John C. Merriam

John Campbell Merriam. [Born] 1869. Paleontologist.

A rare investigator, a thoughtful and forceful philosopher in science, a sagacious organizer of successful co-operative undertakings in research, an ardent expositor of the value of original investigation to the general public, a scholar of whom it can be truly said that he was a senior in his profession. Professor of Paleontology and Dean of the Faculties in the University of California, Chairman of the National Research Council, President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, a founder and President of the Save-the-Redwoods League, President of the Pan-American Institute of Geography and History; member of the Advisory Board on National Parks, and inspirer of their educational policy. He was the discoverer, preserver, expositor of the famous La Brea pits with their evidence of prehistoric life in America—right on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles! Author of hundreds of publications, precise with the precision of a great scientist, perceptive with the humanity of a man to whom every detail of life was of an interest both intense and profound.

Source: Henry Allen Moe Papers, Mss.B.M722. Reproduced by permission of American Philosophical Society Library & Museum, Philadelphia

Henry Allen Moe
Henry Allen Moe Papers, 1945 Memorials