"Paleontologist" John W Wells Signed FDC Dated 1963 For Sale

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"Paleontologist" John W Wells Signed FDC Dated 1963:
$174.99

Up for sale "Paleontologist" John W Wells Hand Signed First Day Cover Dated 1963. 

ES-1889

John West Wells (July

15, 1907 – January 12, 1994) was an focused his research on corals.He

was notable for, among other things, proving that the rotational period of the

earth undergoes periodic changes. The National Academies of

Science said that Wells "made an indelible mark on the

world of paleontology." The Independent called Wells "the leading authority

on modern and fossil corals, a noteworthy contributor on coral reefs and atolls". Wells was Professor of Geology, Ohio State University, Professor

of Geology, Cornell Society, a

member of the National Academy of

Sciences. Wells was bom July 15, 1907, in Philadelphia, PA. He went to school in Homer, NY, 20 miles northeast of Ithaca. He took his B.S. degree at the University of Pittsburgh, majoring

in chemistry. However he soon became fascinated by geology, under the guidance

of Ransom E. Sommers and Henry Leighton. Wells became an instructor of geology

at the University of Texas from 1929-1931, whilst studying for his M.A. from

Cornell University in 1930, with a special interest in paleontology. He took

his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1933 under Gilbert D. Harris. vDuring

1933-1934, Wells was a National Research Council Fellow, studying paleontology

at the British Museum (Natural

History), in London, the French

National Museum of Natural History (Paris), and the Natural History Museum of

Berlin. Upon his return to the U.S., Wells worked with T. Wayland Vaughan in Washington, D.C. from 1935-1937, and

"looked for a job." Together they revised a volume on

Scleractinia (1943). Wells taught at the State Normal School at Fredonia, New

York (now SUNY) from 1937

to 1938, and then was a Professor in Geology at Ohio State University from

1938-1948. At Ohio State University, he would begin researching the history of

geology. Wells served in the military in France and Germany during 1944-45 in

the Office of Strategic

Services, and later assisted with studies assessing war damage and in the recovery of coral

literature from bombed or burning buildings in Germany. His work with OSS

assessed the state of universities and museums in France and Germany, following

the war. Wells returned to Cornell in 1948 as professor of geology. He served

as department chairman from 1962-1965. In 1946 he began working with the U.S. Geological Survey.

He was involved in research into various Pacific islands, including field work

in the resurvey of Bikini Atoll (1947)

and was attached to the Pacific Science Board’s Arno Atoll Expedition (1950). He would continue to

identify, describe, and analyze the Recent and Tertiary corals from these and

other expeditions even in his retirement. Many of his publications were the

direct result of this Pacific island work. During

1954, Wells was granted a Fulbright lecturing position at the University of Queensland, spending

many months studying corals of the Great Barrier Reef. This

period of time would establish a productive working relationship for he

and Dorothy Hill of the

University of Queensland, who was the leading Australian expert on reef geology.

Wells and Dorothy Hill would jointly prepare nine sections on the Coelenterata

for the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology published in

1956. Wells would also prepare sections on Scleractinia for the Treatise.

Wells' most widely read paper appeared in November 1962 and was published in

Nature. Astronomers and geophysicists paid attention to his “Coral Growth and

Geochronometry” paper, which demonstrated their theory that the earth's

rotation was slowing down. His research indicated that there

were more days in the Devonian year (400) compared with those of the modern age

(365), by comparing counts of daily growth lines in corals. Wells' paper

generated a great amount of research on the incremental growth of skeletal

material in several groups of invertebrates J. B. S. Haldane described Wells' work in an article

published in the New York Times, Professor

Wells of Cornell University also has this quality. He collects ancient and

modern coral. Those which grow in seas where the temperature varies much with

the seasons often show annual growth rings like trees. Wells found that some also

show daily ridges of growth, which can be counted with a good hand lens costing

perhaps $10. Modern corals show about 365 ridges a year….Silurian corals show

about 400 rings a year. As the year has probably changed little, therefore the

days have been getting longer. (They are getting longer, as we know, from

records of ancient eclipses, among other evidence. This is thought to be due to

the braking action of the tides, both in the sea and in the earth, which is not

quite rigid.) Ask anyone who does not know the answer how much the apparatus

cost which proved that the number of days in the year has increased by 35 in

350 million years and he will probably guess at $10 million or so. Wells

would retire from Cornell in 1973, and become Emeritus Professor. In 1975 he

travelled to the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos Islands and

helped identify six new species of azooxanthellate corals. John

Wells' long-standing interests and research into local and cultural history,

especially that of upstate New York, were able to flourish in retirement. In

1958, he published The Cayuga Bridge, a story of New York local

history. The summer home on Cayuga Lake, that Wells and his wife established in 1948,

would host students, colleagues, and other friends from around the world, for

decades. Wells had an important collection of early works on American and

European geology.

"Paleontologist" John W Wells Signed FDC Dated 1963

$174.99

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