Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 07.djvu/370

 MERRIAM

MERRIAM

in the school of philosophy, and one of the senior instructors in the school of arts. He was the director of the American Scliool of Classical Studies at A.thens, Greece, 1887-88. and as such superintended the excavations at Sicyon and Icaria, and succeeded in locating the much-dis- puted birthplace of Thespis at Icaria. He also carried on excavations in the theatre of Sicyon, and in his investigations discovered many valuable pieces of sculpture and inscriptions, including an important statue. In 1883 he discovered several errors in the Greek and Latin inscriptions placed on the restored bronze crabs under the obelisk in Central Park, which were afterward corrected. He was president of the American Philological association, 1886-87, and of the New York Society of the Archaeological Institute of America. 1891- 94. He received the degree Ph.D. from Hamilton college in 1879. He was an a.s80ciate editor of the American Journal of Archceology, edited tlie papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, contributed to the American Journal of Philology^ the American Journal of Archceology, and to editions of the Odyssey and Herodotus, and is the autlior of : TJie Greek and Latin Inscriptions on the Obelisk Crab in Central Park (1883), and The Laiv Code of Gortyna in Crete: Text, Translation and Comment (1886). He died in Athens, Greece, Jan. 19, 1895.

MERRIAM, Charfes, publisher, was born in West Brookfield, Mass., Nov. 21, 1806 ; son of Dan and Xhirza (Clapp) Merriam ; grandson of Ebenezer and Margaret (Jefferson) Merriam, and a descendant of Joseph Merriam, Concord, Mass. 1638. Dan Merriam with his brother Ebenezer published a newspaper in West Brookfield, Mass., 1789-92, and they also conducted a printing busi- ness and book store, and became widely known as the publishers of law books. Perry's Diction- ary and an octavo Bible. Charles attended the district schools of West Brookfield and worked on the farm until 1820 ; was apprenticed to Wil- liam Goodwin, a printer in Hartford, Conn., 1820- 23, and on his father's death in 1823, returned to West Brookfield and completed his apprentice- ship with the firm of E. & G. Merriam. He attended the academies at Monson and Hadley, Mass., 1826-27, taught school in South Brookfield, and worked at his trade in Philadelphia, Pa., 1827-29, and was a journeyman printer and after- ward foreman in the office of T. R. Marvin, Boston, 1829-31. In the latter year his brother George sold his interest in the West Brookfield firm, and with his brother Charles established the book-printing and bookselling business of G. & C. Merriam in Springfield, Mass. Among other books they published Webster's Dictionary, having bought the copyright of J. S. and C. Adams, of Amherst, Mass., in 1845. They issued the dic-

tionary first in 1847 and sold it for $6.00, and made such a success of the enterprise that between 1845 and 1895 the Webster heirs received nearly $300,000 as royalties. He sold out his share in the firm in 1877. He gave $50,000 to missions and other philanthropic subjects, a public library and book fund to West Brookfield, his native place, and contributed $5,000 toward the estab- lishment of a public library in Springfield. He was married, Aug. 11, 1835, to Sophia, daughter of Col. Solomon Warriner, of Springfield, who died in 1858, and secondly, to Mrs. Rachel Gray, the widow of Dr. James Harrison Gray. He died in Springfield, Mass., July 9, 1887.

MERRIAM, Clinton Hart, naturalist, was born in New York city, Dec. 5, 1855 ; son of Clinton Levi and Caroline (Hart) Merriam. He studied at Williston seminary, Easthampton. Mass., 1873- 74, and at the Sheffield Scientific school, Yale, 1874-77. He was naturalist of the Hayden survey in 1872, and assistant, U.S. fish commission, in 1875. He was graduated at the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons in New York city in 1879, and practised medicine at Locust Grove, N.Y., 1879- 85. He served as surgeon on board, the U.S.S. Proteus on a visit to the Arctic seal fisheries in 1883 and sailed from Newfoundland ; and in 1885 became chief of the division of ornithology and mammalogy (now the biological survey) of the U.S. department of agriculture, his special lines of research being the geographic distribution of animals and plants in North America, and sys- tematic studies of North American mammals. In 1889 he made a biological survey of the San Francisco mountain region of Arizona, and sub- sequently conducted many such explorations in the west. He visited Alaska in 1891-92, as one of the U.S. Bering Sea commissioners to inves- tigate the fur seal on Pribilof Islands, and again in 1899 on the Harriman Alaska expedition. He was married, Oct. 15, 1886, to Virginia Elizabeth Gosnel. He described about 500 new species of North American mammals and wrote about 300 papers on biological subjects, including a " Mono- graphic revision of the Pocket Gophers " (Geomy- dae) (1895) ; a *' Revision of the American Shrews " (1895) ; a " Synopsis of Weasels of North America," and numerous others. He is the author of : Birds of Connecticut (1877) ; Mammals of the Adirondacks (1884) ; Residts of a Biological Survey of the San Francisco Mountain Region and Desert of Little Colorado in Arizona (1890) ; Geographic Distribution of Life in North America (1892) ; Results of the Death Valley Expedition (1893) ; Laivs of Temperature Control of Geo- graphic Distribution of Terrestrial Animals and Plants (1894) ; Life Zones and Crop Zones of the United States (1898) ; and Biological Survey of Mount Shasta, California (1899).