CHARLES

See also:

• CHARLES WACHSMUTH (1829-1896)

WACHSMUTH (1829-1896)  , American palaeontologist, was born in Hanover, Germany, on the 13th of September 1829 . Educated as a lawyer in his native city, he abandoned the profession on account of ill-health, and in 1852 went to New York as agent for a Hamburg shipping house . Two years later, for reasons of health, he removed to Burlington, Iowa, U.S.A., where he settled . Here he was attracted by the fossils, and especially the crinoids, of the Burlington Limestone, and in a few years possessed a fine collection . In 1864 he made acquaintance with L . Agassiz, and in the following year paid a visit to Europe, where he studied the crinoids in the British Museum and other famous collections . He now decided to devote all his energies to the elucidation of the crinoidea, and with signal success . He made further extensive collections, and supplied specimens to the Agassiz museum at Cambridge, U.S.A., and the British Museum . Becoming acquainted with Frank Springer (1848– ), a lawyer at Burlington, he stirred up his enthusiasm in the subject, and together they continued the study of crinoids and published a series of important papers . These include " Discovery of the Ventral Structure of Taxocrinus and Haplocrinus, and Consequent Modifications in the Classification of the Crinoidea " (Prot . Acad . Nat .

Sci.,

Philadelphia, 1889); " The Perisomic Plates of the Crnnoids " (Ibid., 1891); and a monograph on " The North American Crinoidea Camerata," published, after the death of Wach.smuth, in the Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard (1897) . Of this last-named work a detailed review and analysis was published by F . A . Bather, of the British Museum, in the Geol . Mag. for 1898-1899 . Wachsmuth died on the 7th of February 1896 . Obituary (with portrait) by F . A . Bather, Geol . Mag . (April 1896) .