As a young man, he began collecting Paleozoic invertebrate fossils near his Iowa home. He received a bachelor's degree from Lenox College in Hopkinton, Iowa, his father's alma mater, then went to the University of California to study geology and botany under Joseph Le Conte. He later went to Munich, Germany, to study under the famous paleontologist Karl von Zittel. In 1894 he returned to the U.S. and joined the faculty at the University of California, teaching and performing research in both vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology.