John Strong Newberry

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John Strong Newberry (December 22, 1822 – December 7, 1892) was a U.S. geologist, physician, explorer, author, and a member of the Megatherium Club at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

He was born at Windsor, Conn. Most of his early life was spent in the Western Reserve of Ohio. He graduated from Western Reserve University in 1846 and from Cleveland Medical School in 1848. After two years of study in medicine and paleontology at Paris he established his medical practice in Cleveland (1851).

In 1855 he joined an exploring expedition under Lieutenant Williamson, sent out by the War Department to examine the country between San Francisco and the Columbia River. In 1857-58 he acted as geologist to an expedition headed by Lieutenant Ives, sent out to explore the Colorado River, and he served as naturalist on an expedition under Captain Macombe, which explored southwestern Colorado and adjacent parts of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. He was the first geologist known to visit the Grand Canyon. He was called to a professorship at Columbian (now George Washington) University in 1857. During the Civil War Dr. Newberry served as secretary to the Sanitary Commission for the Mississippi valley. In 1866 he was offered the chair of geology and paleontology in the School of Mines, Columbia College, which he accepted and held for 24 years. His other positions were: director of the Ohio Geological Survey; a member of the Illinois Geological Survey; president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; president of the New York Academy of Sciences; and president of the Torrey Botanical Club. He assisted in the organization of the Geological Society of America at Cleveland in 1888, and served on the commission to organize an international geological congress, of which he was president in 1891. The Murchison medal of the Geological Society of London was awarded to him in 1888.

Newberry died at New Haven on December 7, 1892. Newberry Crater, Oregon (now in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument) was named in his honor in 1903.

[edit] Works

  • Reports of Explorations and Surveys to Ascertain the Most Practical and Economic Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast, Made in 1855-56 (Washington, 1857)
  • Report on the Colorado River of the West, Explored in 1857-58 (Washington, 1861)
  • Reports of the Exploring Expedition from Santa Fé to the Junction of the Grande and Green Rivers (Washington, 1876)
  • The Rock Oils of Ohio (1859)
  • Iron Resources of the United States (1874)
  • The Structure and Relations of Dinichthys (1875)
  • Report on the Fossil Fishes Collected on the Illinois Geological Survey (1886)
  • Fossil Fishes and Fossil Plants of the Triassic Rocks of New Jersey and the Connecticut Valley (1888)
  • Paleozoic Fishes of North America (1889)
  • Later Extinct Floras (1898)

[edit] Publications

  • J. J. Stevenson, "Memoir", in the American Geologist (Minneapolis, July, 1893)
  • C. A. White, Biographical Memoir of John Strong Newberry (Washington, 1908)