Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/572

568 to take charge of the invertebrate fossils of the Peabody Museum, and received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1889. In 1892 he was made assistant professor and in 1897 professor of historical geology, the title being changed to professor of paleontology in 1902. In 1899 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In this year, when he succeeded Professor Marsh as curator of the geological collections, he presented to the museum his collection of fossils, which he had been gathering since he was twelve years old and which contained over 100,000 specimens.

Beecher published about sixty papers on invertebrate paleontology, concerned especially with brachiopods and trilobites. He obtained specimens of the latter in which the antennæ and legs were preserved, and made careful studies of the ventral anatomy. He also published a classification of the trilobites, and was at work on an extensive treatise on these primitive crustaceans at the time of his death. Beecher did much work in the field and was skilful in preparing specimens and as a draughtsman. He was also interested in the philosophical aspects of evolution, being counted among the American neo-Lamarckians. In an important paper he finds that species having spines fully developed leave no descendants.