrates (1874-77). Assisted by Samuel Williston and other former students, he sent to Marsh a large number of specimens of marine reptiles, pterodactyls, and birds from the Cretaceous beds of western Kansas. In 1877 he was sent to Colorado, where he supervised the quarrying of dinosaur bones at Cañon City. Strongly religious and a staunch opponent of slavery and alcohol, Mudge was regarded highly as a teacher and collector. He published in 1875 a description of the geology of Kansas which contained the first geological map of the State. He also was cofounder and first president of the Kansas Academy of Science.

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John Smith Flett, 1869-1947

Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society ◽

10.1098/rsbm.1948.0006 ◽

1948 ◽

Vol 5 (16) ◽

pp. 688-696

Keyword(s):

Medical Practice ◽

Natural Science ◽

Academic Career ◽

Transitional Period ◽

Geological Survey ◽

Small Island ◽

Geological Museum ◽

University Of Edinburgh ◽

The University ◽

Short Time

John Smith Flett, who died on 26 January 1947, at the age of seventy-seven, has left an abiding mark on British geology, both as a scientific investigator and as an official administrator. His scientific contributions dealt mainly with petrography and many of them were necessarily of a routine and official character. His greatest services to his science were undoubtedly those given during his fifteen years as Director of His Majesty’s Geological Survey. In the unsettled and transitional period between the wars, it was indeed fortunate for the Survey and for geology that a man of Flett’s stamp—in intellect keen and acute, in character resolute and virile—should be at the helm. Under his guidance there arose the magnificent Geological Museum at South Kensington —a monument to a vision persistently followed. When we contemplate the outstanding part that the geologists of this small island have played in the foundation and evolution of their science, we must rejoice that at last an exhibition worthy of that record can be made. Flett was born in Kirkwall, Orkney, and received his early education at the Burgh School of that town. He passed to George Watson’s College, Edinburgh, and thence to the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated M.A., B.Sc. (with honours in Natural Science), in 1892 and M.B., C.M., in 1894. During his academic career he gained an extraordinary variety of prizes, medals and scholarships. This was no ephemeral brilliance or inclination, and he maintained an interest in subjects outside his professional orbit all his life; he was especially attracted to literature of a somewhat caustic or satiric cast. After graduation, Flett was for a short time in medical practice but, in 1895, he forsook that career and turned himself for good to geology.

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John Edward Marr, 1857 - 1933

Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society ◽

10.1098/rsbm.1934.0009 ◽

1934 ◽

Vol 1 (3) ◽

pp. 250-257

Keyword(s):

Natural Science ◽

Natural Sciences ◽

Geological Survey ◽

Grammar School ◽

Small School ◽

Town Council ◽

The Family ◽

The Town

John Edward Marr, youngest of the nine children of John and Mary (Simpson) Marr, was descended from an old Scottish family belonging to the clan Macdonald. He was born at Poulton-le-Sands on June 14, 1857, in a house opposite which the Town Council has recently placed a memorial tablet. The family moved to Carnarvon, and it was while at a small school there that the finding of a new fossil awakened in the boy an interest in geology. At Lancaster Grammar School, to which he was sent later, he met R. H. Tiddeman, then engaged on the Geological Survey of part of Lancashire, who took him out into the field and thus laid the foundation of his geological career as well as of a friendship lasting half a century. An Exhibition at St. John’s College, followed by a Foundation Scholarship, enabled him to work at Cambridge under Hughes as Professor and Bonney as Tutor, and, in 1878 Marr took a first in Geology in the Natural Sciences Tripos. Later he was elected a Fellow and one of the Lecturers in Natural Science at his College, and later still became University Lecturer in Geology, a post he held till 1917.

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The origins of Electron Microscopy in North America at the University of Toronto

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100120412 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 50 (1) ◽

pp. 2-3

Author(s):

John H. L. Watson

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

North America ◽

University Of Toronto ◽

The University

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