WHITFIELD, Robert Parr, palgeontologist, born in New Hartford, New York, 27 May, 1828. He is of English parentage, and was educated at home and at public schools. In 1835 he went with his family to England, but he returned in 1841, learned the trade of making spindles, and had charge of a factory of telegraphic and philosophic instruments in Utica, New York In 1856 he was appointed assistant to James Hall, state geologist of New York, and in 1870 he became first, assistant curator, with charge of the geology and palaeontology in the New York state museum in Albany, and much of the work on the palaeontology of the state natural history and regent's report of the New York state cabinet was done by him. In 1872 he began teaching geology in Rensselaer polytechnic institute at. Troy, and in 1875 he was given the professorship of that branch, which he held until 1878. In June, 1877, he was appointed curator of the geological department of the American museum of natural history in New York city, which office he still fills. Wesleyan university conferred on him the degree of A. M. in 1882, and he has been since 1874 a fellow of the American association for the advancement of science. Professor Whitfield has described a large number of new fossils, and has been very successful in studying the internal structure of fossil brachiopoda, many of which are published in the New York state palaeontology. He has also reported on specimens gathered by the exploration under Clarence King, the palaeontology of the Black Hills, and fossils from the geological surveys of Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, and other states, and is now engaged on the palaeontology of New Jersey. The value of his work is greatly enhanced by the drawings of fossils that ha has made. His publications, which include nearly thirty memoirs, besides frequent papers, have appeared in reports of the state surveys with which he has been connected, and in the "Bulletins of the American Museum of Natural History," of which six numbers under his editorship have been issued since 1881.