The maxilla was discovered around 1845 during the course of a well excavation in Spring Brook in the New London area and its significance was recognized by geologists John William Dawson and Joseph Leidy.
The taxon was originally assigned to the genus Rhizodus by John William Dawson and later to Strepsodus by Arthur Smith Woodward.
it was not until 14 years later that John William Dawson, a Canadian scientist, studied Prototaxites fossils, which he described as partially rotten giant conifers, containing the remains of the fungi which had been decomposing them.
Although it was not officially opposed to evolution, it attracted a number of scientists sceptical of Darwinism, including John William Dawson and Arnold Guyot.
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John William Dawson (1865) described the banded structures of coarsely crystalline calcite and serpentine as a gigantic Foraminifera, making it the oldest known fossil.
The ethnological and archeological collection is one of the oldest in North America and began with Sir William Dawson's collection.
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Commissioned by Redpath to mark the 25th anniversary of Sir John William Dawson's appointment as Principal, the Museum was designed by A.C. Hutchison and A. D. Steele.