Matthew, William Diller; Paleocene Faunas of the San Juan Basin, New Mexico. Trans.American Philosophical Society, NS vol. XXX, Philadelphia, 1937. First edition.Large quarto, pp viii, 510; 65 full page plates and maps (some are folding), 85 text-figures.
The work is complete and in the publisher's original printed light brown wrappers, Minor wear repaired on upper and lower spine margins. The text is tight and clean, a couple of pale blue ink spots on lower text block edge, owner’s small penned signature on cover. In very good condition.
Matthew (1871-1930) was an Canadian vertebrate paleontology who spent most of his career in America and devoted the majority of his research to the study of fossil mammals. Much of his career was with the American Museum of Natural History and he was the curator from about 1895 to 1927. He spent the rest of his life at the Univ. California Berkley. He made major contributions to our knowledge of the evolution of mammals and was a leading authority on Paleocene and Eocene faunas. The major part of the research in “Paleocene Faunas of the San Juan Basin” was completed in 1916 and 1917 but Matthew later revised parts of it between 1927 and 1930. His last scientific endeavors before his death were devoted to this work. The work was guided through publication over several years by Gregory, Granger and Colbert. Since the San Juan Basin has one of the earliest records of numerous fossil mammal lineages in world, it was in this region that Matthew devoted much of his time.
