Biographical Memoirs Volume 46 (1975) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
4. William King Gregory
4. William King Gregory
Pages 90-133
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 91... ...
COLBERT IN THIS AGE of scientific specialization, many if not most men of authority attain preeminence within some relatively narrow discipline. But William King Gregory, at the time of his death one of the oldest members of the National Academy of Sciences, was distinguished as a zoologist who had spoken influentially on many aspects of vertebrate evolution and structure.
|
From page 92... ...
There he majored in zoology and vertebrate paleontology and received a broad training in English, Latin and Creek, French Literature, history, psychology, and philosophy. Dean was his mentor in vertebrate zoology, but very soon he came under the tutelage of Henry Fairfield Osborn, who had recently come to New York from Princeton to help found a department of zoology at Columbia and to establish a department of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History.
|
From page 93... ...
Gregory's close association with Osborn developed an early interest in the landliving vertebrates and marked the beginning of his truly remarkable knowledge of all of the backboned animals. Indeed, his paper, "Adaptive significance of the shortening of the elephant's skull," undertaken with the encouragement of Osborn, was published in 1903 and thus preceded his first fish paper.
|
From page 94... ...
Thus Gregory was the first editor of a periodical that in time evolved into the internationally renowned journal Natural History. These multitudinous, parallel activities of his early adult years established a pattern that was to prevail throughout Gregory's life.
|
From page 95... ...
Now that I look back on it, he was in my youth the only man in North America who had a knowledge of the basic structure of the skull in lower vertebrates." Gregory's research studies were frequently of large scope and often of marked significance. He was a pioneer in the study of fossil vertebrates from the viewpoint of functional anatomy—a reflection of his conviction that, for example, bones and muscles in extinct as well as in recent vertebrates should be related to each other.
|
From page 96... ...
Gregory was interested in origins—for example, the origin of tetrapod limbs from the paired fins of fishes. interested in evolutionary sequences as shown by anatomical developments through various grades of vertebrate development.
|
From page 97... ...
This phenomenon he called "Williston's law"—hardly a law, but rather an evolutionary trend. Gregory's contributions on the origins of vertebrate structures, on the transformation and adaptation of anatomical characters for new functions during evolution from one taxonomic grade to another, on evolutionary sequence among the vertebrates, on the functional anatomy in fossil forms, and on other problems involving the comparative anatomy of the backboned animals, extinct and recent, were not limited to his published scientific contributions.
|
From page 98... ...
Actually, the courses were conducted at the American Museum of Natural History, because that was where the materials were available. The collections at the disposal of the students were superb, and the man who lectured on these collections had a superb knowledge of the vertebrates.
|
From page 99... ...
As a result of his long work on the bony fishes there appeared in 1933 his monograph, Fish Skulls: A Study in the Evolution of Natural Mechanisms, published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. He continued his studies on the teleosts through many succeeding years, especially with the collaboration of G
|
From page 100... ...
His thesis for the doctorate, "The Orders of Mammals," a monograph of more than five hundred pages, published as a Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, established him as a foremost authority on mammalian relationships, an eminence he occupied for the rest of his active life. With such a thorough background in mammalian evolution it was only natural that Gregory should address himself in detail to various groups of mammals.
|
From page 101... ...
. A considerable portion of what is set forth in Osborn's gigantic two-volume titanothere monograph, published in 1929 by the United States Geological Survey, and in his equally gigantic two-volume Proboscidea monograph, published posthumously in 1942 by the American Museum of Natural History, can be traced back to Gregory.
|
From page 102... ...
It was his contention that early man was descended from brachiating ancestors, not unlike the modern chimpanzee, and he was an early advocate, perhaps the first such, of the theory that the then newly discovered australopithecines of South Africa were more closely related to the hominids than to the anthropoid apes. Gregory's interest in the immediate ancestry of man, and his penetrating studies of this problem, brought him into close association with anthropologists, particularly physical anthropologists, among whom he was regarded as one of their leading advocates.
|
From page 103... ...
The result was a volume of some seven hundred pages of text, outlining vertebrate evolution from its very beginnings to its present stage, with man as the ruler of the earth, supplemented by an equally thick volume of illustrations. As George Gaylord Simpson has said, "It was both the chef d'oeuvre and the swan song of a genius." Gregory was a most original and assiduous scholar, whose fame rests to a large degree on his numerous important publications.
|
From page 104... ...
There were joint studies and papers with other scholars; special mention should be made of his work with Milo Hellman on the evolution of the human dentition. Although Gregory was a fine scholar and a prodigious worker, he did not participate in many extensive field studies or expeditions.
|
From page 105... ...
Gregory formally retired from the American Museum of Natural History in 1 94a and from Columbia University in 1945, but he remained active for many years thereafter. He had long owned a home in Woodstock, New York, where he spent his summers.
|
From page 106... ...
His legacy is an amazing collection of publications dealing with vertebrates of all classes, several generations of vertebrate paleontologists and zoologists—his scientific children—and ideas that will live in the annals of vertebrate studies for many years to come.
|
From page 107... ...
Hist. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History Bull.
|
From page 108... ...
U.S. Geological Survey Monograph 1901 Extracts from the reports of field parties sent by the department of vertebrate paleontology in search of fossil mammals and reptiles, 1900.
|
From page 109... ...
Evolution of Mammalian Molar Teeth to and from the Triangular Type, Including Collected and Revised Researches on Trituberculy and New Sections on the Forms and Homologies of the Molar Teeth in the Different Orders of Mammals, by H
|
From page 110... ...
Exhibition of a fossil skeleton of Notharctus rostratus, an American Eocene femur, with remarks on the phylogeny of the primates.
|
From page 111... ...
Recent progress in vertebrate paleontology. Science, 43:103-10.
|
From page 112... ...
T Nichols, American Museum of Natural History Handbook Series no.
|
From page 113... ...
Part III. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, 3: 49-243.
|
From page 114... ...
Philadelphia, Wagner The Origin and Evolution of the Human Dentition. Parts I-V.
|
From page 115... ...
WILLIAM KING GREGORY 115 A forerunner of the horned dinosaurs.
|
From page 116... ...
The dentition of Dryopithecus and the origin of man. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, 28(Part I)
|
From page 117... ...
In celebration of the seventieth birthday of Henry Fairfield Osborn, August 8, 1927. New York, American Museum of Natural History.
|
From page 118... ...
Proceedings of the Colorado Museum of Natural History, 8: 1-32; Bull.
|
From page 119... ...
Paleontology of the human dentition. Family tree of man.
|
From page 120... ...
1-42. New York, American Museum of Natural History; also in Bull.
|
From page 121... ...
News, 16:16-17. The African anatomical expedition of Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History.
|
From page 122... ...
Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn, retiring president of The American Museum of Natural History.
|
From page 123... ...
The world of fishes: guide to the fish collections of The American Museum of Natural History.
|
From page 124... ...
In publications of the Galton Society, American Museum of Natural History, Apr.
|
From page 125... ...
Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935~. Science, 82: 452-54; Nat.
|
From page 126... ...
Publication of the Asiatic Expeditions of The American Museum of Natural History, contrite.
|
From page 127... ...
A new titanothere genus from the Upper Eocene of Mongolia and North America. Addendum to: Fossil mammals from Burma in The American Museum of Natural History, by Edwin H
|
From page 128... ...
The dentition of the extinct South African manape A ustralopithecus (PIesianthropus) transvaalensis Broom.
|
From page 129... ...
(Obituary of) Gladwyn Kingsley Noble.
|
From page 130... ...
Unveiling of the bust of Henry Fairfield Osborn and opening of the North American Hall of Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History. Nature, 150:573-75.
|
From page 131... ...
Frank Michler Chapman (1864-1945~. National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs, 25:111~5.
|
From page 132... ...
Rec., 101 :420. The significance of the Broom collection of South African fossil vertebrates in the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
|
From page 133... ...
On interacting casual networks converging towards observed results in evolution. In: Studies on Fossil Vertebrates, ed.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.