Othniel Charles Marsh, an American naturalist, born in Lockport, N. Y., Oct. 29. 1831. He studied at Phillips academy, Andover. Mass., and at Yale college, where he graduated in 1860, and spent the next two years in the Yale scientific school. From 1862 to 1865 he studied at the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Breslau, and on his return to America in 1866 was elected professor of palaeontology in Yale college. His scientific publications, which began while he was a student, have been very numerous. Among his earlier papers, most of which appeared first in the "American Journal of Science," are: " The Gold of Nova Scotia" (1861); "Description of a New Kna-liosaurian, Eosaurits Acadianm" (1862); "Description of an Ancient Sepulchral Mound" (1867); "Contributions to the Mineralogy of Nova Scotia" (1867); " Origin of Lignilites or Epsomites " (1867); "Metamorphosis of Sire-don into Amblystoma "(1868); "Notice of New Mosasauroid Reptiles from New Jersey " (1869); and "Notice of New Fossil Birds from the Cretaceous and Tertiary of the United States" (1870). For several years he has devoted himself to investigating the extinct vertebrate animals of the Rocky mountain region, especially those of the cretaceous and tertiary formations.

Since 1868 he has nearly every year led an expedition to regions never before visited by white men. These expeditions have been remarkably successful, more than species of new fossil vertebrates having been discovered, about 200 of which he has already described. Many of these extinct animals are of great scientific interest, and represent several new orders, as well as a number of others not before found in America. Among these are the ichthyornithes, a new order of cetaceous birds, having teeth and biconcave vertebra?; the first American pterodactyls, or fiying lizards, some having a spread of wings of 25 ft.; the dinocerata, gigantic eocene mammals with six horns; the brontotheridae, huge mio-cenc mammals with a single pair of horns; and likewise the first fossil monkeys, bats, and marsupials from this country. These and many other discoveries have been described by him in a series of papers published in 1871 - 3. He was in 1874 preparing an extensive report, in which full descriptions, with illustrations of all his western discoveries will be published under government auspices.