Abstract
PROF. H. FAIRFIELD OSBORN, an obituary of whom appears on p. 784 of this issue of NATURE, was a figure in certain respects unique in American science. In virtue of his great possessions, he belonged to a class more frequently encountered in business than in academic circles in the United States, and his personal connexions played no small part in aiding him to raise the American Museum of Natural History, of which he was honorary life president at the time of his death, to the commanding position in the scientific world which it now holds. Under his controlling influence, its scientific achievement, equally remarkable in range and variety, was no less notable than its growth and its efficiency in material equipment; while graded series of publications, ranging from popular expositions to detailed monographic studies, and from ephemeral announcements of recent discovery to the considered conclusions of prolonged research, became a regular and highly valued feature in the organisation of the Museum, placing the latest developments of its work at the disposal of laymen and the scientific world alike. One of the greatest achievements of the Museum under his regime, and certainly the most spectacular, was the organisation of the great scientific expedition to Mongolia. It was unfortunate that after some years of work, which had produced results of the greatest importance to science in palaeontology, geology, archaeology, and the other branches of research for which provision had been made, clash with Chinese authority should have brought the expedition to a close at a moment when Osborn was about to build up an organisation in China, which promised to emulate within its limits the achievement of the parent institution in New York.
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Henry Fairfield Osborn and the American Museum. Nature 136, 786 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136786a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136786a0