Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/713

This page has been validated.
SKETCH OF SAMUEL LOCKWOOD.
697

ing him to write a popular descriptive text to it. While his mind was exercised on this subject he was attacked by a violent fever, culminating in delirium. In this delirium he dreamed of a terrific battle of saurians, in which all the giants of the family took part. After recovery from his illness Mr. Lockwood wrote the dream down, and it proved a very satisfactory libretto to the cartoon.

While Mr. Hawkins was still engaged in his saurian reconstruction in Central Park, the "Tweed Ring" rose into power, and, not appreciating the value of this scientific labor, or rather not caring for it unless it was re-enforced by the kind of consideration acceptable to political bosses, ordered the figures, representing the patient labors of two or three years, destroyed. Prof. Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, intervened to prevent this devastation, but he had no hearing.

Mr. Lockwood's residence at Keyport gave him opportunity to study ichthyic life. As a first result of his researches in this new field appeared his article in the American Naturalist, The Sea Horse and its Young, which describes the remarkable fact that the male fish takes from the female the eggs and places them in an abdominal pouch, in which he carries them until they are hatched. It was upon this discovery, published in 1867, that the University of New York conferred upon her alumnus the degree of Ph. D. Some studies on insects at this time led to economic results.

After reading a paper before the New York Lyceum of Natural History on A New Parasite in the Eel, the society requested the doctor to take up the study of Limulus, the horsefoot or king crab. Dr. Lockwood was promised the loan of a compound microscope for the purpose, but this he did not get, and did his work with an instrument which cost but three dollars. The paper was read to the society in 1869, and published in the American Naturalist in 1870. It showed that in one of its embryonic forms Limulus is a trilobite. Dr. Lockwood also demonstrated that in successive months of its larval life it went through further phases representing those higher fossil forms known as Pterygotus. The author furnished eggs to Prof. A. Packard, who sent some to Jena. The article in the American Naturalist attracted much attention, and pointed out the way to a number of eminent workers on the problem who were able to use the best appliances. Dr. Packard led; then Prof. Dorhn, the biologist of the University of Jena, who translated the Lockwood article into German. Dr. Richard Owen, the eminent English anatomist, occupied two evenings of the Linnean Society of London citing largely from the article and complimenting it. The paper received praise also from Milne-Edwards.