Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden

Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden ( born September 7, 1829 in Westfield, Massachusetts, † December 22, 1887 in Philadelphia ) was an American geologist who is known for his pioneering studies in the 19th century in the Rocky Mountains.

Career

When Ferdinand Hayden was ten years old his father died. Ferdinand Hayden moved in with his uncle in Ohio. At age 16, he began teaching two years later he entered Oberlin College and graduated in 1850. He then studied at the Albany Medical College in upstate New York. This he completed in 1853. The medical studies Hayden used more as background knowledge, because as a profession. Thanks to the influence of the paleontologists and geologists of the State of New York, Professor James Hall, he began increasingly to be interested in geology. Among other things, he took part in the geological exploration of Nebraska. From 1856 he conducted a series of studies in the 109 Western Territories for the U.S. government. One result of this was the " geological report of the exploration of the Yellowstone River and the Missouri River from 1859-1860 " ( Report of the Geological Exploration of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers in 1859-1860 ). Around the same time he became a member of the Megatherium Club at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

Military doctor and explorer

In the American Civil War he served as a medical officer and worked his way to the first medical officer in the Shenandoah army up. After the war, he retired with the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel (Lieutenant Colonel) from the army. Two years later he was appointed director of the geological and geographical exploration of the U.S. territories. He held this post from twelve years long. During this time he took annual research cruises, one of which resulted in a number of valuable knowledge in all fields of natural history and economics. He also published in 1877 his " geological and geographical atlas of Colorado " ( Geological and Geographical Atlas of Colorado ).

1872 Hayden wore with his expedition from the previous year crucial to the creation of Yellowstone as the first national park in the world, by having the photographer William Henry Jackson and the painter Thomas Moran hired as members of the expedition. Their pictures of the Yellowstone area exerted on the government officials a great fascination. Previously had early visitors to the Yellowstone area, such as John Colter and Jim Bridger, reports on the wonders of Yellowstone, but they had little faith been given. 1872 and 1878 he took further explorations in the Yellowstone area. Other travels took him to the Mesa Verde ruins in Colorado and the pueblos of the southwest United States.

After the establishment of the U.S. Geological Survey in 1879, he worked another seven years as a geologist before he had to stop work for health reasons. On December 22, 1887, he died in Philadelphia. In the valley of the Yampa River in Colorado a place is named after him.

Writings (selection )

• On the Geology and Natural History of the upper Missouri: Being the Substance of a report made ​​to Lieut. G.K. Warren, T. E. USAC Sherman & Son, Philadelphia, 1862, (online).
• Geological Report of the Exploration of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers in 1859-1860 (1869 )
• Sun Pictures of Rocky Mountain Scenery (1870 )
• The Yellowstone National Park, illustrated by reproductions of chromolithographic water-color sketches by Thomas Moran (1876 )
• Geological and Geographical Atlas of Colorado (1877 )
• The Great West: its Attractions and Resources (1880 )

He also published along with Fielding Bradford Meek, " Palaeontology of the Upper Missouri, Pt. 1, Invertebrates. " ( Smithsonian Contributions, v. 14, Article 4). Its valuable notes on the dialects of the U.S. Indian published in The Transactions of the American Philosophical Society ( 1862), in The American Journal of Science (1862 ) and in The Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society ( 1869).