WACHSMUTH, CHARLES (1829-1896), American palae ontologist, born in Hanover, Germany, Sept. 13, 1829. In 1852 he emigrated to America and of ter two years in New York city he settled in Burlington, Iowa. Ill health forced him into the open and he began to collect fossils, especially the crinoids, or sea lilies, of the Burlington Limestone, and in a few years he possessed a fine collection. In 1864 he became acquainted with Agassiz, and in the following year paid a visit to Europe, where he studied the crinoids in the British Museum and other famous collections. He decided to devote all his energies to the elucida tion of the crinoidea, and did so with signal success. He made
further extensive collections, and supplied specimens to the Har vard museum at Cambridge, Mass., and to the British Museum.
Together with Frank Springer (1848— ) of Burlington, he published a series of important papers on their studies of crinoids, also an extensive monograph on the Revision of the paleocrinoida (1879-86). After Wachsmuth's death at Burlington, on Feb. 7, 1896, appeared The North American Crinoidea Camerata (2 vol. and atlas, 1897).