The Origin and Evolution of
Life, 1918
By Henry Fairfield Osborn
Henry Fairfield Osborn founded the Department of Vertebrate
Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History
(AMNH) in New York City and was instrumental in founding the Department
of Zoology at Columbia University.1
His career at the American Museum began in 1891, and from 1908
until 1933 he served as museum president.2 During his
tenure
as museum president he was responsible for sending out a number of
fossil collecting parties which amassed what is
probably
the
greatest collection of fossil vertebrates in the world. Osborn
was a prolific author and his The
Origin and Evolution of
Life was
considered to be one of Osborn's three great treatises, the others
being The Age of Mammals, and
Men of the Old Stone Age.2
The Origin and Evolution of Life not only covers the "origin and
evolution of life," but in
the early chapters considers such
topics as physics, physiochemical dynamics of organisms, geochemistry,
geophysics, and
astronomy. The latter half of the book
focuses on prehistoric vertebrates and the evolution thereof.
Osborn includes many black and white (no color) illustrations in his
book, often combining a
photograph of a skeleton with a life
restoration, as shown below.
The Origin and Evolution of Life
contains copies of many of Charles R. Knight's paintings. Most of
the pen and
ink illustrations are by
Richard Deckert (e.g., the duckbills, above).
Below is one of several Knight illustrations contained in the
book. It is another variant of Knight's Mosasaur chasing
the prehistoric fish
Portheus (see Czerkas and Glut).
References:
1Colbert, E. H., Men and Dinosaurs: The Search in Field and
Laboratory (1968).
2 Decamp, L. S., and C. C. DeCamp, The Day of the Dinosaur
((1968).
index