Background
Percy Edward Raymond was born on May 30, 1879, in New Canaan, Connecticut, the son of George Edward and Harriet Frances (Beers) Raymond.
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States
Raymond entered Cornell University in 1897, intending to study engineering, but came under the influence of G. D. Harris; his interests then centered on paleontology.
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Raymond received his Ph.D. degree at Yale in 1904.
geologist paleontologist scientist
Percy Edward Raymond was born on May 30, 1879, in New Canaan, Connecticut, the son of George Edward and Harriet Frances (Beers) Raymond.
Raymond entered Cornell University in 1897, intending to study engineering, but came under the influence of G. D. Harris; his interests then centered on paleontology, which soon became his lifework. He received his Ph.D. degree at Yale in 1904.
After receiving a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1904, Raymond was appointed an assistant curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. In 1910 he became paleontologist on the Geological Survey of Canada and in 1912 went to Harvard as assistant professor of paleontology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, rising to professor in 1929 and becoming emeritus in 1945.
Throughout his scientific career, Raymond published extensively in paleontology, stratigraphy, and sedimentation. His interests in these fields ranged widely, and he described many new Paleozoic fossils belonging to nearly every major animal group. Although he made many important contributions to the knowledge of the stratigraphy of the Canadian Rockies and the Appalachians, his lifelong specialty was the trilobites; he made detailed studies of their anatomy, ontogeny, and classification, which culminated in his monograph The Appendages, Anatomy, and Relationships of Trilobites (1920).
While much has since been learned of the morphology, life history, and ecology of these long-extinct marine arthropods, Raymond’s work remains a paleontological classic. In 1939 he published Prehistoric Life, an admirable and widely read summation of his concepts of organic evolution as exemplified by the fossil record, based on his years of teaching and research.
(Issue 14)
1902( )
1905Fellow Geological Society of America, Paleontological Society (president 1934), American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Member Pewter Collectors. Clubs: Faculty of Cambridge (Massachusetts).
Percy Raymond married Eva Grace Mayham Goodenough on August 3, 1904.