James Eights

James Eights was an American medical doctor, scientist and artist, born in Albany, New York, in 1798 and died in 1882 at Ballston, New York. The son of the physician Jonathan Eights, he trained as a doctor and was appointed an examiner at the engineering school that became Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He assisted Amos Eaton on surveys along the Erie Canal and, on Eaton's recommendation, became naturalist on the South Sea Fur Company and Exploring Expedition of 1829, where he observed the flora and fauna of Patagonia and Staten Island. He was the first to describe a trilobite fossil from the South Shetland Islands in Antarctica, along with a pycnogonid and glacial erratics. He is believed never to have practiced medicine after that expedition, and he is now better known for his watercolors and sketches of Albany. The Eights Coast of Antarctica is named for him.