He and his collaborator, Frank Springer, published numerous articles on the subject and built an exceptional collection of crinoid fossils.

The culmination of his work was the two-volume "Monograph of the North American Crinoidea Camerata", coauthored with Springer and published posthumously in 1897.

His father, Christian Wachsmuth, was a lawyer and member of the Frankfurt parliament who intended his son to follow him in the legal profession.

[1] The climate in New York did not agree with Wachsmuth and after recovering from a severe attack of pneumonia he moved west in 1855 and settled in Burlington, Iowa.

Wachsmuth soon found that the local limestone formations held an extensive array of the Paleozoic fossil animals known as crinoids.

In 1866 he coauthored his first paper with Agassiz student William H. Niles, showing that the Burlington formation was actually composed of two geological horizons.

He purchased the collection for $6,000 and hired Wachsmuth to take charge of the entire crinoid assemblage at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology.

[5] Wachsmuth traveled to Europe and Asia in 1874, bringing with him a small collection of crinoid fossils which he sold to the British Museum for £80.

Springer traveled to Europe and brought back an extensive selection of fossils from England, France, Russia, and Bohemia.

The culmination of their work was the two-volume "Monograph of the North American Crinoidea Camerata" (1897), published by the Museum of Comparative Zoology after Wachsmuth’s death.