1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meek, Fielding Bradford

MEEK, FIELDING BRADFORD (1817–1876), American geologist and palaeontologist, the son of a lawyer, was born at Madison, Indiana, on the 10th of December 1817. In early life he was in business as a merchant, but his leisure hours were devoted to collecting fossils and studying the rocks of the neighbourhood of Madison. Being unsuccessful in business he turned his whole attention to science, and in 1848 he gained employment on the U.S. Geological Survey in Iowa, and subsequently in Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 1852 he became assistant to Professor James Hall at Albany, and worked at palaeontology with him until 1858. Meanwhile in 1853 he accompanied Dr F. V. Hayden in an exploration of the “Bad Lands” of Dakota and brought back valuable collections of fossils. In 1858 he went to Washington, where he devoted his time to the palaeontological work of the United States geological and geographical surveys, his work bearing “the stamp of the most faithful and conscientious research,” and raising him to the highest rank as a palaeontologist. Besides many separate contributions to science, he prepared with W. M. Gabb (1839–1878), two volumes on the palaeontology of California (1864–1869); and also a Report on the Invertebrate Cretaceous and Tertiary Fossils of the Upper Missouri Country (1876). He died at Washington, on the 22nd of December 1876.