The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate

SHALER, Nathaniel Southgate, American geologist: b. Newport, Ky., 20 Feb. 1841; d. Cambridge, Mass., 10 April 1906. He was graduated from the Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard, in 1862, served in the Union army as an artillery officer, and then returned to the Lawrence School, where he was assistant and instructor in geology and zoology He accepted the chair of palæontology at Harvard in 1868, was transferred in 1887 to that of geology, and he was dean of the Lawrence School from 1891. In 1873-80 he was in charge of the Kentucky geological survey, and from 1884 was director of the Atlantic division of the United States geological survey. He was commissioner of agriculture for the State of Massachusetts at different times, was president of the Geological Society of America in 1895; and besides numerous reports for the United States geological survey published ‘Kentucky Geological Reports and Memoirs’ (7 vols., 1876-82); ‘The Story of Our Continent’ (1892); ‘The Interpretation of Nature’ (1893); ‘The United States of America’ (2 vols., 1894); ‘The Individual: Study of Life and Death’ (1900); ‘The Citizen: A Study of the Individual and the Government’ (1904); ‘The Neighbor’ (1904); ‘Man and the Earth’ (1905). Consult ‘The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler,’ with a memoir by his wife (New York 1909), etc.