“ MEEK, FIELDING BRADFORD (1817–1876) , American geologist and palaeontologist, the son of a lawyer, was born at Madison, Indiana, on the 10th of December 1817. In early life he was in business as a merchant, but his leisure hours were devoted to collecting fossils and studying the rocks of the neighbourhood of Madison. Being unsuccessful in business he turned his whole attention to science, and in 1848 he gained employment on the U.S. Geological Survey in Iowa, and subsequently in Wisconsin and Minnesota. ”