The gilded dinosaur : the fossil war between E.D. Cope and O.C. Marsh and the rise of American science 0517707608

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UNCORRECTED PROOF

I t I

he

Gilded

Dinosaur

E.D.

N1

THE FDSSIL WAR BETWEEN CDPE AND Q.C. MARSH AND THE RISE DF AMERICAN SCIENCE

A R K

«J

A

F"

the Gilded

Dinosaur

Also by

And No

Mark Jaffe Birds Sing

UNCO

REG

T

E,

U

PROOF

the Gil d e d

Dinosaur

THE FDSSIL WAR BETWEEN E.D.

COPE AND

Q.C.

MARSH AND THE

RISE DF AMERICAN SCIENCE

M A

F3

Crown Publishers

•

New

York

1

Copyright

All rights reserved.

No

© 2000 by Mark Jaffe

of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

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Printed in the United States of America

Design by Sue Maksuta

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jaffe,

The

gilded dinosaur

Marsh and 1

.

Cope,

Fossils

Mark.

war between E.D. Cope and O.C.

the rise of American science / by

E. D.

— West

Mark Jaffe.

(Edward Drinker), 1840-1897.

Charles. 1831-1899. 4.

the fossil

:

(U.S.)

3.

Paleontologists

— Collection and century.

I.

— United

preservation

QE707.C63J34

— History— 19th

1999

99-385 1

ISBN 0-517-70760-8

1098765432 First Edition

1

1st ed.

States Biography.

Title.

560'.978'09034— dc2

—

Marsh, Othniel

2.

For

My Mother

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2012

http://archive.org/details/gildeddinosaurOOmark

—

Acknowledgments

Writing

book

this

some

archive,

I

been

has

through American

history.

a

journey both across the American west and"

But whether on the road or locked deep

was fortunate to have some

in

savvy and patient guides.

Spawn at the Academy of Natural Sciences and DeHaven at the American Philosophical Society New York City, Barbara Mathe at the American

In Philadelphia, Carol

Roy Goodman and were invaluable.

Museum

Scott

In

of Natural History was

a great help.

Peabody

in perusing the archives at Yale's

me

Bruce Kirby guided

Some wonderful including Chelle

Davis

Museum

me

of Natural History, and

through the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

and

archivists

Somsen

the University of

at

Barbara Narenda assisted

at

librarians also

opened the West

for

me

the South Dakota Historical Society, Daniel

Wyoming American

Heritage Center, William

Day at the Colorado HisMontana Historical Society. I also offer my special thanks to Thelma Jennings, who opened the Fort Wallace Museum just for me on a blustery and snowy day, and Cecil

Grace

the Kansas Historical Society, Barbara

at

torical Society,

Sanderson, I

also

and Brian Shovers

superintendent

assistant

S.

me from making

Resources was

a

clued

A good at

— — who

Peter Dodson,

me

New

of Western

in reconstructing the history

Kohl, head of special collections at Clemson Unisome excellent Smithsonian sources. work on this book was done while was Nieman FelF.

part of the

I

I

offer

curator, for his support.

kind and patient

Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral

in to

Harvard University, and

Nieman

tried to pre-

any mistakes in the science.

tremendous help

mining, and Michael

low

the Fort Bridger Historical Site.

Berman, and Edward Deaschler

Robert Eveleth of the

versity,

at

had the advice of four prominent paleontologists

John Ostrom, David vent

at the

in

Anne Bernays and

tutoring

me

my

deepest thanks to

Bill

Kovach, the

Harvard historian Evertt Mendelsohn was in

how

a historian

Justin Kaplan pushed, probed,

looks

at

science, and

and guided

me

in

my

word-smithing.

When

I

finally started

Inquirer colleagues

— Paul

pounding out pages, three of

Nussbaum, John

Ml

Fried,

my

Philadelphia

and Charles Layton

— MARK

viii

J

A F F E

were good-hearted enough to read them and given

me

sharp, but

compas-

sionate feedback.

David Black,

my

agent, was supportive from the

first

casual pitch

of the

Cope and Marsh story to the finished manuscript. My thanks also to Crown Publishing, especially to Karen Rinaldi, the first editor to support this project, and to Robert Mecoy and Peter Fornatale for bringing the book

to fruition.

Finally,

my

wife, Sandy. as

it

deepest thanks and love to

Her

always does.

careful reading

my

first,

best editor always,

of the manuscript made

my work

my

better

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

Chapter One

Othniel CHARLES MARSH hurried from the Syracuse train and made his way through the late autumn twilight

station

toward the pavilion of the great

giant.

He joined

the

crowd

shuffling slowly toward the entrance, paid his fifty cents,

went

Thousands

inside.

and

had already passed this way. Oliver

Wendell Holmes had come. The great transcendental poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson had peered at the giant in awe and announced, "It is beyond me." be

Marsh had only a twenty-minute layover, so his pilgrimage would have to brief. Accompanied by a member of the staff, who proudly pointed out

the giant's finer aspects, the Yale professor

did not need

much

time.

He

made

looked, and he must have smiled with

raced back to the station and got

on

his train.

He glee. He

but close survey.

a swift,

O. C. Marsh

knew

the truth

about the Cardiff Giant.

had

It

all

begun on Saturday morning, October

New

of Cardiff,

lage

York.

Two workmen

NewelTs farm struck something about three spade work revealed

a massive, gray,

16, 1869, in the rural vil-

digging

feet

a

well

below the

weathered statue

—

on William

surface. Further

ten feet long with

a

three-foot shoulder span and an inscrutable visage.

Newell

up

set

a tent

and

came. The price of admission went up to it

a petrified

ing

left

man? Was

by the

first

it

dime

started charging a

fifty cents,

The crowds they came. Was

a look.

and

still

the statue of some ancient Indian tribe?

Jesuit missionaries sent to

Timothy McWhorter opined

that

this

A

carv-

America? Yale theologian

was proof positive

the

that

Phoenicians had reached North America centuries before Leif Ericson and his Vikings.

A thirty

syndicate of prominent Syracuse businessmen

thousand dollars and moved

it

were sold

in

a

single

day.

for

the thirteen miles from Cardiff to

Syracuse. Special trains carried the curious north ets

bought the giant

Word was

where four thousand

that

tick-

Spencer Baird, of the

Smithsonian Institution, was considering bringing the giant to the nation's capital.

The sixty

great

showman,

P.

thousand dollars for

T. a

Barnum,

sent a

three-month 1

man up

lease

to Syracuse offering

on the

giant.

Rebuffed,

M

2

Barnum What

hired

a local

cheek.

It

A R K

J

sculptor to create

A F F K

a plaster

was almost sacrilegious.

I

copy.

he Cardiff Giant had been pro-

nounced an important discovery by men of science and Boynton, was

learning. Dr. John

respected geologist living in Syracuse, estimated that the statue

a

three hundred years old and noted that

at least

blance to former

New

greatest curiosities

bore an odd resem-

it

York governor DeWitt Clinton. "This

is

one of the

of the early history of Onondaga County," Dr. Boynton

concluded.

A

few days

Survey and

later,

James Hall, director of the

a true pillar

most remarkable object yet brought to

Rochester University, took Perhaps tologist,

it

is,

Henry Ward,

attention of archaeologists."'

Barnum

State Geological

look

a

at

professor of natural sciences at

the statue and agreed with Hall.

ready to perpetrate

the truth that had

and although,

nevertheless deserving of the

a fraud.

was because Barnum, the showman,

knew

York

light in this country,

perhaps not dating back to the stone age,

Yet here was

New

of American science, pronounced the giant "the

somehow

like

How

could he do

it?

Marsh, the Yale paleon-

escaped Boynton, Hall, and

Ward. Besides,

and scam.

who better than Barnum to When Barnum was charged

dance the dance between science with putting

museum, hadn't he asked Harvard's Louis

Agassiz, the

a fake

whale

most famous

in his

scientist

in the country, to vouch for it? And when there were charges that his Burmese elephant Toung Taloung wasn't white, but rather whitewashed, Barnum would ask Joseph Leidy, professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania and a leader of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, to verify the beast's natural opalescence. (The truth was that Toung a sacred white elephant smuggled out of Burma at a cost to Barnum of six thousand dollars. Unfortunately, it wasn't actually white. It was pinkish. So Barnum had resorted to a touch of whitewash just for

Taloung was

effect.)

Unfailingly the scientists

seemed

told, this thing called "science"

raw and unsettled

was

to oblige the hucksters, for truth a

still

raw and unsettled

be

discipline in a

land. Indeed, the ideas that this thing called science

was

churning out made stone giants and white elephants seem tame. Just imagine saying Earth was created not by

God

in seven days, as

Genesis assured,

but by geological forces working over millions of years, that huge creatures, bigger than the biggest elephants, roamed the land and then mysteriously disappeared.

And most

astounding of

all,

insisting that

from God, but from monkeys. Why, Phoenicians

seemed completely

plausible.

man came

in upstate

forth not

New

York

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

3

This vision of the wild, impractical, and bumbling professor, closely

with the flimflam man, pained America's

allied

community, and

little scientific

lit-

composed of no more than one thousand or, depending on how one counted, perhaps as few as three hundred men. (The number of women could be tallied on the fingers of a single hand.) Most people weren't even sure what a "scientist" was, the term having only come into fashion in the 1 840s, about the same time the word dinosaur tle it

truly was,

was coined Before

behemoths. Both were surely odd creatures.

for the prehistoric

had been

that, there

savants, naturalists, natural philosophers,

and

alchemists.

Many of

America's

scientific

men were

medical doctors.

kind of training the Europeans gave their

America,

the "realm of the practical" with "the light of science in a

community

accompanied by

But

it

in

utilitarian

Henry James observed, medicine managed

the author

as

wasn't the

It

but in

scientists,

which the

leisure

—

to unite

merit appreciated

a

knowledge has not always been

love of

and opportunity." 2

really didn't require

any particular training to be

many of the American men of science had no

a "scientist,"

particular training at

all.

and

John

Wesley Powell had no diploma, no degree, no published

scientific papers,

and not much schooling, yet he was well on

becoming

force in

American

Just six

pleted the

and was

science.

his

way

to

a vital

3

weeks before the Cardiff Giant was discovered, Powell had comfirst

descent of the Colorado River, through the Grand Canyon,

now back

at Illinois State

Normal

University,

where he was profes-

homemade,

self-made, part-time

sor of geology.

Nevertheless, even though they were scientists, there

American European

was

growing

a

scientific

universities

common

of seriousness and professionalism.

community craved and

men

respectability.

After

a

laboratories, Joseph Henry, the nation's

tinguished scientist, wrote, "I the real working

air

am now more

in the

The

tour of

most

dis-

than ever of [the] opinion, that

way of science

in this

cause ... to raise their scientific character.

country should make

To make

science

more

home." How? America had no great universities like the Germans, no academies like the French, no royal societies like the English. That was one reason Henry left his Princeton University laboratory in 1847 and became the respected at

head of the newly created Smithsonian

Institution, the

first

federal estab-

lishment committed solely to the advancement of knowledge.

The

real

cal at best,

problem, however, was that Americans saw science

humbug

at

worst.

It

was, as

Henry James

said,

as

impracti-

an exercise of

MARK JAFFE

4

and opportunity." Consider Joseph Henry's

"leisure

True,

was cutting-edge research on

it

stride for stride

own work

in physics.

and magnetism, and

electricity

with the work of England's Michael Faraday. But

Samuel B. Morse

who

went

it

was

it

took the magnet toys from the laboratory and

turned them into the moneymaking telegraph. Now, that was American.

As ics

a

young man, J.

department

at

P.

Morgan was

a

junior post in the mathemat-

Germany's University of Gottingen.

and instead of becoming Wall

offered

a professor

He

turned

he returned to the United

it

down

•

States to rule

Street.

These sentiments were

especially strong

now. Released from the woe

and weight of civil war, Americans were ready to build was booming, the West with

their nation. Industry

its

and

their fortunes

abundant minerals,

timber, and land was opening, and immigration, offering cheap labor and

new consumers, was

surging. Riches were waiting to be

won.

Why

play

with magnets and microscopes?

Two weeks held

its

before the Cardiff Giant had been exhumed, the nation had

breath while the financier Jay

Gould

reeling as he tried to corner the gold market.

Friday ket,

when

President Ulysses

S.

sent the investment world

The bubble

burst

on Black

Grant ordered federal gold into the mar-

even though Gould had tried to prevent that by giving stock in

ture to the president's sister

"There's no doubt but

his

and wife.

money

is

to the fore

now,"

said

Bromfield Corey,

the Boston patrician in the 1885 novel, Tlic Rise of Silas Lapham. "It

romance, the poetry of our

The

ination."

ven-

age.

celebration

It is

was

is

the

the thing that chiefly strikes the imag-

Morgan's manipulating bonds and

in

Gould's savvy with gold, not Professor Joseph Henry's knowledge of magnetism.

am

"I

tired

of

Simon Cameron hearing.

all

thing called science here," Pennsylvania senator

this

told

Henry during an 1861 Smithsonian

"What do we

appropriations

care about stuffed snakes, alligators,

and

all

such

things?"

But while American

scientists

might be able to endure the

dreamers, the specters of fraud and flummery were serious threats

Henry was concerned. "Our newspapers he lamented, "and every exhibits a

man who

few experiments to

a class

are filled

label

of

as far as

with puffs of quackery,"

can burn phosphorous in oxygen and

of young

ladies

is

called a

man of sci-

»»

ence.

And yet

it

seemed

scientists

could not help but get embroiled in shenani-

gans with white elephants and giants. ery.

Down

in Philadelphia,

It

was hard to separate

fact

from fak-

Joseph Leidy would find himself chairing

a

— THE ULDED DINOSAUR

5

University of Pennsylvania committee assessing the value of seances. There

were

were

"Scientists

in

measure the power of

to build a meter to

also attempts

agreement

that

all

prayer.

references to occult qualities should be

excluded from science," historian David Hull observed, "but they were not clear as to

what

was about

it

a quality that

made

occult."

it

4

Henry even found himself rubbing elbows with Barnum

as

the

showman

generously donated the carcasses of his exotic animals to the Smithsonian.

museums and universities could never afford to which purchase such specimens, Barnum could, and when they expired they invariably did because no one knew how to care for such animals he'd pass them along to the grateful scientists. While America's

Henry's

fledgling

—

assistant

Spencer Baird,

who

was responsible for building up the

Barnum for his Barnum would boast that

Smithsonian collections, was most appreciative, even asking bust so that

it

could be put in

Henry himself was

a

a

place of honor.

"good friend" and that the great physicist had even American Museum with its bogus mermaids and

—

called the impresario's

monkeys

real

What had to

end

a

—

"a scientific establishment."

muddle. Science needed standards. Science needed

steer clear

to quackery,

of buffoonery. Henry despaired.

rigor.

Science

If science didn't

put an

he warned, then quackery would put an end to science.

Barnum, confident

that

nothing

— not even

science

quackery, was preparing to unveil his faux giant in

— could put an end

New York City when

C. (he hated to be called Othniel) Marsh stopped in Syracuse to see the Cardiff Giant. In

many

to

O.

real

ways, the thirty-eight-year-old Marsh was the epit-

ome

of what Henry was striving for in American science. Unlike James

Hall,

who

had gained

Canal; Henry, science by

He had

who

geology doing surveys for the Erie

his expertise in

was largely

self-taught; or

way of medicine, Marsh was

Then he had

studied

Heidelberg, and Breslau.

at

the venerable

Marsh returned

sor of paleontology in America.

So

it

who

had come to

university trained.

graduated from Yale and received

a master's

Sheffield Scientific School, the best science offer.

Boynton,

to

degree from Yale's

program the nation had to

German universities in Yale to become the first

was an educated eye he

cast

Berlin,

profes-

upon

the

giant.

Stocky and of middling height, with set

blue eyes over a

full

beard,

here and there to inspect

lowing morning, he

sat

Marsh

details.

down

in

receding hairline and small, close-

Then he hurried back

bending down

to his train.

The

to write a letter to the old college friend

had urged him to examine the and

a

circled the stone giant,

giant, "I

accordance with your request

I

saw the 'Cardiff Giant'

will tell

you what

I

last

fol-

who

evening

think of it. ...

A

— MARKJAFFE

6

very few minutes sufficed to it

were correct, viz;

that

it is

satisfy

me

my

that

suspicions in regard to

first

of very recent origin, and

most decided hum-

a

bug." Marsh's examination revealed that the gypsum block had probably been

water worn before the statue was carved and that tool marks were

where they had not been

ble in places

gypsum

to point out that since

is

obliterated by polishing.

still

soluble in about four hundred parts of

water, a "very short exposure of the statue in the locality at Cardiff suffice to obliterate

all

surfaces, but these are

of tool marks and

traces

visi-

He went on would

roughen the polished

also to

both quite perfect, and hence the giant must have

been very recently buried when discovered."

Marsh concluded, "The work eral public, at

but

I

am

is

well calculated to impose

upon

the gen-

surprised that any scientific observers should not have

once detected the unmistakable evidence

Barnum had known

it

against

antiquity."

its

without even seeing the

giant. In truth, the

Cardiff Giant was the concoction of farmer Newell's cousin, George Hull.

The gypsum

block had been purchased in Iowa, cut into the form of a giant

in Chicago, "aged" with ink

few days before

it

and

sulfuric acid,

and then buried in Cardiff a

was "discovered."

made its way into the Buffalo Courier on November 29, the Herald on December 1, and ^en across the wires to the nation.

Marsh's

letter

New

York

The

Cardiff Giant hoax had been unmasked. In Marsh's wake, James Hall

—

—

and John Boynton or at least their apologists said they knew all the time that it was a hoax. 3 They apparently had simply forgotten to mention it

to anyone.

Showing up Hall was no

powerful, egotistical, and quick tempered

ready to serve

work on

life

considered

as final arbiter in

— with

a

a

formidable figure

shotgun on

own

any dispute. Hall's

his office wall

paleontological

Devonian period, four hundred million years

in the

a classic,

he was

casual exercise, for

and he was

state legislature into

also able to

amply funding

badger and bully the

his geological survey,

ago, was

New York

making

it

one of

the most productive scientific agencies in the country. Hall's influence

extended well beyond the

ditions to the western territories as state geologist for

and

state borders, as

he sent expe-

personally served, from time to time,

Iowa and Wisconsin. But even

a

big reputation and

a

shotgun weren't going to scare Marsh.

Marsh simply could not Giant first

as

Barnum.

it

came

He

at Hall's

took

as

much

expense, so be

delight in the Cardiff it.

In fact,

it

wasn't the

penchant for one-upmanship.

young professor had displayed a Marsh had returned to Yale with an

time the

In 1860,

If

resist.

interesting fossil

found on

GILDED DINOSAUR

Til K

a

summer

expedition to

backbone of

Nova

Scotia.

But

a halibut."

James Dwight Dana, he sent

it

At

first,

7

he thought

looked

it

"the

like

the suggestion of his geology professor,

at

to Louis Agassiz at

Harvard for examination.

Agassiz was the world's fossil-fish expert, having written the five-volume Researches on Fossil Fishes,

and Marsh's find greatly excited him. In

a letter

published in the American Journal of Science in January of 1861, Agassiz said

of the specimen, synthesis If

"We

have here undoubtedly

fossil

august Agassiz, a

had

he was not about to

real value,

steal his

thunder.

He

a

that Agassiz

had got

reptile. It

it

fossil

anyone, even the

fossil

Eosaurus acadianus. For the

study and ultimately reported

a detailed

wrong. The

was

let

immediately reclaimed the specimen

quick description, naming the

next six months, Marsh conducted

and

nearer approximation to

between Fish and Reptile than has yet been seen."

Marsh's

and wrote

fish

a

was not some

direct link

between

the remains of a twelve-foot-long, cold-

really

blooded, air-breathing amphibian.

The

Yale graduate student had no

com-

punctions correcting the Harvard professor.

One

scientist that clearly didn't

want to be lumped with

or Barnum, was the Smithsonian's Spencer Baird. "I never as

to purchasing the Cardiff Giant,

humbug from

the

first.

information to prove

I

my

which

that

it

was

a

Hall, .

.

postulate," he assured Marsh.

his belief in the giant

Phoenician stone man.

Boynton,

thought of it

have simply looked on

I

wrote to one or two persons about

There were, of course, those with true wouldn't give up

.

faith.

it

as a

simply for

6

One man who

simply

was Reverend McWhorter, still sure

When

Marsh returned

to

New

Haven,

McWhorter lit into the young professor. "You are wrong, sir, absolutely wrong," McWhorter shouted as he waved his cane in Marsh's face. "You do not know what you are talking about,

sir!"

"The whole

thing's a fraud,"

Marsh coolly

replied.

sir," McWhorter fumed, "that in three months it will be in Museum!" 7 To Barnum, it made no difference, none at all. Science could never put an end to quackery. On December 12, his version of the Cardiff Giant christened the "True Goliath" went on display at Wood's Museum. Goliath lay in state amid black drapes, in a dimly lit room. The crowds came just as Barnum knew they would. They even continued to flock to Syracuse. As one satisfied customer

"I tell

you,

the British

—

—

explained, "I paid

Jones told

me

professor says,

it I

my

was

a

half dollar to see the thing because

genuine petrified man, but

would pay

a

if it's a

my

humbug

dollar because the fraud's such

a

neighbor as a

Yale

good one." 8

M

8

Within in

New

A R k

J

A F F E

few weeks of Goliath's debut, the original Cardiff Giant arrived

a

York City

Apollo Hall, just two blocks away from Wood's. But

at

despite the big banner out front proclaiming GENUINE. CARDIFF GIANT.

ORIGINAL. TALLER

went

THAN GOLIATH,

business was thin. Desperate, the Cardiff

Barnum. The case was had obligingly provided Cornelius Vanderbilt with injunctions and contempt orders against Jay Gould when syndicate

to court to get an injunction against

heard by Judge George Barnard,

the

two tycoons had recently

who

battled over control of the Erie Railroad. In

however, Barnard told the

this case,

they

plaintiffs

would have

to prove the

"genuineness" of their giant and explained that "he had been doing some business in injunctions, but was going to shut "It gists

too bad that our

is

men

— should not only have

of science

down now."

—

paleontologists or ethnolo-

the difficulties of nature and antiquity to strive

but be also 'bothered' by rogueries of

against,

New York Times Barnum was

.

.

.

their fellow

surely put his scientific friends into a state

and

in years to

pick up the skeletons of a Grinnell

dollars).

Baird

.

.

am

"I

a

of expectation. Even Marsh was

Barnum kangaroo "Be

New

Grinnell reported to .

.

.

Marsh was

able to

(seventeen dollars) and

careful

looking out for Barnum's cassowary.

Barnum's.

of animals

former Yale student, George Bird

doings. As a result,

cautioned,

full

shark

a

of saying anything to

he gets everything." 9

for B. thinks

.

come, he had

on Barnum's

Grinnell, keep an eye

(ten

He was

already looking past Goliath to his next venture.

considering the circus business, and the prospects of a circus

interested,

man," the

lamented.

Haven.

If

it

dies

"A two-horned

Barnum's Bactrian Camel departed

I

shall

have

it

.

.

.

rhinoceros died

this life yesterday

and

," at

will

of course, go to Baird." 10

Why, some of these

One

day traveling

"I

his agent,

and

New

Haven some

New

for sale.

they sold?" Barnum's fellow passenger asked. little

cuss

up

in

New

Haven bought them," Barnum a

little

cuss."

11

replied.

stocky fellow with a receding hair-

close-set blue eyes over a full beard, as

the

shipped to

unaware of their value, put them up

thought so," said the passenger,

am

the

Barnum was bemoaning Barnum had bought them and had them

"And were "Yes, some line

on

artifacts.

York, where

"I

were getting downright cheeky themselves.

to Bridgeport, Connecticut,

to a fellow passenger the loss of

Railroad,

Mexican

scientists

home

he handed Barnum

his card.

— Chapter Two

YEAR

IN THE SAME a trip to see els

of Earth

as

another

the Cardiff Giant scandal,

Marsh made

of specimens pulled from the bow-

set

— specimens

more

larger,

bizarre than the Giant and,

more

magnificent, and

most astounding of

abso-

all,

lutely genuine.

that

many ways, this journey to Philadelphia was a true pilgrimage. For at moment, the city was arguably the nation's science capital and undeni-

ably

its

In

ing,

center for vertebrate paleontology.

and willing to support

a

It

was

a

splendid

city, rich,

grow-

vibrant scientific community.

Walking its tree-shaded, cobblestone streets, lined with neat, brick townhouses trimmed in marble and brass, or sauntering along Broad Street, past the swiftly moving streetcars, the Union League's new beaux-arts brownstone palace, and the Academy of Music's great golden lanterns flickering with gaslight, Marsh found himself in a city palpably grander than his New Haven or even Boston. Was it any wonder that this the nation's secondlargest city

And

was

center of learning and intelligence?

a

yet, there

was

mindedness about

Henry James observed was "A closed

delphia,

happy enough that

also a self-satisfied provincialism, a primness, a close-

this place that called itself

if

only

would one day

it

taint

by 1870

slightly

city

was

in the midst

more than

a

as a

gogues.

1

Abolition Hall,

a

its

was for

a

a

find itself

sentiment

of its greatest surge

in

quarter of its 675,000 residents Irish

—

ulti-

immigration

would be from

Philadelphia remained decidits

374 Protestant churches

forty-three Catholic churches and nine syna-

Negro orphanage

Catholic church had each in city

was

science center.

edly white, conservative, and Anglo-Saxon, with

outnumbering

It

and diminish the science practiced there and

immigrant stock, mainly German and wildly

would

circle that

could remain closed enough."

mately contribute to Philadelphia's eclipse

Although the

"America's Athens." Phila-

its

called African Hall,

and an

Irish

turn been put to the torch by mobs, and the

time a stronghold of the nativist American

party,

or

"Know-

Nothings," with their antiforeign, anti-Roman Catholic platform.

Even

after the Civil

War, when Octavius Catto, the black principal of the

— M

10

A R K

Quaker-sponsored Philadelphia death

myopia and mean

So, political as

much

spirits

his

there were only a few challengers in

own

chosen

organization, founded by

upon

year-old academy. at

Its

when Marsh

finer

Harvard or Spencer Baird's

were

the

nation's

scientific

first

1743; the University of

in

Sciences.

in the nation than the fifty-seven-

substantial, bigger

the Smithsonian.

at

rival in

— paleontology

Academy of Natural

museum

collections

field

paid

three key institutions. There

—

Benjamin Franklin

Pennsylvania's medical school; and the

no

Still,

the world.

all

reputation rested

were the American Philosophical Society

In 1869, there was

murder.

of 1869, Philadelphia's science had no

America, save for Boston, and in

city's scientific

his

suffused the "City of Brotherly

pride and high-minded ideals.

as civic

his visit in the first part

The

Colored Youth, was beaten to

Institute for

he tried to vote, no one was ever arrested for

as

Love"

A F F E

J

(It

than Louis Agassiz's

was home to Thomas

Wilson's great collection of European birds and specimens gathered by

Lewis and Clark huge,

more than

Northwest

in their search for the

Passage.)

weekly Tuesday-evening meetings was

But most important

for

Marsh,

it

and Edward Drinker Cope. Leidy,

library

was at its

stellar.

was the

scientific

a professor

home ofJoseph

of anatomy

medical school, had been studying American

fossil

at

life

twenty years and was the dean of American paleontology. the

Its

twenty-five thousand volumes, and the scientific circle

for

He

Leidy

the university

more than

had identified

dinosaur remains discovered in the United States, based on teeth

first

brought back from an 1856 expedition to Montana.

found the country's

first

Two

years

dinosaur skeleton, the Hadrosaurus. Cope,

protege, had discovered the second significant

later,

a

he

Leidy

American dinosaur skeleton

in 1866.

Cope's dinosaur,

like Leidy's,

New Jersey. There

southern thing that

Cope

said

the claw of a lion."

twenty

looked

was found

was

a

hind

like "a cross

in the

leg, a

muddy

between the talon of an eagle and

The animal had been

a

two-legged meat

called

it

about

Laelaps aquilunguis, "eagle-clawed terrible leaper," and he

envisioned an active predator jumping and attacking "birdlike" claw I

eater,

feet long.

Cope

ery

limestone marl of

portion of a jaw, and some-

2

It

was,

Cope

its

prey with

its

great

told his father, "altogether the finest discov-

have yet made." So exciting was the prospect of such discoveries that

Cope moved sey, to

be

his

young wife and baby daughter

closer to the marl pits.

to Haddonfield,

New Jer-

THE GILDED DINOSAUR The

fact that the

academy had the

in itself impressive. fact that

it

now

nation's only

What drew Marsh

11

two dinosaur skeletons was

to the city that year, however, was the

boasted the only reconstructed,

fully

mounted dinosaur academy

skeleton in the entire world. Leidy's Hadrosaurus stood in the gallery

— twenty-six

long and fourteen

feet

feet

tall. It

was

monster

a

far

more imposing than the Cardiff Giant. The Hadrosaurus mount was the handiwork of British sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins. Hawkins was the world's first dinosaur artist, having done

already

several life-sized sculpts for the Crystal Palace Exposition

Park, outside of

London. Those models were

drawing more

a great success,

than forty thousand people opening day.

Hawkins was

in the

dinosaur garden in

New

however, that

stated,

ancient

life

on

this

United

States to

York

City's

do

new

a series

of sculpts for

Central Park. His commission

garden was to contain animals "representing

this

continent."

Considering Philadelphia's preeminence in paleontology, that

a similar

Hawkins would head

do

there to

his research

and

that

it

was natural

he would seek

out Leidy and Cope.

When

Hawkins saw the bones of Leidy's

Hadrosaurus, he offered to

mount them for the academy at no charge. The display was completed in late 1868. The academy officially thanked Hawkins saying the model would "tend to benefit the community by expanding the minds of the masses [and] advance science by increasing the number of those who .

.

.

can appreciate the labors of the

men

and secure for them objects of

interest

of science, sympathize in their labors,

which would be thrown away or

destroyed by the ignorant." 3

There was

a

touch of prophecy in the academy's words, for Hawkins's

New York City work would be destroyed and thrown away by the ignorant. When political control of the Central Park project shifted in 1871 to Tammany

Hall,

"Boss" William Tweed apparently

blasphemous. So he had

felt

gang of toughs pay

a

the idea of dinosaurs was

a visit to

Hawkins's Central

Park studio one night. They smashed a Hadrosaurus and several other els.

The

pieces

were dumped

in a nearby lake,

and

that

mod-

was the end of

dinosaurs in Central Park.

When Marsh

Philadelphia,

visited

there

was not only

Hadrosaurus to see, but also Cope's newest project ical

undertaking of his young career.

reptilian sea serpent that

hundred million years

had lived

Cope was

—

Hawkins's

the largest paleontolog-

trying to reconstruct a giant

in the waters that covered Kansas

one

ago.

Cope and Marsh had

first

met

in Berlin in the winter

of 1863. Marsh,

M

12

A R k

A F

J

K

r

then thirty-two, was studying

at the University of Berlin. The twentyCope was making a grand tour of Europe, meeting men of science and visiting museums and collections. The scion of a wealthy Philadelphia Quaker family, Cope had been dispatched to Europe to keep him out of harm's way. The harm being a

three-year-old

Washington love

affair that

lections at the Smithsonian

apparently

budded while he was studying

col-

and the threat of being drafted into the Civil

War.

A

tall,

handsome fellow with an

ladies (he

home

wrote

interest in

both natural history and the

with equal enthusiasm about visiting the Smith-

sonian and visiting Joseph Henry's daughters), 4 he was one of those

self-

made American scientists, his formal schooling having stopped with a Quaker boarding school at the age of sixteen. Brilliant and precocious, Cope was already on his way to an outstanding career. When the young men met in Berlin, Marsh had two university degrees, but only two published scientific papers both related to his Nova Scotia trip. While Cope had no degrees, he had already published thirty-

—

seven scientific papers in

was

It

as a

five years.

American, so

rare for an

far

Cope and Marsh

compatriot, so

returned to America, they pursued

They exchanged Their 1867,

letters

manuscripts,

a scientific

fossils,

Marsh reciprocated

Cope, however, could not help backyard and

made

Marsh's Mosasaurus heard

a

rumor

est

was in

as

.

this

.

.

fretting that

stop the

"How

Marsh had come

in a bid for a set

true the latter

is I

of

Irish elk skele-

cannot

say.

Some

that in the

to look at his friend's lat-

effort.

a plesiosaur

1868 by an army surgeon his initial report

to

when Cope

7

summer of 1869, Marsh came

—

to his very

and so he referred

fossil find,

sale if possible."

Pty-

Mosasaurus copeanus. 6

"the one that got away." That same year,

and most ambitious

Cope

New Jersey"

fossil finds

naming "a new and

atmosphere of amiable, but growing competition

The specimen

"Prof.

they

friendship.

the next year by

Marsh was putting

that

spring or early

made

When

photographs, and correspondence.

off with an excellent

he wrote to Leidy saying,

one had better late

colleague as well

3 closed with "kind regards" and expressions of friendship. In

gigantic serpent from the Tertiary of

It

a

spent a few days together.

Cope honored Marsh by naming one of his amphibian

onius marshii.

tons,

from home, to find

at

— had been

sent to the

academy

in

March of

Fort Wallace, in western Kansas, and

on the specimen

exhibited to the

at

the academy's

Academy

several

Cope

March 24 meeting.

fragments of a large

Enaliosaurian, discovered by the Academy's correspondent at Fort Wallace,

THE GILDED DINOSAUR Kansas, Dr. Theophilus H. Turner.

.

.

.

The

enormous length of the total length 34 V feet. 2

Plesiosaurus in the

region

.

"He

the

.

.

called

Elasmosaurus platyrus

it

sternal

and pelvic regions.

largely

accomplished by

The

was

It

its tail

a

.

.

general form

is

different

the great plate bones of the

marine saurian whose progress was more

than by

paddles."

its

exact nature of the animal, however, was

8

still

hidden in the jumble

of fossil fragments. Turner had shipped more than one hundred bones tebrae, hip,

to the

boxed

shoulder, limbs, and most valuable of all,

academy wrapped in

wooden

crates.

Cope unwrapped

the

together of the

a skull.

—

ver-

They had come

newspaper, tied up in burlap sacks, and

in old

9

fossils

one by one and

set

about chipping away the

Then began the sorting and piecing hotchpotch. To do that, Cope relied on the techniques of

on the bone

clay encrusted

from

the relatively short cervical

tail,

[for]

.

13

surfaces.

comparative anatomy developed by the great French anatomist, Baron

Georges Cuvier.

Cuvier had reasoned that the form and function of skeletal structure was similar across species.

attached to hips.

And

For example, so,

skulls are attached to

by being able to identify

a

backbones, legs are

very few bones and tak-

ing account of their proportions, an entire animal could be reconstructed.

Indeed, Cuvier boasted he could do

with

it all

a single

bone.

Cuvier' s techniques were adopted by the foremost anatomists of the

Having attended Leidy's anatomy

time, including Joseph Leidy.

medical school, in 1861,

Cope

classes at the

out using the same techniques to

set

reassemble his Kansas sea serpent. '

Finally,

by the middle of 1869, Cope had made sense of the puzzle and

reconstructed the animal. At thirty-five feet long, with large fins attached to platelike hip

and chest bones, and

a small

angular head with sharp teeth, the

Elasmosaurus easily surpassed Laelaps in size and magnificence. But

most striking was

needed

a

its

flexible neck.

So odd was the neck

whole new taxonomic order

for

itself,

tened the Streptosauria, or "twisted reptiles."

what was

that this animal

which Cope proudly chrisCope had written a major

paper, with lithographic plates, to be attached to the Transactions of the ican Philosophical Society that

Cope showed Marsh

summer,

his craft,

at his

own

Amer-

expense.

with some pride no doubt, and

as

the Yale

may have gotten the same rush as when he found tool marks on the Cardiff Giant. A monumental mistake had been made. And Marsh was going to notch friend Cope on his belt along professor cast his eye over the bones, he

with the

likes

of Agassiz and

Hall.

"I noticed that the articulations

of the vertebrae were reversed," Marsh

14

iM

recounted years thing

later,

A R K

J

A F F E

"and suggested to him gently

wrong end most."

It

Marsh

was,

said

Marsh's criticism did not

Cope's

first

ter part

of

instinct

come

his

When

he retold

"caustic," perhaps even gloating.

work. After

he had spent the bet-

all,

and vertebrae had been arranged

He

had followed

when he found the bones, the this manner. Cope and Marsh

Leidy's method, and Turner had said that skull

Cope.

year studying and reconstructing the beast.

a

Cope

should be."

its tail

across as gentle to

Marsh had been

was to defend

he had the whole

with some delight, "like Bar-

num's famous woolly horse, the head was where had put the skull on the tail. the story to friends,

that

in

picked over the bones. They wrangled and bickered. They called in Leidy to arbitrate.

Leidy examined the skeleton.

Now, while Marsh might

revel in controversy

looks

— one

friend described

him

as

and showing up

man of good

league, Leidy surely did not. Leidy was a

He

— and

good

a

hankering for

liked everyone,

and everyone

"the Christ type"

black bread, Swiss cheese, and lager beer.

a col-

cheer, striking

liked him.

Well, of course, he didn't like sick people, which was an occupational

handicap for

a doctor.

Although he received

a

degree from the University

of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1844, he gave up

two

years,

and

his practice after just

the age of twenty-three, devoted himself to research and

at

teaching anatomy.

Leidy examined the Elasmosaurus and then quietly took the

from the

tail

and

about buying up

fitted all

it

into the skull.

Cope was

mortified.

last

He

vertebra

quickly set

the copies he could find of the transactions of the

American Philosophical Society, although some remained rattling around town. (Both Leidy and Marsh had copies.) It was a humiliating blow for the twenty-nine-year-old scientist. Outside scientific circles, this would not carry the blemish or bite of Hall being

would be no public

scandal, but for

biggest paleontological project ever,

muffed

it,

but

it

duped by the Cardiff Giant. There

Cope

it

was

a

small disaster. This was his

and he had muffed

had been found out by

his

it.

Not only had he

two most distinguished

col-

leagues.

For Agassiz or Hall to make

more than stubbing in their fields.

a toe.

a

mistake and be caught by Marsh was no

They were both

so well established, so preeminent

Cope, however, was young and without

His reputation rested entirely upon

his

work.

university credentials.

a

THE Although

it

15

was probably of little consolation ^o Cope,

of mistakes, particularly

full

DINOSAUR

Ul.l)i:il

was found, and

it

in this

was

in truth, science

newest of sciences, paleontology.

was thought to mean one thing. Then

A bone

second bone was

a

found, and together the two bones indicated something entirely different. a

Marsh's Nova Scotia

fossil

between

fish

was

It

all

and

uncharted

first

strokes

in

book

nor was only

six

some new

it

form

transitional

turned out to be an amphibian.

The map of this new

few decades

a

were drawn

his Tlteory of the Earth, a

in seven days

it

territory.

world barely imagined just

The

and think

when

reptile,

It

distinguished scientist like Agassiz could look at

was not surprising that

earlier

prehistoric world

— was

still

—

being fashioned.

1795 by Scottish physician James Hutton

that

in

contended the world was neither created

thousand years old,

calculated by the gen-

as

erations of Genesis.

The

Earth,

Hutton

said,

processes of erosion and

ments piling up and

working ton

in

said, a

when

and sculpted through the

built

mountain building.

was the handiwork of sedi-

It

spewing out of volcanoes. All these forces were

lava

uniform ways, in

vast cycles,

over huge time periods.

It

Hut-

was,

world with "no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end."

Hutton's ideas were tury,

had been

still

being debated in the

France's Cuvier, after analyzing

to the conclusion in

1806

that

some

first

fossil

species

decade of the

and

living elephants,

from the world's

foggy past had completely disappeared from Earth.

new

The

cen-

came

distant

and

animals had gone

extinct.

The

idea of extinction challenged another deeply held belief,

one

that

stretched back to Aristotle, the notion of a fixed world. Central to this idea

was the concept of the "plenum" plete.

God had

filled

—

a place

the world with a cornucopia of life,

linked from the smallest to the greatest, tion

would break the

or space that

is

life

and com-

full

that could

be

which of course, was man. Extinc-

chain.

By comparing the corresponding anatomical features of living species and fossil species, Cuvier was able to show that the American mastodon and Siberian

longer

mammoth

alive.

were

distinct

from the

finally

shook man's

Adrian Desmond, "and removed the also

less creatures

and apparently no

"Cuvier's detailed factual analysis in support of the

moth's extinction

Cuvier

living elephant

faith in the

first

link

plenum,"

mam-

said historian

from the chain." 10

noted that the further back one went into Earth's

history, the

resembled those of today. Soon the most remarkable animals

were being exhumed from

—

life's

deep

history, especially in

—

England.

First

came the Megalosaurus the "giant lizard" discovered in 1815 by the Reverend William Buckland, professor of mineralogy at Oxford University.

MARKJAFFE

16

Then Gideon

Mantell, a Sussex physician, found the Iguanodon, or "the

iguana tooth," in 1822, and the Hylaeosaurus, the "woodland lizard" in 1832.

As

their

names

They were

than the largest ern lizard

more

modern

scientific

mod-

size estimates. Just

one

mistake waiting to be rectified.)

year Mantell described the Hylaeosaurus, Charles Lyell, another

Scotsman, completed the third volume of that amplified

Hutton's work.

attempted to show

fact,

reptiles.

land animals. (Although Mantell's use of the

comparative guide led to vastly inflated

as a

The same

were the remains of reptiles, giant

indicated, these

bigger than their largest modern-day descendants, far bigger

far

how

Lyell,

his Principles of Geology, a study

by detailed observation and voluminous

the world was shaped by chemical, biological,

and physical forces working incrementally over long time periods.

was trained

Lyell

as a lawyer,

legal brief with articles

Earth,

and

his

of evidence.

huge work was written

Principles

drew

a picture

world shaped by the accumulation of small

a

like a skilled

of an evolving

effects

moving

in

no

particular direction.

One

of the aims of this new geology was to determine the sequence of

Earth history and the age of the planet. Remarkably, the callow geologists

were quickly able to develop remained uncertain about the

The

first

a

scheme

for the former, although they

latter.

tool they developed was a piece of logic called the law of super-

which simply observed that rock layers on the bottom are older than rocks on the top. Another early technique was biological matching of rock layers. If the fossils of the same creatures or plants were found in two

position,

rock

layers,

no matter how

physical constitution,

it

use of fossil dating that

was first

far apart

a safe

geographically or

how

different in

bet the rocks were the same age.

made paleontology

Using these techniques and paying

a

It

was

this

valued exercise.

close attention to the physical

com-

position of the rocks, Lyell was able to identify roughly nine "ages," from

the Carboniferous through the Cretaceous and

the

first

rough sketch of the Earth's true

Eocene

history.

to the present.

It

was

11

Forty years after Lyell, America's foremost geologist, James

D wight Dana

of Yale, had refined that sketch. Dana divided Earth history into seven ages, which were then again subdivided into about a dozen "periods," and those periods into

more than

forty "epochs."

This slow puzzle-piecing would continue decade

after decade, until a

century after Dana, the picture's resolution would be much sharper, with Earth history partitioned among twelve periods, thirty-five epochs, and seventy- two ages.

THE CUBED DINOSAUR Precisely sure.

By

tion,

it

how

far

17

No

back did these epochs and ages go?

on observed

using estimates based

was clear that

it

rates

one was

really

of erosion and sedimenta-

took millions of years to build rock

Dana

strata.

noted that by one estimate, the Paleozoic period had lasted thirty-six million years

and the Mesozoic, nine million

mated

that

years."

It

is

long

— very

esti-

duration" for Earth was "200,000 million

more

was, however, impossible to be

"Time say.

"minimum

the

Another calculation

years.

long,"

Dana

assured.

precise.

how

But

long he couldn't

12

If the Earth's crust evolved,

deal with

that directly.

He

what of the

tribution and variation and suggested there biological changes.

discovered, and

But

as

became

it

scientists

life,

Lyell did not

a

gradual succession of

extinct

life

forms were

appeared and disappeared, the

— how and why did

believed that

it?

remarkable global dis-

life's

had been

clear that species

upon

living

more and more ancient

unavoidable questions arose

Some

life

meticulously noted

happen?

that

like the physical Earth, evolved, that

it

"transmuted" from one form to another. Another heresy. Unlike geological

was

forces or extinction, there

far less

proof to support

this idea.

Some,

including Cuvier and Agassiz, believed successive catastrophes, like Noah's

had periodically wiped out

flood,

created a

bunch of new

In 1842, Richard

Owen,

a

Cuvier

a detailed report for the British titled "Fossil

a large

number of species and then God

ones. disciple,

completed the second part of

Association for the

Advancement of Science

Reptiles of Great Britain." In this study,

Owen

argued that the

huge prehistoric animals being discovered were completely separate and particular

from present-day

own taxonomic

order.

and needed their

reptiles

Owen

own

category, their

proposed calling them Dinosauria

—

"fear-

fully great lizards."

Owen

had anatomical reasons

and Hyleaosaurus

for placing the Iguanadon, Megalosaimts,

in a distinct order.

For example,

tebrae in the lower back for additional support, their

all

of them had fused ver-

and despite being

limb bones were similar to those of mammals.

"dinosaurs,"

Owen

insisted, wasn't

mammals, elephants and

rhinos.

The model

reptiles,

for these

Mantell's lizard, but the huge land

Owen

was acclaimed

as

the "English

Cuvier."

Owen was

a

also

had

political

gambit to best

his

and ideological motives for creating dinosaurs. rivals

in developing an interpretation

expanding body of paleontological material, and

growing speculation over the

Owen

insisted,

possibility

it

was

It

of the

a rebuff against the

of evolution. These

fossil species,

"never exhibit any indications that their forms graduated or

JAFFE

iVIARK

18

by any process passed into another

from one

species. They appear would not be the last time that down or build up the theory of evolution. 13

creative act."

used to tear

It

Owen, however, could not blunt 1859, a disciple of Lyell

—

a

fellow

to have sprung fossils

would be

the growing interest in evolution, and in

who once said, "I

often feel half my views

—

come out of Lyell's brain" published a detailed study on the subject. His name was Charles Darwin, his book was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Like Lyell's

loaded with

sis

since evolution

mented

in the

fact

Principles,

Darwin's Origin of Species was

and observation.

was such

modern

a

Darwin

Still,

slow-moving

world. Only b

process,

freely

a

the-

conceded

that

could not be docu-

it

roking back through the millennia

could proof be found. Darwin feared that such evidence would be hard to

come

by.

But the message was

clear,

the key to the mystery of life lay in pale-

ontology.

Without

a

doubt, the most valuable ammunition in

stand the history of the Earth and

them

to help

match and

its life

fix the ages

the variation of life from strata to

was

fossils.

this battle to

under-

Geologists depended

on

of rock. Even more important, tracing

strata, starting at

the deepest, most ancient

horizon and working ever upward toward modern times, might show the lines

of evolution, the ancestral forms and the

transitions species

made

to

adapt and survive.

Soon Darwin's own

acolyte,

Thomas Huxley

(he was

nicknamed "Dar-

win's Bulldog") was pushing the bounds of paleontology, challenging

Owen, Cuvier, and anyone else who denied evolution. From Hutton to Cuvier to Lyell to Owen to Darwin mankind's entire notion of creation and gle

human

life

lifetime. "Geology, the youthful science,"

in his notes at the University

to

Huxley,

had shifted in the space of a

Marsh would

sin-

scribble

of Breslau. 14

and paleontology were young sciences and a young man's was thirty-three when he wrote the first volume of Principles.

Yes, geology

game. Lyell

Cuvier was thirty-seven

when he

when he proved

to publish Origin of Species, he

decades

extinction.

Owen was thirty-eight

invented dinosaurs. And, although Darwin waited until he was

earlier. If

had

hit

upon

the book's central idea

fifty

two

these sciences were studded with errors, they were the

miscues of exuberance, impatience, imagination, and youth. Sitting together in a Berlin cafe, just four years after Origin of Species

been published, Cope and Marsh must have great things.

long

They had

after the birth

felt

had

they were on the verge of

arrived almost at the birth of their science and not

of their nation. Earth might be ancient, but

was young, and they were ready to take

their places in

it.

their

world

NIK GILDED DINOSAUR

19

do about the wrong-headed Elasmosaurus? In the fall, Cope wrote without a correction of his restoration a brief and very obtuse note actually admitting there had been an error. It ran in the proceedings of the

What

to

—

—

Marsh or Leidy And so, at the academy's Tuesday evening meeting on March 8, 1870, Leidy rose and delivered brief remarks on Elasmosaurus, noting for the record that "Prof. Cope has academy. This did not

satisfy either

described the skeleton in it

Batrachia

a reverse

position and in that view has represented

condition in figure

in a restored

and Reptilia

.

.

.

1

,

plate

of

ii

his Synopsis of the Extinct

August, 1869, published in advance of the four-

teenth volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical

went on There

to offer analysis is

of

the animal's vertebrae.

Society. "

no record of whether Cope was among the twenty-five

bers in attendance that night, but

Marsh was

extinct bird "allied to the turkey,"

New Jersey He New Jersey's Shark

Leidy

1

there.

He

read

mem-

paper on an

a

from the green sands of

Monmouth

from an extinct peccary

County,

also displayed the tooth

from

River and some bones from

a small Hadrosaurus.

] I!

D

DINOSAUR

great thing for

a

you?" she wrote in the spring of 1862.

would be

a great deal better for

much

in as

you have no mother

as

Cope was

In 1863,

you

again

James to 'go to the war' do

"Why

to go, as

47

you

don't you go? are older

think

I

to suffer if you get shot.") 3

the Smithsonian, and Washington was

at

it

and stronger and

now

a

city firmly in the grasp of the conflict. "I hear sundry stories of the war,"

Cope wrote home in January. "One Capt. Feilner told me that sometimes new men, unused to cavalry service, were sent to fight the enemy without drill. Soldiers are occasionally knocked down and robbed on the streets .

.

.

of Washington now. Last night one was brought into the Smithsonian." 6

There was to the

talk

of moving the Smithsonian collections further north, perhaps

academy

in Philadelphia.

In those days, the Smithsonian took

on

the ambience of a fraternity

house, with visiting scientists actually boarding

William Stimpson,

a

at

Led by

the institution.

marine biologist and bon vivant, the

scientists

drank,

caroused, and held footraces through the Smithsonian's Great Hall. Stimp-

son had dubbed

this

Cope

His fellows,

sloth.

group the Megatherium Club,

renamed the

included,

in

honor of an extinct institution

federal

the

Stimpsonian. 7

As the war dragged on, the prospect of Cope being drafted grew, and the news from the front was ever grim. "I am afraid," Cope reported Elizabeth, "Dick Chase was killed at the battle of Murfeesboro."

The war this

was

alone was enough for Alfred

budding romantic

a

liaison that

Cope

to fret about,

had entangled

his

to sister

now added

to

son in Washing-

A

number of the letters of this period were destroyed by Cope or never became part of his collected correspondence. In those that do remain, there are only veiled references to the affair. But something was up, and whoever ton.

was

the lady was,

it

So, with

this

all

clear she

was from outside the pure

brewing, Alfred

Cope

circle

of Cope's

life.

dispatched his son to Europe in

March of 1863.

What

turn of events.

a

away from the farm. tion ro

some of the

grimage in

a

great scientists

deep depression.

constantly so as to father

Cope had

lobbied, struggled, and connived to get

Now he was traveling Europe, with letters of introduc"I

crowd out

from shipboard.

"It

is

of the continent. Yet he made his pilmy resolution of occupying my mind

keep

painful thoughts.

perhaps

a great

.

.

.'

he wrote to

advantage that

I

his

have had the

outside of my sensibilities scorched into a crust." 8 It

was

in such a condition that

much had

passed,

much

meeting with Cope

that

he arrived in Berlin. Years

would color memories, Marsh

this way. "I

was

later,

when

recalled his

a student at the University

first

of Berlin.

l\IARK

48

JAFFF.

Cope called upon me and with great frankness confided to me some of the many troubles that even then beset him. My sympathy was Professor

aroused, and although

I

had some doubts of

advice and was willing to be his friend.

his sanity,

Cope roamed through England, Belgium, Germany, and France. At one point, he was so despondent

gave him good

Italy,

Switzerland,

he destroyed many of tour.

Back

in

London

864, his thoughts were finally turning to home, and the future, and

1

that inevitably lead to questions

was

It

that

on the

the notes, sketches and letters he had complied in early

I

'"'

Although, getting

— considering

decent rent for the place

a

— was

of money.

he did not want to return to McShag's Pinnacle.

clear that

all

the capital

"A man would have to own a considerable tract to derive an income in this way," Cope concluded in a letter to his father. "I feel considerably more interested in the matter of making money up

tied

than

in

it

a

problem.

ever did before, from an apprehension that

I

the pit

I

was

in a year or eighteen

months ago

and then have two persons instead of one

me

turn

minutes from

five

a life

might unhappily

I

(I

don't

of study, for

I

am

mean

into

the very same)

Nothing but

to keep.

fall

this

could

not constructed for get-

ting along comfortably with the general run of people." 10

Upon made

returning to Philadelphia in the spring of 1864, the

efforts to secure

Edward

a

teaching post

at

Cope

family

Haverford College.

It

was

where they had some influence. Edward's grandfather, Thomas Pirn Cope, had been one of the college's founders, and a cousin, Charles Yarnall, a

place

was

also

founder and officer of the school.

It

did not take

a

Peabody-sized

Then again, Haverford was a smaller, simpler, Quaker school. Yarnall wrote to Cope informing him of the appointment. Haverford simultaneously awarded him an honorary maslegacy to gain the post of professor of zoology.

ter's

degree. 11

Cope

also

became very

active in the Society

times, displaying a fervor bordering his

on

the fanatic,

was

as if

having

assure Alfred

Cope

of 1864, he asked

won

his

a

at

which embarrassed even

devout fellow Quakers. Then he announced to

thinking of marriage, a proper marriage, It

of Friends, passionate

his father that

he was

marriage from within the

circle.

independence from the farm, he wanted to

that the path

he was taking was

a solid

one. At the end

his father for counsel.

would be an advantage to me to be married, in many ways, and have concluded to make a definite motion in that direction, provided no obstructions appear. Thy opinion is of course the first and most important to me after that the way seems reasonably open. An amiable woman, not over sensitive, with considerable energy, and especially one "I

have often thought

—

it

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

49

inclined to be serious and not inclined to frivolity and display christian

me, though

able for

"As

of course the better

I

intellect

— seems

—

to be practically the

the

more

most

suit-

and accomplishments have more charms.

have learned to rough

and may sometimes be

it,

woman would

myself, a very sensitive

me

to

trouble herself and

admire feminine sensitiveness. Be these things

as

they may,

I

a little

me

rough

— though

have had

I

very

a

my mind to Mary Pirn's daughter, Annie, that nothing but the recollection of my former experience as well as my desire for the advice of the more experienced has induced me to postpone it. Her

strong inclination to

amiability

house,

open

and domestic

qualities generally, her capability

well as her steady seriousness weigh far

etc., as

of taking care of a

more with me than

which form the theme of poets!" 12 No passion this time for young Cope. The match was certainly an acceptable one, Anne Pirn, a distant cousin, having been raised and schooled within the society. On August 15, 1865, they were married at any of the

Mary

traits

farm in Chester County. The couple's only

Pirn's

born ten months

later.

Cope was

Cope continued

Alfred

The farm college

still

tom

soon.

.

.

Flummery

.

he resigned

there

and

is

that

all

be

will

at

total

moment, split

of five semesters, Cope

left.

a fair

Haverford." As

to

be

bot-

Cope him-

Cope must

have

the president, a superintendent,

amount of squabbling.

The

in the

which the young Cope was

entire polite, scientific establishment

Quaker's gun

was particularly unsettling

These were gentlemen's

at

So, after a

13

college wasn't the only institution with

losing patience.

seemed

a right

the college was being "ambiguously

among

board of managers. This led to

The

on

too well.

run" with the administration a

it

observed, he simply was "not constructed for getting along

In Cope's defense, at that

and

at

his professorship, explaining to his

managers do not put

comfortably with the general run of people." Alfred

known

up farming.

held no appeal for Cope, and soon he began to chafe

father, "I despair for the place if the

self had already

was

obliged to keep McShag's Pinnacle, and

to try to persuade his son to take

well. In 1867,

life as

child, Julia,

the

sights.

of Philadelphia

His brash and brusque demeanor

academy and the Philosophical

clubs, as well as scientific organizations,

Society.

and Cope's

many members the wrong way. They were also largely gatherings of interested amateurs, and Cope had had no patience or tact with mistakes or fuzzy thinking. He was witty with

swagger rubbed

a

sarcasm that cut, and he could be absolutely infuriating. Once,

academy member William Gabb was trying to make short, saying

"What, more

gab, William?"

At

least,

when

Cope cut him Cope was amused. a point,

— MARK

50

A F F E

J

And when words wouldn't do, Cope was ready to resort to more forceful argument. One evening, he and Persifor Frazer got into a fistfight in the elegant marble lobby of the Philosophical Society. the next day, he said,

you think

"If this

my

When

saw Cope

a friend

"Good God, what happened to you?" is black," Cope replied, "you ought

eye

to see Frazer

morning."

It is

worth noting

ute, Frazer

would

was

that Frazer

say that while

good

a

Cope

he tended to brood over the words spoken

"A temporary with

— even

in a friendly dispute.

morbidity invested these words with

from what was intended.

different

friend. Years later, in a long trib-

reveled in controversy and argument,

.

.

.

a

meaning

entirely

This weakness naturally increased

and frequently precipitated acrimonious controversies,"

his years,

Frazer bemoaned. 14 "Meetings

member

sophical Society " involved. ,:>

became more

said, "especially

lively

when

.

."

.

another Philo-

the irascible

Cope was

Cope continually "rendered himself obnoxious to academy. "He does things in an unnecessarily offensive

Leidy lamented that

members" of

the

manner," the gentle and gentlemanly Leidy complained.

A friend of both men

observed that "whereas Leidy was

of peace, Cope was what might be called Leidy's

motto was peace

at

a militant paleontologist;

any price, Cope's was war

at

whatever

After leaving Haverford, there was really only one place for

New Jersey. plain

was considered the richest

The bone

Until the West began to open,

continent's

— was

described

first

discovered

at a

at

New Jersey's

fossil field in

recorded dinosaur

Woodbury

Creek,

man

essentially a

whereas cost."

it

Cope

to

16

go

southern coastal

the country. fossil

—

a

large, black

New Jersey, in

thigh-

1787, and was

meeting of the American Philosophical Society by Caspar

Wistar, a Philadelphia physician.

knew

Wistar

enormous

size."

that the

He

bone came from some extraordinary animal "of

calculated

phant." But he did not years before Richard

it

had

know what

Owen would

to

be "nearly double the

to call

would be another name dinosaur.

it. It

coin the

size

of an

ele-

sixty-five

Sixty-nine years after Wistar's report, William Foulke was vacationing in rural Haddonfield,

when he

heard about

a fossil pit

investigated, and the farmer showed him the hole

member of Philadelphia's Academy of Natural might be

valuable.

He

on

a local

farm. Foulke

in the soft marl. Foulke, a

Sciences, suspected the pit

immediately contacted Leidy, who came to Haddon-

— THE UUIFII DINOSAUR supervise the

field to

excavation.

site

hunch was

Foulke's

51

and the marl

right,

— which

down during

ancient marine sediment laid

is

actually a layer

of

the Cretaceous period

yielded the most complete dinosaur skeleton that had ever been discovered. In

December of 1858, Leidy and Foulke reported

bones belonged

to

Hadrosaurus foulkii

With with,

—

the aid of

was

it

shorter than

"huge herbivorous saurian."

a

academy

to the

it

Foulke's bulky lizard.

more bones than

either

Owen

or Mantell had to

clear to Leidy that the Hadrosaurus 's front legs

back

its

that the

Leidy named

legs. In fact,

were much

more like arms. It appeared Leidy's model wasn't Owen's

they seemed

walked on two

that the Hadrosaurus

work

legs.

rhino, but the kangaroo.

After his European

and

in

1

866,

trip,

Cope,

too,

began searching the Jersey marl beds

the age of twenty-six, he discovered Laelaps. Again this was

at

which Cope believed, moved with spring and speed. The work of Leidy and Cope was already challenging established ideas about dinosaurs. They were envisioning animals of a much different character, and a bipedal dinosaur,

they had the bones to prove

And in a

so, in

March of 1868, Cope moved

two-horse wagon

room

house, with

way. 17

A

much

important was

—

to Haddonfield.

own

its

few weeks

time pretty

it.

at

—

it

took seven loads

rented

a

spacious ten-

grounds, on the town's tree-lined Kings High-

Cope wrote

later,

his family

The Copes

home.

.

.

.

We

a dressing case glass.

.

.

to his father saying, lost little .

Our

"We

are

by

this

in the moving, the most

stoves

do well and our paint

is

dry." 18

Cope moved in, Marsh came for a visit. The two men spent a cold week together exploring the marl beds. Cope hadn't wanted to go out while the weather was so bad. Marsh insisted. 19 Cope introduced Marsh to Albert Vorhees, owner of the West Jersey Marl Company. The phosphaterich marl was used as a fertilizer, and the marl quarries were always a good Just as

rainy

source of

fossils.

Cope's Laelaps had come from Vorhees's quarry. (Marsh

took the opportunity of meeting Vorhees to privately arrange for

be sent to

New

Haven.)

fossils

to

20

Now

came Cope's money problems. He had given up a one-thousanddollar-a-year salary when he abandoned his Haverford professorship, and he was

now

from

living

his father.

on some

Ten

rent

from McShag's Pinnacle and periodic checks

dollars here, fifteen there.

fortably, if one lived simply.

It

was possible to

live

com-

The McShag Pinnacle "milk business" alone was month in sales. 21 But, how to

bringing in about three hundred dollars a

finance research, publication, and exploration?

"My

occupation needs

52

A R K

11

money

for

and there are few enough

successful prosecution;

its

A F F E

J

country whose circumstances allow them to follow

"Whether

it

whole man

at

my

be

will

know," Cope wrote

in the

one thing

he told

it,"

place to remain here long

same March

at a

time.

I

I

think

do not seek

best to be able to

letter. "It is

would

I

in this

his father.

to

be

a

right rather to explore

it

nature than spend the time farming."

But the money.

"I

father the following

and

cle

its

livestock,

could do more

month.

22

if

I

had

Cope had

present capital," he told his

a plan. If

he sold McShag's Pinna-

he could buy the Haddonfield house

thousand dollars and invest the remainder. his present

my

He would

farm income, and have no rent to

for

about twelve

get a return equal to

pay.

Cope was stretched thin. "The consequence is no money, account overdrawn a month at Cope Bros, and plenty of bills and notes due," Cope reported to his father. At last, Alfred Cope relented. McShag's Pinnacle would be sold. Edward Cope would never be a farmer. In the months that followed, Cope patrolled the marl pits finding four different species of mosasaurs, a mammoth, and an assortment of other fosAs

sils.

was,

it

He

enjoyed Haddonfield's rural atmosphere. Unlike the

"infested with factory hands."

He

active in

its

a

"new

fossil reptiles

Marsh paper was on "new of Wyoming." It was followed by

Cope. The

Serpents from the Tertiary deposits

paper on

Quaker community, and Cope

of fresh, groundbreaking papers on the West,

string

that really put the spur into

fossil

a large

meeting.

Then came Marsh's and

first

from the Cretaceous and Tertiary."

however, Marsh's third paper that truly created the

little

was not

told his father, "Irish are few, but colored

people abound." Haddonfield had

was

city, it

a buzz.

hollow bone he had found on one of his

Tt

was,

This one dealt with

last

on the Kansas

days

plains.

Upon

made a careful study of the small bone, which he said, "corresponded in many respects anatomically with the first joint of the little finger of the human hand." He compared it with the structure of other animals. "The only joint much like it that I could find, in any animal, living or extinct, was in the wing finger of the Pterodactyl, or returning to Yale, Marsh had

flying dragon,"

he wrote

in a

memoir. 23

Marsh, however, had some doubts.

through Mesozoic

skies

America. That wasn't

on

But

if

was one of these

leathery wings,

difficult to believe.

point, the pterodactyls found in size specimens.

If it

it

was the

reptiles that flew

first

The problem was

Europe had been

small,

Marsh's bone belonged to

a

discovered in

its size.

To

that

sparrow to pigeon-

pterodactyl

it

was, by

Cuvierian calculation, twenty times larger and one hundred times bulkier

T II K

than any pterodactyl

ULDKD DINOSAUR

53

known.

Although Marsh looked

for

some other

my

back to the pterodactyl. "Believing in wrote, "1 determined to

make

a scientific

indicated and trust to future discoveries

coming

explanation, he kept

science, as taught by Cuvier,"

he

announcement of what the fossil to prove whether I was right or

wrong."

Marsh a

was twenty

calculated that the wingspan of the animal

feet.

"Truly

gigantic dragon even in this country of big things," he said.

Marsh

decided to

name

the

fossil

Ptcrodactylus owenii,

Owen, who had

"friend," Professor

in

honor of

his English

already written extensively

on

these

animals.

There was, no doubt, some

Marsh

also

flattery

and currying of favor

gave Spencer Baird the opportunity to

make

the

in the

first

name.

announce-

ment of the discovery and in the same letter raised the issue of getting first call on all the Smithsonian's fossil discoveries. By this time, Baird had made photographs and casts of the tapir skeleton and sent it on to Yale, with his enthusiastic thanks. Baird tried to reply diplomatically to Marsh's request.

am

"I first

extremely obliged to you for giving

announcement

communicate be glad to

With

.

.

you have any material

let

nothing here

is

the privilege of making the

which

in regard to the Pterodactyls,

to next week's paper

although there

me

now

.

,"

Baird wrote in

that

you can

I

late

shall

hasten to

May.

"We shall

find at the Institution,

but what you have already overhauled.

friendly relations to yourself, Leidy

& Cope,

it is

a

somewhat

difficult

new material, but probably there can be no harm in giving you a hint of what we have here, & if you come down & take possession of it, you have as much right to do

matter for us to select the person to take charge of any

so as anyone else."

The June

New

24

issue

of the American Journal of

reling along.

expedition

He would

— on

reptiles,

Science carried a

Now Marsh's

and Gigantic Species of Pterodactyl." 23

"Note on

a

career was bar-

publish a series of five papers from the western

mammals, and

birds

— and he was

already

making

field the comThe plans for the Peabody Museum were moving money was in hand collecting interest in a Yale

arrangements to take another band of Yale students into the ing

summer of

1871.

slowly, although the

account

— and

it

was

—

now

only

a

matter time,

a

year or two, before the pro-

ject could begin.

But

in a variation

Marsh's personal

He,

like

life

Cope, had

on

the old saying "lucky in cards, unlucky in love,"

had not flourished quite

left

well as his professional one.

Europe after an unsuccessful love affair and upon hand at courtship, and again failed.

for

his return, again tried his

as

M

54

When

turning toward

A R K

A F F E

J

affairs social,

Marsh looked

to the

home of Eliza-

beth Cogswell Dixon, the wife of Connecticut senator James Dixon.

through family connections that Marsh, the college student, found to the

Dixons

in 1858. (Mrs.

Dixon's

was

It

his

way

was married to Marsh's

sister, Eliza,

uncle Ezkiel.)

What an oasis the Dixon home was for twenty-seven-year-old Marsh. Coming from a threadbare farm and then spending years in the uniquely male domains of prep school and Yale, what

a contrast

it

With

was.

Eliza-

beth Dixon and her two teenaged daughters, Clementine and Bessie, the

Dixon home in Hartford was a more elegant and feminine Marsh had ever known, and he was a frequent visitor. Elizabeth Dixon adopted Marsh as a nephew, something of a ject

and

balls

a target for a bit

of matchmaking. Hers was

a

and

always,

it

and

roses,

was

a

rides in a

world of young

teas,

barouche through Central Park. 26

sons.

all

bidden

&

And

becoming pink muslin

also in a very

couleur de rose," Mrs. Dixon wrote to Marsh. "Tonight there are

of straw-

ladies.

"Miss Ellen Collins was here

which we

social pro-

world of Washington

beneath Japanese lanterns and moonlight, of diplomatic

berries

place than

where you would

see

is

some very

a party to

pretty per-

»»27 *•'

"Fanny Clark still lives & is as pretty as ever. I hope seeing her repaid you coming up to Hartford," Elizabeth Dixon wrote later that same sum-

for

mer. 28

While Elizabeth Dixon introduced Marsh to a number of "pretty perone she seems to have tried to promote was her niece, Constance

sons," the

Kinney. Constance and daughter Bessie went

1859 to watch Marsh row

in boat races,

down

to Yale in the

fall

of

and both were very impressed, Eliz-

abeth Dixon reported.

A

few weeks

Kinney home

later,

in

Marsh received an

New

York

City.

invitation for a reception at the

The Kinneys had

people for Miss Constance and requested that

I

"invited

some young

send you an invitation,"

Mrs. Dixon explained. 29

Marsh was duly

attentive.

of an amethyst. She was to Mrs.

Adams

"Constance wrote of your beautiful

much

delighted.

yesterday," Elizabeth

Unfortunately,

it

I

ought to have

Dixon wrote

wasn't Constance

who

stirred

said

gift to

wore mine

1

in early 1861.

30

Marsh's ardor, but Mrs.

Dixon's eldest daughter, nineteen-year-old Clementine. Over the

Marsh had received the

invited

young

Clemmie

to art exhibitions

lady's "kindest regrets."

offered. Marsh's Aunt

Eliza,

who

had

first

31

her

and other

years,

events,

and

Now more regrets were to be

introduced him to the Dixons,

THE ULDED DINOSAUR warned him

tried to

that

among

Dixon

the

girls,

55

he garnered more respect

than affection.

His aunt saw his growing interest and cautioned him that perhaps he did not realize

"how much you

have staked in the thing." Aunt Eliza tried to

"She

is

almost too

much of

admired," she advised.

A

few months

later,

soften the blow.

your part must be slow rather than going ahead will be defeated."

Nothing came of Marsh's At

least,

you

glad

Aunt

Eliza

are one,

child yet to be seriously

she counseled,

a direct attack.

...

I

"The

fear

process

on

your plan

for

Marsh pursued. Clemmie demurred.

Still,

efforts.

felt,

a

32

Marsh could weather the disappointment.

whose preferences can be controlled

"I

and

in this line,

am that

you have other engrossing objects of pursuit and therefore your happiness not

at

the mercy or caprice of any lady," she said.

When tinued.

Marsh

for Europe, the

left

Now instead of balls

and

correspondence with Mrs. Dixon con-

teas,

Elizabeth

tributing flannels to Connecticut soldiers,

Square Hospital. (Bessie and

Returning to the

States

Dixon wrote of war, of dis-

and of working

Clemmie worked

there, too.)

Army

in the

33

and seeing Clementine again, Marsh resolved to

once more to win her hand. After

try

is

on the verge of becoming

a

all,

things had changed.

He

was

now

Yale professor. This time he sought Uncle

George's counsel, blessing, and resources. In a letter

"You have

marked

several times given

me

am happy

to

say,

laid the

advice in regard to matrimony, and

"The

which you deemed

lady in question

is

"I think

the daughter of Senator

her

far

D

painting, music, etc.

I

have admired her very

return from Europe

ious to secure her

Marsh

already

if

impor-

to

I

much

I

.

.

.

modern

needed?

Marsh

admiration has so increased that

I

is

languages,

for a long time,

am

and since very anx-

possible."

that it would not be easy. "I have faint hopes that the some degree my attachment that I do not feel perfectly

should be

at

once accepted

if

I

should propose."

There were, however, ways. Could he not win Clemmie's hand his

,"

ever knew. She

knew

lady reciprocates in sure that

my

of Ct.

superior to any lady

very highly educated, and especially accomplished in

won

now

34

announced, adding,

my

I

it

the qualifications of high position and family tant."

matter before his uncle.

somewhat sooner than I expected," he however, that the lady I hope to get possesses all

find myself inclined to follow

wrote. "I

Marsh

"confidential,"

Yale appointment? Perhaps "I ought,

of course,

a little

monetary push was

to offer the lady a

home

as

all

he had

that

was

corresponding in some

measure to the one she leaves," Marsh suggested to

his uncle,

"and

this

M

56

A R K

J

A F F E

would be an expensive undertaking in a city like New Haven." If Marsh could come as a suitor with a professorship and a fine house, maybe that would tip the balance in his favor. The Dixons paid a call on Peabody in his hotel suite during his visit to Washington. Uncle George found both Clemmie and Bessie charming. But it wasn't Uncle George's blessing or purse that would be wanting. Some things just couldn't be bought. After that,

Marsh

tried courtship seriously only

once more. This time

it

was the daughter of John W. Garrett, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

The young

fact that

Marsh would

lady found

Marsh "too demonstrative."

Besides, the

refer to a lady as "the prettiest little vertebrate"

probably wasn't the sort of poetry that would win hearts.

The problem, one of Marsh's

friends explained,

was that the professor

simply "lacked the light touch so helpful in social intercourse." 33 Years,

Marsh could joke

that his

mansion wasn't

really a

home

been "properly Garrett-ed." While Miss Garrett had no at least,

"I

found Marsh useful

have learned from

Russell are

on

my

as a

Enough of the get a

letter to

Mr. Russell's present address."

men and

hacked into Niobrara chalk out

Aunt

Eliza It

was

right.

It

in Kansas to

me

by

36

was time to

was time to look westward.

saddle up. There was, after

all,

that cross

be found. Would additional

bones prove that Marsh's pterodactyl

fossil

her father,

wrote to Marsh. "Will you oblige

parlor and the ladies.

group of good

later

hadn't

mail drop.

turn to "other engrossing objects of pursuit."

To

interest,

it

daughter that you are advised that Mr. and Mrs.

this side," Garrett

forwarding the enclosed

because

really

had

a

twenty-foot

wingspan?

And while Marsh was getting his Yalies ready to head for the plains, down in Haddonfield, Cope was also preparing to go west. He would make a short journey no more than a few weeks and would go pretty much on his own. But he would go. If he could, he was going to bring home a

—

—

prairie

dog

as a

pet for Julia. At least he promised he'd try to bring one back.

Yes, to the West. For

it

was the West

that held the secrets

of life's history and

the future of the science of paleontology.

The

first

hunter to make

it

to the Kansas plains that

summer was

neither

Marsh nor Cope, but Chief Red Cloud. The Sioux warrior had obtained permission from the Indian Bureau to lead a hunting party from his reservation

on the edge of the Dakotas

into Kansas buffalo country.

THE Army

headquarters sent

lace instructing that

C;

A

settlers."

while

a

Kansas

L

the

becomes

copy of the

letter

57

commanding

Wal-

officer at Fort

actually unavoidable for self-defense

was forwarded to Marsh. 37

buffalo-hunting

a

Marsh waited

year

DINOSAUR

E D

troops "avoid any collision whatever with these

all

year earlier he followed

fields, this

l>

a letter to

Indians, unless such collision

of the

I

for

P.

T.

And

Barnum

so,

into the

Chief Red Cloud to hunt the great

beasts before venturing out.

on

Finally,

July 2, 1871, Marsh, ten Yale students, a military escort, and

Fort Wallace in search of pterodactyls and anything

five

army wagons

else

they could dig up. This time

left

of the

entire cost

trip

— about

army's aid or personal expenses

Marsh had no hundred

fifteen

— was

financial backing, dollars,

paid by the

and the

not counting the

members of the expedi-

tion.

They headed back along the mercury hovering

the

Smoky

Hill River.

The

heat was ferocious,

between 95 and 120 degrees. For much of the

trip,

110 degrees in the shade was the best that could be found.

When they

they had reached the general vicinity of the previous year's find,

made camp. As soon

as

the tents were pitched,

Marsh and

a

men

few

rode out looking for the spot where he had found the bone.

Marsh rode the

river

bottom and found the buffalo

he galloped ahead of his companions. His

found the

cross as distinct as

impression cleared sil

left

by

bone

his

memory

when he had

in the rock.

He

cut

it.

trail.

He

took out

New

Haven.

He worked

him, and he

fail

could even see the

his

away the ground. There was another bone, one

he already had in

In his eagerness,

did not

hunting knife and

that

carefully,

fit

into the fos-

but anxiously.

uncovered another bone, and then another, until he had the whole that

supported the wing.

"These

them that

He

series

measured

as

I

took them up one by one, making

they were found," Marsh said.

as

my

I

"...

I

sketch of

a

was soon able to determine

on the fragments were essentially correct, and that found American dragon was fully as large as my fancy painted

calculations based

this first

him."

Marsh had the and rocks for

Yalies

fossil

on

their

hands and knees scouring the hot ground

fragments, especially for pterodactyls.

He

was rewarded

with the remains of several specimens of the animal, including one that appeared to have an even larger wingspan

This

summer

conditions

on

— perhaps twenty-five

the Kansas plains were brutal.

feet.

The

shriveled to series of warm pools linked by the trickle of a stream. falo grass

get

more

river

had

The

buf-

was brown and withered. Rattlesnakes abounded and seemed to active the hotter

it

became. They were everywhere. During the

M

58

course of a single day, flattened by a started to

A R K

J

A F F K

more than twenty had

thunderstorm one day and

to a

be

killed.

The

tent

camp was

hailstorm another. Provisions

run low.

"Several of the party broke

down

entirely,

exposure, and hard-fare," according to College Courant,

a

unable to endure the fatigue,

report in the Yale newspaper, the

"and even the guide an Indian scout

plains for seventeen years,

was stricken down by

who

fever."

had been on the

38

month in the field, the Yale party broke camp and returned to Fort Wallace. They boarded the Kansas-Pacific for Denver, where they spent four days recuperating. Then it was on to Fort Bridger and after that Oregon. Now, the hot, dusty Kansas plains were wide open for Cope, and Cope was on his way. After a

Chapter Five

It

WAS LATE AUGUST when Cope gazed out of the window

of

a

Kansas-Pacific coach and saw the Great Plains for the

"They

time.

first

ocean than anything

man's head or

of flax,

a steer's

tracks for miles.

in

He

left

carcasses

He

more

left

for

.

.

to the

rail

covered also

it

a

the massive herds of buf-

come

my

for the sight-seeing, but

favorite line

arrived at Fort Wallace and again heard is

something wonderful." Cope's

town of Sheridan,

east

of the

was an area Marsh had searched

beautiful, feather-shaped

east to

with

of vertebrae paleontol-

a

Annie

for her

earlier. Still,

gypsum

a

narrow

He

crystals.

watch chain, with the hope

"what

first

foray

and near the Twin

fort

year

huge mosasaur sticking out of the bank of

found

2

.

Cope

In September,

Buttes. This

his sister, Lille.

that

Marsh and others have found was by

in

at

compos-

"Marsh has been doing a great deal I find, but me, and one of his guides is at Ft. Wallace, left behind, and Marsh wouldn't let him go! I'll let him go!"

wrote Annie

want of a job.

back

Where

and bones lying on each side of the

had, however, not

hope of "doing something

ogy."

he told

passengers fired their pistols

as

an exercise that

faloes,

has

back. Sunflowers, Cornflowers and various

sage, euphorgia, endless verbenas,"

He watched

the

have seen," he wrote Annie.

I

the

like 1

Marsh noted geological formations, Cope was struck by "The flowers ... I did not suppose they were so tall; as high as a

beauty.

ites

wonderful and look more

are

sent

Cope

dis-

ravine.

He

one of these

in his letter that

"may

please the mail not to break."

Back

man

at

the

fort,

Cope was

outfitted with a

escort led by Lieutenant James Whitten.

and military

hat.

Cope

refused the

wagon,

He

was

six

mules, and

a five-

also offered a revolver

army paraphernalia,

telling his wife, "I

hate the sight of them."

He

had arrived just before the garrison was about to be transferred, and

Cope thought

this was a bit of good luck. Many of the men and officers had worked with Marsh or Benjamin Mudge, a paleontologist at the state agri-

cultural college, so they

which

areas

ing of

this.

knew

the things that interested

fossil

had already been worked. "The new regiment

The

officers

and

men

are

by

59

this

time

much

will

hunters and

know

noth-

interested in our

MARKJAFFE

60

studies trip,

and give us every

Cope bought

juice,

and

a

Cope

wrote. To augment army rations for the

couple of loaves of bread. These he shared with Lieutenant

The Cope

Whitten.

aid,"

cans of oysters, sardines, peaches, condensed milk, lime

some

party headed for

fresh territory south

of Twin

Buttes.

The

plains

of western Kansas

gravel sediments

are covered with a flat layer of sand and washed down from the Rocky Mountains, about ten to

twenty-four million years ago during the Miocene.

Miocene

cut deeply into this

blanket, right

down

The Smoky

Hill

River

to the chalky rock

of the

Niobrara formation, which in Cretaceous times was the floor of the shallow sea that covered the

middle of the continent and

American Mediterranean." (Both

chalk are Cretaceous sea sediments, and that

sometimes called "the

is

New Jersey

the

marl and the Niobrara

the reason they share similar

is

The Smoky Hill Paver and its creeks made their incisions, and wind and rain did the rest, breaking, carving, and sculpting the fis-

fossil faunas.)

then the

sures into rocky badlands.

"Tracts of this kind are scattered over the country along the margins of

Cope wrote

the river and creek valleys and ravines,"

stratum of the rock

is

in 1875.

"The upper

yellow chalk, the lower bluish, and the brilliancy of the

From

color increases the picturesque effect.

elevated points, the plains

appear to be dotted with ruined villages and towns whose avenues are lined

with painted walls of fortifications, churches and towers. faces,

denuded of soil,

lie

huge

with both valves together, titanic race."

like

.

.

On

level sur-

some opened and

oyster-like shells,

remnants of

.

a half-finished

others

meal of some

3

Now the life of that ancient world was being reconstructed by Cope and Marsh. Dinosaurs roamed the shores, strange birds and pterodactyls flew over the waters, reptiles

—

mosaurus,

which teemed with

giant turtles,

the plesiosaur and the mosasaur.

were snaky

creatures,

some

immense

The

fish,

and the seagoing

plesiosaur, like

Cope's Elas-

long, with large paddles to

fifty feet

push themselves along. The mosasaur, ancient kin to present-day monitor lizards,

swam through

thing like

a cross

the ocean with a long, flexible

between

a lizard

and

dolphin.

a

tail

and looked some-

They reached

lengths of

thirty feet.

When Cope his

mind

traveled the plains

and looked

the rock formations,

at

it

set

to work, taking him back through the millennia. "Far out in the

expanse of this ancient sea might have been rose above the surface, and stood

erect,

shaped head, or swayed about describing the water. ...

It

probably

swam many

a

huge, snake-like form, which

with tapering throat and arrow

a circle

feet

of twenty

below the

feet radius

above

surface, raising the

THE GILDED DINOSAUR head to the distant

then withdrawing

air for breath,

depths forty feet below, without altering

The

went

collecting

and

Cope

"A

we

part of the face with teeth

attacked

it

the

bone of the

Cope made

.

.

The

.

pelvis

had never been seen before in In October,

yet," I

he wrote This

will try.

little

like a big fat squirrel

In

words fashioned for

tle

canvass house" in

"the antelope,

a

he were battling that

as if

was observed projecting," he

am

I

with

not

a short tail."

which he

On

slept,

can get one

I

really,

but

described for Julia the

the prairie "as level

kind of wild dog with

big

a

tail

get in

I

as

a

"lit-

our parlor," and

in the

between the blankets and

Does thee know what

about

is

pony." At night, he told

of blankets and put them on the ground dark

also

to sure about the

6

as large as a little

it is

its

they

Cope was

this trip,

kind of a dog

a

Cope

a five-year-old,

at

time with

field, this

not certain whether

is

was

laid bare for

3

soldiers.

to sleep. In the night the coyotes bark.

It is a

gales

face.

"Thee must not be

animal

and unroll them, and when

tent

go

her, "as little

roll

few

small eyeholes, to protect

excursion into the

a third

very pretty animal

daughter, "I take a

his

a

delight of the party

this species."

"collecting" for his daughter, Julia.

dog

except for

and hind limb were

two wagons, fourteen mules, and seven

or not. But

4

with picks and knives. The lower jaws were

recovered with glistening teeth

when

and exploring the

it,

position."

The weather was good,

well.

described the discovery of his mosasaur

wrote, "and

prairie

body

of rock being blown into the

bits

ancient creature.

height

its

of a handkerchief, with two

that required the use

against dust

61

as large as

a

coyote

is?

Uncle George's Vic-

tor."

Cope

wrote of

also

siderably different

rode up to

my

mule.

his

old fellows ran away and

they went another way."

He

did have

"When we

Cope

first

I

signed his

her

at

that

I

one

am

after

them

apparently did not bring

at

day,

home

I

them with

for a while a prairie

and dog.

show Julia.

extended separation for Cope from

daughter, and he carried a picture of them,

He

went

ajar of alcohol to

a rattlesnake in

This was the

— which were con-

were hunting one

and came on two old buffaloes and ran

a little place

The

experiences chasing buffalo

from those of Marsh.

his

wife and

which he showed to the

soldiers.

Annie "take much love from thy Edward" and told have been thinking of you all the time and were it not

letters to

point, "I

in a situation to

do

a great deal for

paleontology,

I

would return

very soon." In a letter to Julia, he wrote, "I to stay with thee tle

and

am

going to come

home

before very long

Mamma for a long time. Does thee remember the lit-

songs thee used to sing

4

.

.

.

Tourtenay,' and Je suis un Prince.'

I

sing

M

62

them often to

to

Mamma

remember thee

for

In roughly a

by.

A F F E

J

Here

is

a

big *K' for Julia, she can give one

me."

month, Cope found

and Cretaceous

dactyls,

A R K

fishes. "I

Annie, "which for the time

fossils

can

now

of mosasaurs, giant tell

my own

turtles,

stories,"

ptero-

Cope

told

have been here are not bad."

I

would announce the following March that his pterodactyl was bigger than Marsh's. "The largest Pterodactyl as yet found on our con7 tinent," he would claim. (In the end, this species turned out to the same as Indeed, he

.

.

the

one Marsh had

papers,

all

discovered.) In

read before the

all,

.

Cope would

write four separate

American Philosophical Society the following

winter.

Cope lege,

stopped in Manhattan,

also

where he examined the

fossil

the Kansas State Agricultural Col-

at

collection of

Benjamin Mudge, which

included seven separate species of mosasaurs.

Mudge, born in Maine and trained as a lawyer, was another of those selfmade scientists. In 1861, he was working as an oil-refinery chemist in Kentucky when his strong antislavery views made Kansas a more agreeable place to

He

live.

lobbied the Kansas legislature to fund

became the

1864,

survey's

first

director.

a state

A year

geological survey and in

later,

he was elected profes-

sor of natural history at the agricultural college.

Mudge undertook

In 1870, state,

the

first

systematic search for

collecting from deposits along the Republican and

fossils in

Solomon

the

Rivers.

Mudge sent these to Cope. He also sent some specimens to Leidy. 8 Mudge had met Marsh years before when he was practicing law near Andover, Massachusetts, and Marsh was a student at Phillips Exeter. Mudge offered to help

Marsh on

when he found out furious.

Mudge

that

his

second Kansas expedition; Marsh declined. But

Mudge had

apologized, assuring

collaborated with Cope,

Marsh

that

Cope

Marsh was

hadn't seen anything

particularly new.

Cope back

Fort Wallace for Denver in the middle of October and was

left

in Philadelphia

home

very long.

surveyor,

On

by the end of the month. Evidently he didn't stay at his travels through Kansas, he had met a young land

W. E. Webb, who was organizing an

trip

through the

state later that

year.

"My

friend

W

E.

Webb

fellow, used to the plains, iar

with

localities

the land agent here

as a

surveyor of land

.

.

find to be delightful

over the

state,

young

very famil-

of fossils, which turn out to be very numerous and gigan-

9 tic," Cope wrote to his sister. come out in the "I will .

I

all

11th

month

&

spend

a

month on

a special

THE ULDKI) DINOSAUR

63

," he told her. "Such an opportunity is very Webb fine, with a man who knows the ground. Professor Marsh has been in that country for 3 weeks but has no such chance and it will cost nothing." He also advised Annie, "I am coming home soon, and will return the last of the 10 11th month ... to make an exploration with Webb and a small party." In 1872, Webb published a book titled Buffalo Land, an Authentic Narra-

expedition with

tive

.

.

.

of the Adventures and Misadventures of a Late Scientific and Sporting Party

u

upon the Great Plains of the West. rative a clef,

The leader of this tongue-in-cheek narman who could "tell cheese from chalk

Professor Paleozoic, a

is

under the microscope." 12

The

professor sounds remarkably like Cope. In

the paleontology section of the book,

fact, in

sor Paleozoic altogether

Webb

dispenses with Profes-

and simply quotes Cope. The other members of the

group were eastern sportsmen looking for some hunting and adventure.

The group

arrived at Hays City by

through the Saline River

Why,

unless saloons, card games,

one could hardly

urban

fabric,

hand,

if booze

Street

As

—

rail

to begin their journey west

went, Hays was no Philadelphia. essential

Trail,

elements of the

the whistle stop a town.

a city,

Hays was

a great

also the site

On

the other

metropolis.

down

the Kansas-Pacific tracks ran right

— Hays City was

end of the Chisholm

cities

and gunfights were call

and whores made

A railroad town Main

Valley.

of Fort Hays, and

it

the middle of

was near the

used by cowboys to drive Texas longhorn steers

to the railhead at Abilene. If the

enough,

concoction of railroad men, all

soldiers, and cowboys wasn't volatile do was add whiskey, and, lord knows, there was Hays City. "There is a row of saloons on the Kansas Pacific

you had

plenty of that in

to

Railway called Hays City,"

correspondent to the Junction City Union

a

reported in July of 1871.

"Almost every other building

is

a liquor

saloon or a house of ill fame,"

reporter for the Manhattan Standard wrote.

The

reporter took a

through Hays "by moonlight" and found the Santa Fe Saloon

with

what

light, is

and

soldiers staggering

going on within."

The

around in front ...

large, dilapidated

a

good

building

a

stroll

"all ablaze

indication of

on Main

Street

with the sign general outfitting turned out to be a bordello and not far away was the dance hall "kept by a Frenchman." A block further on was a large

"gambling

hell,"

with

billiard

and

faro tables, chuck-a-luck,

and

13

monte banks going "full blast." The soldiers would come riding down from Fort Hays, over the Big Creek, and along Fort Street until Custer's brother,

Tom, had earned

it

intersected with Main. General

a reputation,

even in

repeatedly riding his horse right into the saloons,

this

rough

place,

by

which often seemed more

—

"

M

64

A R K

and whiskey while ringed by as

much

a

Even with Wild

Hickok

— and

that

is

in line.

thirty-five violent deaths

at least

three of those

Hays, however, turned out to be too wild even for Wild

bet

itself

came

the

at

sheriff.

forced to flee diers in the

bar

Hays could not be kept

as sheriff,

were roughly

there

died with their boots on

hands of the

The

their drinks.

Bill

Between 1869 and 1874,

who

"halo" of pistols and knives.

a

barricade for the bartenders' protection as a place for cus-

down

tomers to put

boys

A F F E

than taverns. At one establishment; the barkeep dispensed beer

like arsenals

was

J

town

after a fight

with

summer of 1870. The

whiskey

Tom

Custer and

reason for the fight

— or "Tarantula

juice," as

it

a

is

Bill.

He

was

couple of other solalthough

lost,

was known

a

good

— had something

Hickok was jumped by the soldiers. The sheriff pulled out his revolver and shot one of the men point-blank over his shoulder, killing him. Figuring that he couldn't fight an entire army post, Bill left town and ended up the city marshal in Abilene. 14 Hays hadn't sobered up or calmed down in the year since Wild Bill's departure. "Hays City by lamplight was remarkably lively and not very to

do with

a

dressed

grim

Webb

"The streets blazed with the reflections from saloons, glance within showed the floors crowded with dancers. The gaily

moral,"

and

it.

wrote.

women striving to

artist,

Dissipation, loves to

The group bought set

draw upon such

provisions,

of bologna sausage," hired and then

hide with ribbons and paint the terrible lines that

a

which included "something like fifty yards a couple of Mexican teamsters, a guide,

wagon,

less

than two days

when one member of

Shamus, went out ahead of the group to

Webb

,:>

out for the Saline River.

They were out was,

faces.

said,

the party,

He

try to get a shot at a buffalo.

no one expected

"a poor rider" and "a miserable shot," so

much, and they watched with amusement

as

Shamus came

frantically gal-

loping back, arms and legs flapping away, being chased they supposed by an

angry buffalo. It

was only when their desperate friend came closer that they saw that

pursuers were not bison, but Indians. rifles,

jumped

in

between the oxen, and

spooked the horses and caused

a

his

teamsters grabbed their

started firing.

The

rifle

shots

general stampede, carrying the inexperi-

enced easterners galloping across the

The

The Mexican

plains.

Indians stopped about a half mile from the group for they were con-

fronting nine armed, if somewhat befuddled, white to quell the Mexicans' fire

and shouted

their reins so that the horses

to his

would run

men. The scout was

bounding

able

clients to pull

in circles. Finally,

when

on

things

THE GILDED DINOSAUR calmed down, the scout and Cope rode out to

The

Indians were a

talk to the Indians.

Chief White Wolf. They

led by

were hungry and asked for some food. The

said they

own

band of Cheyenne

65

"We

council.

would be

sure to

dog our

and

steps,

Webb

them and go on," Cope

dare not refuse

at

the

party held

its

advised, "they

convenient opportunity

first

attack."

They decided

And

they

so,

Land

Office,

all

to "invite" the Indians to return with

went back

As

it

dilemma.

There

powwow

a real

which included the postmaster and

well as the professor, pipe.

to town.

Webb, and

was passed around,

"He had

the guide.

Webb

them

Hays

to

was held

at

the

several leading citizens, as

White Wolf produced

said,

City.

a

red clay

the professor was faced with

a

never smoked. For an instant the professor hesitated, then

would be worse than choking over it, the Gasping amid excellent man put the stem to his mouth and gave a pull. the stifling cloud, it poured from mouth and nose." After the council, Webb said, the Cheyenne ate three dinners within two hours. reflecting that passing the pipe

.

The

next day, the

headed ture

scientific,

saddle.

"The

.

sporting party returned to the plains and

for the Saline River. Just like

from the

.

Marsh, Cope could not help but lec-

now

buffalo

feed over

a

surface strewn with the

remains of those monsters which inhabited the waters of

primitive

a

world," he told his companions. 16

The

valley

of the Saline River

here and there from the

hills

is

and

rolling land,

strings

whereabouts of the creeks that feed the

broken by rock faces jutting

of cottonwood

trees that

mark

the

river.

They camped in a grove near the river and not far from a tableland that would provide good shooting for the hunters. One of the marksmen had already bagged a wild turkey for dinner. Over the next few days, while the sportsmen combed the high plains for game, Cope searched for fossils. At the end of the day came the spectacle of sunset on the prairie, as the light of the sinking sun caught the clouds, turning those closest to the horizon deep

lavender and those higher in the Sitting

around the evening

he "looked more savant

like the

still,

fire,

blue sky, rose and pale orange.

Cope

used

a

box

latest secrets

wrung from

As they moved west, the band met the Sydney homestead on the Solomon River,

Cheyenne

ney had

lost his wife,

and

Webb said

Arkansas traveler writing home, than

committing to paper the

off by a

as a desk,

a little to

a

learned

nature." 17

family, returning to their

the north.

They had been run

raiding party almost a year before. In that raid, Mr. Syd-

and

his eldest

daughter had

lost

her husband. They had

run, but if they didn't return before the year was out, they

would

forfeit the

homestead. So Sydney was taking his two daughters and grandchild back to

M

66

what was father

A F F E

J

Webb

of their farm. They were,

left

and

A R K

his

widowed

said, a sad sight, a half-crazed

daughter.

Cope's attention, however, was attracted by the younger daughter, Miss He began flirting, and apparently Flora responded. "The professor

Flora.

assured

me

of fashion

and with much more than

confidentially that evening,

enthusiasm on such plates."

a subject, that she preferred the

his

wont

language of rocks to that

18

one of the party

Flora also proved to be crack shot, beating

in a sharp-

woman as that, the Professor said, was safe on the own way and clear her vicinity of savages, whenever necessary, as well as any of us," Webb wrote. Flora was a mainstay for her beleaguered family. "No wonder," Webb said, "the Professor took

shooting contest. "Such

a

she could fight her

frontier,

was

early occasion to tell us that she Still,

one of the party quipped

Edward" and

remember

Julia's papa,

daughter?

his

help dallying.

Be

it

who

noble

woman, an honor

to her sex."

that they appeared to have reached "the

What was

of spooning."

latitude

a

What

this?

sang

little

about Annie's "loving

French songs on the prairie to

seems Cope wasn't insincere, but he couldn't

It

a visit to

Joseph Henry's daughters,

mind

a

forbidden roman-

Annie

Pirn, the ladies always aroused

There would be other "Floras" over the

years. Charles Knight, the artist

tic liaison,

or opening his

to

Cope's ardor.

of prehistoric Philadelphia

life,

who worked

Quaker was

miles of him." Yet

closely with

that "in his

Cope would

dancing and socializing

Cope,

about the

woman was safe within five home and often recount his

heyday no

always return

in letters to

said the gossip

Annie and Julia,

a sign that at least

he

didn't believe he was doing anything improper.

The Sydney family moved off north, and the Webb band went west to Sheridan. Cope was once again in the "fossil belt." Riding along a canyon, they came upon something that looked "very much like a seventy-five foot serpent carved in stone,"

"This reptile

fossil,

which

Webb

gentlemen,"

said.

Cope

explained,

"is that

of a Mosasaur,

a

huge

At the Colorado line, the December, Cope was at the

existed in the Cretaceous Seas."

party turned back, and by the second

week

in

academy's Tuesday-night meeting.

On

autumn couldn't manage his

the best, for

trip,

Cope had

also

to get a train pass to

when Cope was

at

hoped to reach Fort Bridger but take him that far. Perhaps it was for

Fort Wallace, Marsh's Yale party was at the

the gilded dinosaur Wyoming

When

6?

outpost.

they arrived

A

mood.

a truculent

at

Fort Bridger, the

in

cut in pay and inferior rations (soldiers survived

mainly on hardtack, bacon, tees to take the

Marsh men found the garrison

many

pork, and coffee) had prodded

salt

"Grand Bounce." Out of the 160

companies, about 100 had already deserted.

men

enlis-

two

in the fort's

Some of the

soldiers believed

the poor pay and bad food was part of a plot by Congress to shrink the size

of the army, without owning up to

it.

Fort Bridger had been a strategic point for decades because

gateway to the low barren the Continental Divide.

of the

hills

The

Desert

—

an army post fifteen years

later.

By

summer of

the

importance of the post had diminished considerably

tracks).

Union

The

Pacific

the

at

Pony

the

Company.

trader, trapper,

exploited this

ing of the

settlers,

and explorer Jim Bridger advantage back in 1843, setting up a trading

was the

stood

the easiest crossing of

route had been used by

Express, and the Overland Stage It

Red

it

who post.

had It

first

became

1872, however, the

as a result

of the com-

(which used the same easy crossing to

lay

its

19

fort,

which covered about

forty acres

pound were Judge

on

either side of a small stream

At the southern end of the com-

called Black's Fork, sat in a pleasant valley.

Carter's big white house, his store, and saloon. Across the

road were a string of log houses where the officers and their families were billeted.

Officers'

the Aspen

Row was separated from the parade ground by Black's Fork and trees that lined banks. On the northern end of the parade its

ground were the commissary, guardhouse, blacksmith, bakehouse, and laun-

The enlisted men's barracks were on The Indian wars were long finished in

dry.

the railroad faded.

now

And so

running, the

the west side of the this

compound.

corner of the West, and with

fort's role as a

transportation

the officers and their ladies played croquet

hub had

also

on the edge of the civil com-

parade ground, and Judge Carter spent his time adjudicating plaints for alleged incidents

The

scientific

emerge,

as it

of horse thievery. 20

value of

proved to be

a

this

region was, however, just beginning to

unique repository of Eocene

ments of the Eocene had not collected anywhere

else

fossils.

The

sedi-

along the eastern front

of the Rocky Mountains, either having been washed farther

east

or eroded

over time.

But

in this

corner of the country, where Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah

meet, the Eocene sediments were trapped between the Rockies and

of smaller ranges to the

east,

including the

a series

Wind River, Uinta, and Wasatch

MARK JAFFE

68

Mountains.

There were three key

areas near Fort

Bridger where these Eocene sedi-

ments had collected. Just north of the Uinta Mountains was the Bridger

To

Basin.

the east of the Uintas was the Wasahkie, to the south was the

Uinta basin. All were promising

fossil lands.

Despite the dwindling manpower, Major LaMotte was able to find three

wagons and had been

a

ten-man

in Kansas.

escort for Marsh.

The going

here was easier than

Although the Bridger Basin was

much

pretty

it

a desert

grown with sagebrush, there were enough streams, with their Cottonwood groves, to provide "agreeable relief from the gray expanse on thickly

either side."

21

They camped on Henry's

Fork, a stream between the Gizzly Buttes bad-

lands and the Uinta Mountains.

The many-fingered

stream was thick with

willow and cottonwood. The snow-capped Uintas provided backdrop.

The weather was good, and

picturesque

a

the fishing was excellent.

During the

two weeks on Henry's Fork, the Yale men caught more than

One day, Marsh himself landed 139 one hundred pounds. trout.

The

pastoral nature of the place

fish,

weighing

was marred by the

a total

thousand

a

of more than

vast fires the Indians

repeatedly set in the mountain forests. Their aim was to burn

down

the

woods and create more prairies in the hopes that the disappearing buffalo would return. "Day after day, we saw heavy clouds of smoke rising, and night after night the mountainsides were masses of flames," wrote one

expedition member. "All argument with the Indians

is

in vain."

22

more than trout and Indians. The Eocene beds had a rhinos, elephants, tapirs, horses. The remarkable array of early mammals party even found two more horse species for Marsh, Orohippus uintanus and

The

basin held

—

O. pumilis. Finding the bones was hard work.

crawl over the country

"We

have

had to

literally

on our hands and knees," one student

said.

"To

see

these minute bones the eye must be brought within three or four inches of

the white clay It

deal,

on which they lie." all work for

was not, however,

and the Yalies joined them.

Yalies

and enlisted

men

the Yale boys.

When

on

his

horse and ended up with

head on the pony's neck.

By

the

himself.

summer of

soldiers

held horse races with kegs of beer

after lunch, John Quigley, a Sheffield student,

ble staying

The

drank

a

good

the officers were not around, the as prizes.

One

day

was so drunk that he had troua

black eye from banging his

23

1871, Marsh no longer had the Bridger Basin

John Wesley Powell had

appropriation with the help of

a

successfully shaken loose a

junior congressman from

all

to

government

Ohio named

— THE ULDEI) DINOSAUR James Garfield. Powell and Garfield were kindred

69

spirits,

both midwestern-

War veterans, both self-made men. newfound federal dollars, Powell was working his way south down the Green River, surveying an area ten to twenty miles wide on ers

from humble beginnings, both Civil

So, with his

either side.

Clarence King was also working

east

Survey of the Fortieth

U.S. Geological

War Department

financed by the

resources along the western

A

way

his

— was

through the area with

Parallel.

trying to

The King Survey document the natural

rail lines.

King was conducting the most detailed, the western surveys. Fossils were not a high

classmate of Marsh's at Yale,

organized and scientific of

all

priority for King, but whatever he did find, he sent

Marsh.

The

on

to his old friend

24

fossils

coming out of the Bridger Basin were extremely

In the evolutionary maze, the Bridger Basin provided

moment, about

fifty-eight million years ago,

take over Earth. Clearly this was an as

his

provocative.

look

a

when mammals were about

immensely valuable resource, and

Marsh was concerned, it belonged

to him.

that

at

He

had come

He

first.

to

as far

had

laid

claim.

This possessiveness was, even

his

admirers admitted,

a flaw.

The

fact that

he poached the Jersey marl beds or that Hayden had been in the Bridger Basin before

him

didn't

seem

Even Dr. Carter could and under

his vision

Carter wrote [them]. ...

I

to

I

Leidy, a

a

few specimens which

"but

very marked

Wyoming,

the

I

wanted

spirit I

of his

found

shall it

I

so."

let

The

in

Miocene

Day River

fossil

them u

beds of the John

lent

The time

minister

...

— now

is

a

for the fossils. "I

since he

.

and

to the

John Day

who

was both

basin. least,

Condon wrote Marsh

more than up," Condon

said.

need them too," he

said.

he thought he lent

asking for

them back.

Nineteen years

professor at the University of Oregon

had paid Condon

.

church and guidance in searching the

Marsh some of his specimens. At

to Marsh. Six years later,

.

Yale party had the benefit of both

Reverend Condon's preaching

Condon

him have

say jealousy

Marsh party went west

pioneer minister and geologist.

Marsh

23

River in Oregon, where they were met by Thomas Condon, a

Prof.

to send to you,"

under obligation to

felt

confess a feeling of disappointment that

After leaving

"Out one day with

see the problem.

found

noticed

to register with Marsh.

—was

still

later,

the

pleading

Marsh, however, assumed that

for his services that the specimens

belonged to

him. It

was while they were

in

Oregon

that the Yalies heard

of the great

fire

MARKJAFFE

70

that started

on

the night of October 8 and destroyed most of Chicago.

crates containing the

Kansas and

through Chicago, so Marsh passed his treasures

O'Leary's It

had been burned up

cow knocked

turned out the Yale

was certainly

a relief.

over

Wyoming a

fossils

had

all

The

been shipped

few anxious days wondering whether

in the conflagration started

when

Patrick

a lantern.

fossils

had escape the Great Chicago

But when Marsh learned Cope had been

Fire, at

and

Fort

that

Wal-

he was furious. That, too, was his territory. And when he heard that Mudge had shown his fossils to Cope, Marsh fumed even more. The West, however, was simply too big for Marsh to lock up in the attic

lace,

like his

mineral collection.

Marsh had

The Bridger

was heading

that way, too.

Basin was extremely valuable, and

would return again next summer, but Cope And so was Leidy. No one realized it yet, but a

already decided he

storm was brewing in the Bridger Basin.

Chapter Six

When

COPE ARRIVED AT Fort Bridger

he came

as

in late

and Geographical Survey of the Territories. an important position, but little

government

financial aid.

draw army

business,

was assured that

June of 1872,

the "chief paleontologist" of the U.S. Geological

it

wasn't.

Cope could

Still,

sounded

like

claim to be on

official

from post commissaries, and he

supplies

would be published

his findings

It

There was no pay and

in the survey's annual

report.

Ferdinand Hayden apparently had misgivings about signing up his survey. Nevertheless,

he

felt

he, too,

needed

with the King Survey sending

honor

Leidy. in

"You

to

will see therefore that while

competition with others

it

Cope to

for

Marsh,

was anxious to secure the coop-

a paleontologist. "I

eration of such a worker, as an

its fossils

my it is

seems almost

Hayden explained to pleasant thing to work

corps,"

not

a

a necessity."

Hayden would have liked to continue to send his fossils to Leidy. But Leidy would never engage in competition or try to best another scientist. So, just as Hayden had abandoned his first mentor John Strong Newberry for James Hall and then jumped from Hall to Leidy, now he switched allegiances from Leidy to the

more

aggressive

Cope.

At Fort Bridger, Cope learned the precise value of being Hayden's

man

— almost nothing.

fort

of wagons and horses and headed for Yellowstone, which the previous

few weeks

Just a

earlier,

Hayden had cleaned out

the

March had been designated America's first national park. Cope was left at Fort Bridger sleeping in the government hay yard and scrounging for supplies.

On June Ord

22,

for help.

informs

me

Cope wrote

"On

reaching

that Dr.

for help to the regional

this post,"

Hayden's

first

Cope

said,

commander, General

"Capt. Clift in

party have deprived

command

him of all

animals,

The remaining teams are all employed in furnishing wood to Camp Douglas. The post has moreover no riding animals nor saddles. The men on duty tomorrow will number only fourteen (fourteen privates). Capt. Clift states that in ten days he can furnish one wagon and two

bridles, saddles, etc.

men, but no

saddles

.

.

.

nor other animals." 71

1

MARKJAFFE

72

The

Cope

big problem for a paleontology expedition,

was getting to the

wanting material/' Cope wrote, "consists of mules, could do nothing. "Prof.

Cope

Two weeks

Cope was

later,

saddles,

"The

and men." Ord

waiting.

still

been here some time but has done nothing," Dr. James

has

Van Allen Carter wrote and crippled

explained to Ord,

regions and carting back the specimens.

fossil

to

Marsh on July

6.

"Hayden came some time ago

Cope's prospects for transportation, etc." 2 Carter proba-

Prof.

news would cheer up Marsh, for since Cope's Kansas coming out, the Yale professor had been complaining loudly,

bly thought the

papers started

widely, and often.

Some of

the things

Cope was

reporting on, Marsh had in his ample

Kansas collection, but simply had not yet gotten around to studying. Marsh

was methodical

— and

slow.

While Cope might make

mistakes, he was

nim-

ble.

month, Carter had

Earlier that

when

Cope paper

a

tried to soothe

am

apparently beat Marsh. "I

some

ruffled feathers

sincerely sorry to learn of

another disappointment to you by the action of Prof. Cope. This I

knew of his

having been over any of the

your great

interest,

and having seen

advance

and the

cause,

is

— not

it

to put

In that

hunt

fossils.

stronger

it

same

letter,

I

am

—

to

how

explored by you.

fields

be thus anticipated."

how

delighted to have you two together here, and all

in this

way," Carter

my

Knowing

faith

said. Leidy,

provoking

to it

to Fort Bridger to

Leidy had already accepted Carter's invitation.

beneficially to

first

3

come out

Carter urged Marsh to

the

you labor personally

earnestly

prepared to estimate

fully

is

is

that

"I it

would be will work

Carter assumed, was "a

genuine friend" of Marsh and that the two could reach an agreement on sharing

But

fossils.

What was

his duties at

were tending

to

Carter thinking?

Yale and the pressure to publish brought on by

keep Marsh in

New

editors of the American Journal of Science to hold

he could complete an nal,

founded

in

article.

Although not

open the August

was closely

issue until

actually a Yale organ, the jour-

1818 by Professor Benjamin Silliman

called "Silliman's Journal,"

Cope

Haven. In fact, Marsh was lobbying the

allied

with the

Sr.

and commonly

university.

But James

Dwight Dana, who was now the editor, was reluctant to hold blank pages for Marsh. "I could not on an} account leave with pages unfilled," he told Marsh. Couldn't

Dana

felt,

his report

go

in the

September edition? Marsh, Professor

4 was becoming something of a nuisance.

This year Marsh's foray into the West would be limited. Toward the end

of the summer, he planned to take

a small

party

brief run into western Kansas and eastern

—

just four students

Wyoming. He hoped

—

for a

that Dr.

GILDED DINOSAUR

Tilt

Carter and two hired

fossil

73

hunters would guard his interests in the Bridger

Basin.

With Marsh

New Haven and Leidy not expected at Fort Bridger until

in

late July,

Wyoming was

men. By

this time,

planned to spend

Cope's,

all

Annie and

all

summer

if

he could only find

had joined him

Julia

a

few mules and

Fort Bridger.

at

Cope

moved from

exploring the basin, and he had

the hay yard into a rented house.

There was, however, only one way to get out of the

what he needed with

his

own money. He

mules for $500 and hired another team and driver hired a teamster, a cook, and a guide and packer. for

man and

each

He

hard bread,

of bacon, beans,

oysters,

salt,

ened to

that they

leave.

he told

a

ham.

Cope

some canned

by their chance

fort, their leader, a

told

them

to go. "I

up an expedition of his own."

Cope wrote

to

am

fellow

named Garman,

glad to be rid of them at the out-

Garman had

wrote, but was probably

noted, "there have been

some

apprising

him of

were "a

his difficulties in

little

high." But he

gigantic remains lately from here,

Marsh." 6 The very next

day,

Cope's five-man party

headed southeast, into the Bridger Basin. The provide no military escort.

whole scheme was

suspect ... his

a fraud. "I

Hayden

passed himself off as a Quaker,

getting outfitted, adding that the prices he paid

Cope

fort's

left

sing

all

on

didn't think they really

Cottonwood Creek. around," Cope wrote. to

After a few of days in the a letter for

needed one. They

things."

Cope

.

.

.

is

a lovely

there,

& in two days have found 25

Thee need not

advised, "except that

From

creek and the birds

sent a teamster back to the fort with

Annie. "I have had great success

30 species of which 10 are new. success,"

Cope

field,

"It

which go

the fort and

depleted ranks could

reach Smith's Fork, eight miles south of the post, and camped. they pushed

he

for study," or so

be paid for their time. Cope balked. The three threat-

Cope

to Prof.

thirty

young men from Chicago join him,

to benefit

his brother, James.

14,

day

3

to get

On July

a

He

onions, canned tomatoes, flour,

rice, apples,

thought. Just before leaving the

set,"

month.

commissary and quartermaster

fort's

also arranged for three

young men who "wished

demanded

a

paid one dollar

pepper, and vinegar. For himself, he purchased

canned peaches, and

Cope had

Cope had to buy wagon and four

SI 80

at

He

a

mule.

was able to draw from the

days' rations

fort.

purchased

I

am

say anything

doing well

&

about

getting

or

my

some

7

At about the same time, Cope left Fort Bridger, Leidy and his wife, Anna, arrived. They had traveled all the way from Philadelphia to Carter

MARK JAF

74

Station

man

— nine

toilets.

miles from the post

Folks

—

comfort of one of the

in the

wood interior, fresh had christened the new sleeper cars

with

cars,

F E

polished

its

new

Pull-

towels, sitting rooms, and

on wheels."

"yachts

Dr. Carter and Dr. Joseph Corson, the post's army surgeon, had been

sending Bridger Basin

fossils

the Philadelphian's very

week

to Leidy for

among

years.

But

this

the 'badlands,'

awed walking through the badland canyons.

"It requires little stretch

imagination to think oneself in the

of some

city,"

was

came about

a

Marsh in a July 23 letter, "& has had a four which he enjoyed very much." 8 Leidy was

ago," Carter reported to

day trip

more than two

to the West. "Dr. Leidy

first visit

streets

of the

ruined deserted

vast

he wrote.

These small

from the

trips

Leidy's approach to

fossil

relative

comfort of Fort Bridger would be

The

hunting.

forty-nine-year-old naturalist was

not about to launch himself on one of the grueling

Marsh might

entertain. Indeed, for several years

Cope

or

prominence

in

fossil treks that

now,

his

paleontology had been slowly eroded by the vigor of Marsh and Cope.

When

Leidy began applying

vertebrate

fossils in

twenty years,

his

command

flowed to him from

all

Then Cope and Marsh detailed

work

savaged in

understanding of anatomy to American

to date

when

field.

For the next

it

came

to fossils with backbones.

appeared, and things quickly changed. In 1867, Reptiles

on America

United States

of the

—

the most

of that period. In England,

fossils

it

was

a review.

"Altogether," the reviewer wrote, fulness for the

memoir, such

to paleontology, that

quackery,

alone in the

of the subject was unchallenged, and specimens

Cretaceous

his

much

over the country. Hall in Albany and Baird in Wash-

ington both deferred to Leidy

Leidy published

his

1847, he was pretty

its

as

it is,

it

say that

can remember.

worst condemnation

The review was thought that

we

"we must, while

signed "H."

is

that

And

Its it

it is

expressing our thank-

the least able contribution

best praise

contains

no

is

that

it

contains

no

science."

everyone, including Leidy and Cope,

was written by Thomas Huxley.

It

sounded

like

him. Sting-

banner bearer

As the leader of the young Darwinian evolution, Huxley was famous for his stiletto prose. One of his favorite betes noires was Richard Owen, now a peer of the realm, with whom he was in a running battle over a variety of paleontology, evolutionary, and political issues. As for Sir Richard being "the English Turks of British science, the

ing.

for the

Cuvier," Huxley asserted, "he stands in exactly the same relation to the

French

as British

brandy to cognac."

Leidy's transgression, as far as to

make any

sense out of the

"H" was

huge

concerned, was

reservoir

his unwillingness

of facts he was amassing.

"I

am

THE GILDED DINOSAUR too busy to

make money or

75

would

theorize," Leidy

say.

Leidy just wanted

to find the bones and describe them. However, for paleontologists,

like

Huxley, the value wasn't in the bones, but the story they told.

Then* throwing

hope

"H"

in an extra slap,

that the remains so precious will

not that the accomplished author

make

.

.

.

wrote,

"We

look forward with

some day be elucidated and doubt

and discoverer of Laelaps [Cope]

available to scientific students the descriptions

of

will

his Philadelphia

brother Professor."

Cope

In a letter to his father,

&

both Leidy

it

Huxley's review was "of the

handsome, nor Christian ...

severest kind, not gratification as

said that while

cannot help feeling some

I

does not equal in unhandsomeness the manner in which

Hawkins

[the dinosaur sculptor] have treated

me." 9

However, John Strong Newberry, the physician and geologist, wrote to had spoken to Huxley,

Leidy, saying that he

the review.

summer

Meek,

like

major

and he managed

and paleontology. As

scientific papers,

figure in the politics

and not

Meek and

years past, those

F.

together for in the

West

of scientists that would be

to attract

affiliated

some of the top names

a result, his

annual reports were

coincidentally,

in geol-

filled

with

Hayden became an important

of American science.

Working near Black Bridger,

was B.

in the region

survey.

steadily building a cadre

his survey,

continued that

Cope, was invited to work

new

under the auspices of Hayden's

Hayden was

it

Meek and Hayden had worked

fossil shells.

Hall in Albany, and

ogy, biology,

working

in the Bridger Basin. Also

Meek, an expert on

with

swore he had not written

there was a change in scientific affairs afoot, and

Still,

very

who

10

a

Buttes, about forty-five miles northeast of Fort

coworker came upon some vertebrate remains. In

Meek now

bones would have gone to Leidy, but

contacted

Cope.

At Black Buttes, Cope found the fragments of an ancient animal lying a

bed of

fossil leaves.

He

excavated sixteen vertebrae, the sacrum,

some of

other pelvic bones, ribs and

showed

that there

dinosaur skeleton.

of the

forest."

Though

was

little

He named

doubt it

the limbs.

that this

Agathaumas

ilia

in

and

n Cope's examination

was America's third major

syhestris,

or "marvelous saurian

12

only

a partial skeleton, the animal, at

an estimated six tons, was

huge. "If the reader will compare the measurements given for the species of the groups already

known, he

will observe that those

exceed those yet described for North America," Despite being limited to brief forays into the

of the present animal

Cope concluded. 13

field,

Leidy was unearthing

MARKJAFFE

76

valuable

fossils

and making important discoveries.

able finds was the remains

ing four feet in length.

It

of a bizarre beast with

had tusks and three

One a

of his most remark-

massive skull, approach-

of horns. Leidy named

sets

this

mammal of the Eocene Uintatherium robustum. was making good progress and very much enjoying his visit

extraordinary, rhinoceros-like

While Leidy to the West,

Cope was having

all

sorts

of problems. From Cottonwood

Creek, the party had moved northeast to Bitter Creek, which unfortunately lived

up to

its

name. The water was sharp and

bers of the party to get sick.

Then

alkali

causing several

mem-

the spring gave out entirely.

Unlike picturesque Henry's Fork, Bitter Creek wasn't large enough to sustain as

it

cottonwood

trees

and had only

a

dribbled dun-colored water through

cordon of bushes along a

its

banks,

barren, white-rock valley. After

Cope was forced to break camp. "The stock began to look miswould have died had I not left when I did," he said. The two teamsters "began to go wrong," as one of them used the grain

three weeks, erably and

other team. The mules broke their tether one night, and one

set aside for the

of the teamsters had to go off in search of them. days later and thirty-five miles away

ing back directly, the

"When

man

he returned,"

at

He

finally

found them four

Black Buttes. Then, instead of com-

spent three days in a saloon.

Cope

wrote, "he seems to have expected dis-

more worth of provisions etc. from our larder and 'cached' them. He drove on the return as far as the Buttes, and then tore up the collar, ran the wagon into a ditch and started out for another spree. I discharged him at once." In Green River City, Cope hired another wagon and charge, so he stole $20 or

teamster.

The

hard rock faces

and stone hammers to quitoes

&

for exhausting work, requiring chisels, wedges,

free the fossils.

It

The

off the insects.

only respite

Still, as

different species

half of them new.

tusks.

came with

of fossil animals

finding to the

One

said,

"a land of mos-

which drove

— mammals,

fish,

and

reptiles

— perhaps

of the most curious discoveries was the remains of a

first

skull sporting three sets

claim to the discovery,

American Philosophical

Morse code was an exercise managed to bollix the name. Back

Cope

the cool of the evening,

mammal, with a massive Cope named it Loxolophodon.

In an attempt to ensure

into

also,

August moved along, Cope had collected more than

huge, rhinolike

and

was

midges and gnats." The party tried smoking out the bugs, with

little effect.

fifty

made

filled

Society.

with

But

risk,

Cope

of horns

telegraphed his

translating

Greek words

and the telegraph operator

in Philadelphia, the officers at the society tried to

make

the best

sense they could of the message and read a notice into their August 19 min-

Tilt

GILDED DINOSAUR

77

'The secretary announced that he had received a telegram from Professor Cope dated Black Buttes, Wyoming, August 17, 1872 readutes stating,

ing (with conjectural corrections for specific words) "

4

have

I

Lefalaphon,

discovered

as follows:

southern Wyoming, the

in

following

species

"

Cope/

As the weeks, passed Marsh's summer plans were coming undone. The first hint of problems came in letter dated July 16, from John Chew, one of his hired

fossil

ofjune, he until

hunters. "I have been in your

now

is

with another party,"

employ with Smith

Chew

am

wrote. "I

since the 12th

continuing work

hear from you." 14

I

The Smith mention was

Chew

had gone to

didn't

tor while Dr. Carter

"Sam" Smith. Where Smith Marsh was now down to one fossil prospec-

the irascible B. D.

say.

was busy entertaining Leidy.

Carter did write for he had some news, "I regret for

proven

human

few days

however,

your

Smith has

interests that

you," Carter wrote.' 3 Smith was with

false to his obligations to

telegram to Smith

a

later,

some very bad news.

nature's sake as well as

Cope. Marsh immediately sent

A

Fort Bridger.

at

The

came not from Smith, but Judge Carter. to Smith which came yesterday found him absent, in employment of Prof. Cope. I had no idea he would prove so false to

reply

"Your telegram

engagement with you. ...

I

learned that he had hired himself to

was going out with him and that he had showed him some of the ten for you. Prof. Leidy and his wife have been with us for

some

What

Cope

torture this

is

also

his

Cope and fossils

got-

time.

The

Doctor was out with Jeremy Carter and Dr. Corson on Wednesday has yet to return.

the

last

and

out with his party." 16

must have been

for

Marsh, and

from Smith

a letter

explaining himself certainly did nothing to assuage the professor's worries.

"Friend Marsh," Smith's

few a

lines

few

them

and

let

days, but have left him, a

few

days. ...

for Pine Bluffs in the

I

my

I

getting along.

I

was with

eyes

were sore and

I

thought

I

got your letter and dispatch. ...

morning

to collect for you.

the place and will be going there, but

and

if

would write you

began, "I thought

am

letter

you know how

he does get there

I

I

I

think

don't intend he

don't think he will be

I

am

I

a

Cope

would

going to

Cope

shall get

much

Prof.

rest start

has heard of

ahead of me

in the

way

for

he

don't understand collecting very well and he has fellout with his party and is all

alone."

17

Marsh must have suspected

that

Smith was painting an overly rosy pic-

MARKJAFFE

78

ture

— Cope was too smart and too

resourceful to

fail

— and

if

there were

any doubts, the coming weeks would dispel them. For Cope's papers on the Bridger Basin started to land even before he returned.

Cope was sending

back to the American Philosophical Soci-

his papers

ety for quick publication. (Hayden's report

The

was published only

annually.)

society printed sporadically, but papers' being read into the record

would help

establish priority.

New Vertebrae

Cope's

first

paper, "Descriptions of

Some

from the Bridger Group of the Eocene," named ten species

and was dated July 29. 18 The following week came the "Second Account of the New Vertebrae from the Bridger Group," with five more species, including the

named A. While

first

mention of an ancient

found

reptile

is

received wide distribution, Marsh might have a

member of the

Joseph LeConte,

And

dog days of

unlikely that any papers sent back during the

He

Cope's

Black Buttes

sylvestris™ it

summer was

at

society,

also a society

and

known about them.

his Philadelphia friends,

member, tended

to keep

such

as

Dr.

him posted on

activities. so, in

the middle of the summer,

Marsh took

his four

Yale students

And even though he had told Dr. Carter he would not western Wyoming this year, Fort Bridger was now on the itiner-

and headed west.

make

it

to

But he might never have gotten there Indian pony named Pawnee.

ary.

Once more, Marsh's

first

at all if

it

hadn't been for

a swift

stop was Fort Wallace. Outfitted with a military

Ned Lane again serving as guide, the party headed east into the region of the Smoky Hill River badlands. Marsh was now almost as much at home on these prairies as his comescort, led

panions.

Lane

by Lieutenant James Pope, and with

They rode along

in buckskin,

together,

Mexican

slouch hat and old corduroy

One

day, as they

spurs, suit,

came over

Pope and

army cap and blue uniform; wide sombrero; and Marsh in a

in his a

the pockets bulging with specimens.

before them was the most "The broad valley before us,

a rise, stretching

massive buffalo herd any of them had ever seen.

perhaps, six or eight miles wide, was black with buffalo, the herd extending a

dozen miles up and down the

calculated that there had to be at least

must have one of those fellows

Marsh recalled. 20 Lieutenant Pope one hundred thousand buffalo. "We

valley,"

for supper,"

Lane announced, and so the

men decided to hold an impromptu hunt. Armed with a cavalry carbine and a pair of navy revolvers, Marsh rode down into the valley on his horse, Pawnee, and came close to the edge of the herd. He set his sights on a young cow and went off after the animal, which

three

moved with

surprising speed. As he was closing in, several shots snapped

THE GILDED DINOSAUR behind him. Marsh assumed that

his

79

comrades were

at

fixed on his prey, and he said he brought down the manner my first guide, Buffalo Bill, had taught me." It

work. But he was

buffalo "in the exact

was only then that he turned around and saw that the gunshots had

stampeded

mass of buffaloes. At that

this gigantic

ized that the chase had carried to lap

around me," he

moment

said,

him into the heart of the herd. I would soon be enclosed

"and

.

try to slide his

also real-

"They began .

.

way toward

So he

the edge.

rode.

As he rode, he fired at the animals nearest to him, hoping to open of escape. "The whole mighty herd was

now

any

liable at

chance was to ride with the

to be trampled to death." His only

stampeding mass and

moment Marsh

at full

speed, the earth

path

a

seemed

shake under the moving mass, which with tongues out, and flam-

fairly to

ing eyes and nostrils, was hurrying onward, pressed by those behind,"

Marsh wrote. With each

stride, the valley

was narrowing, and even worse,

they were heading into a large prairie-dog colony, falo

began to stumble, pitch

over,

Marsh's Pawnee showed himself to be wise at full

speed along with the herd, he kept

whenever

dangerous dog hole was in

a

leaped over

fleet.

It

was

that

"While running

head down," Marsh

his path,

now

"and

said,

he either stepped short or

horse was starting to

his

tire.

Marsh was

The

valley

nearly out of

had turned into

a

of ravines, and buffalo were jumping and plunging into and out of the

gullies.

The

buffalo were so packed around

could have reached out and touched them.

Marsh saw

a

glimmer of hope. Ahead was

to divide to get

around

it.

Marsh began

ing to clear a path to the butte.

He swung

watched

as

his horse

mile,"

The

Marsh

with bleeding

I

saw why

said.

flanks,

a

Marsh

in the

Coming

low

butte.

on

my pony

"He was

washes that he

out of

a

deep ravine,

The herd would

have

on his left trymore rapidly he butte. From there, he

firing at the buffalo

closer they got, the

around to the back of the

the herd streamed past

"Dismounting, last

well as

as

his

the herd had covered several miles,

ammunition, and

fired.

with den holes. Buf-

it."

By now series

filled

and trample one another.

either side.

had seemed so foot-heavy during the

covered with dust, nearly exhausted, and

distended forelegs, and blazing nostrils, he stood quiv-

ering and breathing heavily, while the buffalo were passing within

a

few

feet."

Soon

all

that

downed

was

left

were wispy eddies of the herd, and Marsh,

young

still

the

With his hunting knife, he removed the tongue and hump steaks, an amount "sufficient for our small party." Marsh unsaddled the horse and rubbed him down with the saddle blanhunter,

ket.

a

heifer.

His canteen was empty, but he offered the contents of his pocket

flask.

MARKJAFFE

80

Pawnee declined. Marsh started to lead him back toward camp, but the horse, Marsh said, "soon made me understand that he was himself again." They rode back through the darkness, to the sound of a signal gun firing. Usually, one of the soldiers cared for the mounts, but that night Marsh rubbed down Pawnee himself. Although the time spent greatest discoveries

the Yale parties had collected the remains of

all

the very

fossil birds,

1870, Marsh had described three genera and aquatic birds,

one of Marsh's

in the Kansas plains was brief,

came out of this journey. From

first

expedition,

and

as earlier as

of prehistoric,

five species

modern birds. This summer, his small party was more birds. They did, uncovering four individuals.

related to

under orders to find

Marsh himself found an almost complete skeleton of a huge, ancient standing nearly six feet Fossil birds ily sil

due

tall.

had become

All that a

was missing was

Huxley had made old

had shaped them

model

into reptilian elephants.

of dinosaurs and

birds.

One

primar-

giant lizards.

Owen

Robert

Leidy had used kangaroos

could even

fos-

major battleground. Gideon

as

But Huxley had promoted the

for his dinosaur.

circles,

war over evolution and

birds a

Mantell had originally thought of dinosaurs

bird,

skull.

very hot issue in paleontology

to the ever-controversial Huxley. In the

interpretation,

its

say,

as

the

idea of the similarity

Huxley argued,

descended from dinosaurs. From an evolutionary viewpoint,

birds

this

had

was an

extremely beguiling position.

Opponents of Darwinian evolution argued the level of genera

than

a snake.

How

—were

discrete creations.

An

could anyone dispute that?

that animals

—

certainly at

eagle was clearly different

Still, if

paleontologists could

show similarities in form and function and carry development back to some common ancestor, if they could trace the branching and variation, it would go a long way toward bolstering Darwin. Already evidence was beginning to

pile up. In 1862, just three years after

Darwin's Origin of Species was published, a striking discovery was made in the soft limestone of Solnhofen, Bavaria. There, in a quarry, was uncovered the complete

fossil

and the long claws of a link

between

bony tail Here was the

skeleton, save for the head, of a creature with a

reptile

reptile.

and

birds.

But

it

also clearly

had

feathers.

The specimen was dubbed

Archaeopteryx, or

"ancient feather."

Then

there was Compsognathnus, a small theropod dinosaur with a host of

anatomical similarities to birds. Marsh had written these. In 1867,

Cope

"gave an account of extinct ontologists had

a

delivered remarks before the reptiles that

been puzzling over

paper noting some of

academy

in

which he

approached birds." For years pale-

large three-toed tracks in the sandstone

— TIIK

of the Connecticut River

Ml OH) DINOSAUR

valley. It

was thought

Cope argued

made by

giant birds, but

dinosaurs.

That same year Huxley published

similarities as to

81

that they

that a

must have been

they had been

made by

study showing

thirty-five

between Archacoptcryx and Compsognathnus. Huxley went so

far

suggest that dinosaurs might have been "hot blooded," and had bird-

like hearts

and lungs. 21

Marsh was collecting in the Kansas Cretaceous, and his bird fossils were a one hundred million years closer to modern times. Still, there were still important bridging similarities. Marsh Archaeopteryx was a Jurassic animal,

had some valuable specimens, but he was missing taceous bird puzzle.

very same to

It

was

a

summer and had

a

piece of the Cre-

Mudge had discovered

piece that Benjamin

put into

a crucial

box he was preparing

that

to send east

Cope.

Sam Smith wrote another

In August, actions

how

— having

Marsh trying

a turncoat.

motive in going with

Cope was

to keep

him

off some places that

good bone country," Smith said. "I did not intend he got some things mostly turtle, very few things. Then

think

is

wishing

me

to

to quit I

I

you long,

got your letter

go black buttes." 22

Leaving Fort Wallace, Marsh stopped briefly then

to defend his

doubtless heard from the Carters of Marsh's anger and

everyone thought him

"My

letter to

finally arrived in the

at

Fort D. A. Russell and

Bridger Basin toward the middle of August.

Yale party immediately started

fossil

prospecting.

One

The

of the most impres-

made was of the skull of a huge animal with of horns and tusklike teeth. Marsh named the animal Dinoceras.

sive finds the party

three sets

By

late August, Cope's party was down to four pack mules and three men. As Marsh took to the Bridger Basin, Cope had shifted to the Wasatch

Basin.

Whether

Yale party

mean

this

not

was by chance or to avoid coming face to face with the

clear,

but

Cope and Marsh

did not cross paths. That didn't

they were unaware of what the other was doing.

One spot,

is

Cope even watched from afar as Marsh's men worked over a and when they left, he went down to investigate. He found in their day

excavation the pieces of a weathered skull and that his rivals

eventually used the material to describe a

But the

men. The

some

had either overlooked or rejected the

skull

and the teeth were

fossils

were

actually

new

really a

from two

loose teeth. Figuring

fossil,

he claimed

it

and

species.

mischievous plant by the Marsh different animals.

It

would be

a

M

82

A R K

A F F E

J

almost twenty years before the error would be caught and corrected. 23 In the Wasatch,

Cope found

found the remains

— including

This one he called

a

number of large

the skulls

"This was skull

of one

is

is

&

three-feet long,

September, from

extraordinary

fossil

of

it.

more

of the

large as the largest living

&

It

his

camp

in

and proportions.

The head of the femur

stood shorter in the legs than an ele-

as in

latter.

mammal found

Marsh

in size

the hips five feet across.

phant, and was proportioned

Again he

to his father.

it

the top of my hat.

as large as

fossils.

massive multihorned animal.

monstorous animal, and Elephantine

a

illustrating

a

Eobasileus. In a letter in early

on the Green River, he described

Its

— of

vertebrate

the Rhinoceros, but was twice

word

... In a

&

N. America,

Leidy have obtained

it

Eobasileus I

is

as

the most

have good material

near the same time

&

I

have no idea whether they have fathered in advance of me or not." 24

Cope was that

had

it

fairly sure that

He

a trunk.

the animal was a proboscidean, which

sketched his vision of the animal for

stocky pachyderm with short tusks and a

Cope

closed his letter with

horn over each

fat

more mundane

I

sell

autumnal; sometimes ice and snow are not

A week

later,

ting frosty, rice

however,

Cope was

still

out.

.

.

The

.

—

suppose has

sent thee the cacti," he said. "I will probably remain here for about a

and then close up the expedition and

to say

eye.

"Annie

matters.

is

his father

week

season here

is

far off."

in the field.

The

nights were get-

and blankets were "none too many." Bacon, beans, bread, and

were the

staples

now, with

a

deer or grouse added to the fare

men made a good shot. Coming out of the mountains, Cope dropped

when one

of the

into the Uinta basin

—

the

same basin Marsh had discovered and named in 1870. This would be his last stop. Camp life was getting ever more basic. They cooked their meat

on forked

Indian-style

under the willow

sticks,

and

trees

fell

ing to the yelping of coyotes."

covered with

frost,

One of the men in

Ohio of the

lions, tigers

long.

man

.

.

has

.

.

We

.

hunt.

since.

"We

I

men

he awoke

his

up at

spread his blankets out at

canteen was frozen.

legs ten

different species

feet

and

tail

They did not hauling of them to

or monkey.

did the

Cassiopeia and listen-

5 A.M., the blankets were

Cope, James Manley, wrote

found many

one with

lizard,

Cope

night

"asleep looking

When

traveling with

found no

come

at

and the water in

fossil .

and

to his

mother

of elephants,

twenty-five feet

exist at that period,

the

rail

road to be

shipped." 23

On

Cope returned to the and Marsh were back east. Cope had a third September

18,

can Philosophical Society. This one

post.

By

this time,

both Leidy

dispatch ready for the

announced

Ameri-

that the extinct animal

found near Black Buttes was

new

M

GILDED DINOSAUR

Tilt

dinosaur.

a

also reported the discovery

It

of

vertebrate species from the upper waters of the Bitter Creek, including

The

Eobasileus.

expedition had been

Fort Bridger exhausted and with

but

a great success,

Cope came back

heavy cold that quickly turned into

a

a

to

bad

fever.

Now responsibility for the Cope family nursing

a sick

fell

on Annie, who found

Edward, mothering six-year-old

herself

corresponding with

Julia,

Hayden to try to get money, and fending off the landlady, a woman of the West, whose ripe and florid vocabulary could blister paint and make a young Quaker wife blanch. Cope's fever was high, and he suffered from dreams in which he saw "multitudes of persons speaking

delirious

something and

frustrating

all

Cope had been

.

.

of

when by

low lamplight

a

— Annie wrote back

—

so as

to Philadelphia.

& Mother,

Dear Father dear

week,

sick for nearly a

not to disturb her sleeping patient

My

ill

attempts to sleep."

.

E came

on the 18th having contracted a heavy

into the post

cold from sleeping out with insufficient covering, which has since been

developing.

A ing

& some inflammation

high fever

ducing great it

restlessness,

and no

of the brain for a day or two proonly dozing

sleep,

to frightful scenes,

mak-

most roilsome and wearisome.

However, Dr. Corson seems

to

understand his

case,

and

is

most atten-

tive.

A

blister

leaves

him

on the back of the neck has diminished the inflammation, but

in a very

weak

for him from his inability I

had hoped

to

now

he has taken

blisters to the temples,

sick.

Dr. staid with

him and

will

me go

Since July, when forced to spend a

to eleven

letter,

hundred

& much

Cope had

dollars for

den, "I have had very

expected

this

gave him Dome's powder, and he

until a late hour, but things look so to

bed myself

good

26

deal of his

own money, Cope

been trying to get some of it back from Hayden. After supposed to provide at least transport and rations. In a July 21st

painfully long

be sleeping the first refreshing sleep without nightmares since

favorable I released

up

is

with anyone or see strangers.

was over today; but the fever returned

that the worst

p.m. Dr. applied

seems

& helpless condition. Tlie time to converse

good

that

is

outlined

all

two months

all,

his expenditures,

in the

field.

Cope

success in this time better than

new

in spite

of Marsh

&

had

the survey was

which added assured I

Hay-

could have

Leidy's previous

"

M

84

work.

.

.

.

You

see the

A R k

money

is

A F F E

J

Cope

well invested." But

pleaded, "I per-

enough money to put my wife and child through. So 27 $800. imagine about Hayden came through and sent two four-hundred-

sonally have only

Annie Cope

dollar checks to

Now

September, with

in

at

Fort Bridger.

Cope

seriously

ill,

and Annie wrote to Hayden on September 22.

on the

post

1

money was an

"My

issue again,

husband came

in to the

8th not well, with mountain fever which has prostrated him

much and

renders him unable to write to you at present." Annie went Hayden a brief account of the areas her husband had explored before coming back to the fort.

very

on

to give

Four days

my

you ...

Annie again wrote

later,

husband has been quite

Hayden. "Since writing to

to

with inflammation of the brain and

ill,

constant fever for 10 days, which has reduced the inflammation has been reduced the

bed and

.

.

.

finances. ...

you might be It

may be some weeks

By October Hayden.

have spent

Two

of

before he

days

favored with

Cope had

sit

up

is

in

any

his inability to attend to

able to attend to business or

recovered enough to dictate to Annie

outlined his expenses

It

all

10,

my

private means."

later,

"Nothing

father.

early apprized

him extremely weak though

day or two he cannot

home." 28

start for

for

last

a

Cope was

is left

good

a letter

— another S790 — and Cope added,

strong

enough

on

to write

own

his

of the fever except the weakness," he reported.

appetite and

"I

29

my

to his "I

am

nights are positively happy under the

influence of an opiate."

On ings,

a

more devout

and sometimes

Cope assured, "I am blessed with cheerful feelmore so by the nearness of the church's comforter,

note,

still

the Elder Brother and sympathizing Friend,

and

who

The "Thy

sticks close to those

following day, in

daughter,

my

also

a

a letter to his

me

whose

service

faithfully

Cope

mother-in-law,

shown

perfect liberty;

and saved

praised Annie.

the talents of her family for

me much

suffering. ... It has

very fortunate circumstance that she accompanied

much

is

endeavour to walk near him." 30

excellent wife has

nursing. She tended to

proved

who

benefited by the atmosphere; every day

I

me

see her

here.

She has

do with

ease

what she could not have done before leaving home."

Cope

tallying

up

his finds in that letter

species of terrestrial animals fifth

for

I

Not

a

total

one of them

is

of sixty-two

"About

a

published their characters with

a

each. Some of them were of the hugest

greater than mice.

a

and about fourteen species of

of these were not on the books, and

name

counted

size,

living yet

fish.

while others are not

and nothing

31 many of them has ever been seen by human eyes."

like a great

THE ULDKD DINOSAUR He

fretted a bit

about

work. But he managed

his sickness

to post

85

having ^'caused

a

great delay" in his

two more brief papers

"On a New Ver-

Philosophical Society, dated October 12, 1872. These were tebrate

Genus from the Northern

American

to the

Part of the Tertiary Basin of the

Green

River" and "Description of New Extinct Reptiles from the Upper Green

River Eocene Basin." 32

A

few days

latter,

Cope wrote

"Complaints

to his brother, Philip,

are

diminishing before Dr. Corson's attacks, and the influence of good food.

Annie has been

many

days,

here, that

indefatigable,

by her care and

is

soon

as

as

I

am

will not

strong

of times, but

now and

to stand

we

get off."

is

will leave

our landlady ren-

as

not good .

.

.

the best

at

We

are

now

33

mine near the neighboring town of

Creek. Soon the news had swept through

among

recovery by

we

incredible accounts reached the fort of

the discovery of a diamond-and-ruby

great excitement

it,

Her language

then she descends to low abuse.

While Cope was recuperating, the

Rock

be very long before

enough

ders Annie's situation very unpleasant.

looking anxiously to the day

my

and has no doubt hastened

skill. It

A

eastern investors.

all

Wyoming and

created

consortium was formed and

hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised to finance the mine. Henry Janin, a noted geologist

and mining engineer, had verified the extraordinary

two developers,

discovery. Unfortunately for the mine's

Philip

Arnold and

was still working in Wyoming. John At the moment, King himself was in the Sandwich Islands strolling the Slack, Clarence King's survey

beaches and being smitten with Hawaiian princess Keelikolani. "I the primitive state," a

garden with

a

King would confess

primeval

to a friend. "Paradise for

like best

me

is still

woman."

But when he heard about the headed for Rock Creek. In the

Wyoming

early

diamonds, he quit paradise and

autumn, King found the gem

field

and

using his Yale training, quickly noted that the ratio of rubies to diamonds

seemed

consistent

diamonds

— twelve

in crevices

—

to one wherever he looked. He also found where they simply could not have sat for very long. It

was easy enough to prove that the mine was

Arnold and

Slack,

it

a fraud.

turned out, had bought thirty-five thousand dollars

of uncut gems in London and Antwerp and "salted" the cavern near Creek. They had pulled in an estimated

six

hundred thousand

Rock

dollars before

King exposed them. 34

Among

the dupes had been

Horace Greeley and the

New York jeweler,

The San Francisco Chronicle proclaimed, "We have thanks to GOD and CLARENCE king, a great financial ruin." 35 It was not until early November that the Copes made their way Charles Tiffany.

escaped,

east,

and

M

86

then

it

was with some

difficulty.

selling his livestock, but at

lars

sell

A F F E

Cope had hoped

Hayden

stock wintered

at a Salt it

mail to Leavenworth Kansas."

sent the

J

he was unable to find

Fort Bridger, he wired

"Could not

A R K

so

36

I

a

to get back

buyer.

Lake City

On

S250 from

October 30,

still

hotel.

need the balance two hundred dol-

There

is

no record whether Hayden

money.

By Thanksgiving, Cope, Annie, and Julia were back in Philadelphia. They had been gone six grueling, expensive months. Cope had spent more than two thousand dollars, two years of salary for

Wyoming

his

come home

expedition and had

a

Haverford professor, on

physically exhausted

and

broke. Still,

scientifically

species, so

many

it

fossil

had been an enormous specimens.

massive skull of Eobasileus, or was

Much would

Cope was it

So many new with the

Loxophodon or Dinoccras or Uintathcre?

have to be sorted out, and

himself on Marsh's

success.

especially pleased

now once

again

Cope would

find

turf.

Marsh, Dr. Carter told Leidy, "seems hot on the path of Professor Cope,

and for

says

he

will

one person?"

expose 37

his

.

.

.

villanies!!

Won't he have

a

pretty large job

Chapter Seven

The box with benjamin mudge's packed and addressed to Philadelphia arrived from

the

Smoky

New

Hill,

ing bones while the

Solomon

River, about

fifty

was already

fossils

when

the

Haven. While Marsh had been

Mudge had found some

letters

down on

small, but interest-

prospecting along the middle fork of

fossil

miles north of Hays City. These he was

now

preparing to send to Cope.

But having heard early

that

Mudge was

September asking him

in the

whether Mudge

ten, curious

The

inquiry from

Marsh wrote

to

him

in

he had found anything interesting. Anything

if

way of birds? At about

in the field,

the

same time, Professor Dana had

might have something

Dana must have been

also writ-

for Yale.

particularly flattering, for after

Joseph Henry, Dana was one of the nation's most distinguished

scientists.

A

Dana had given American geology of mountain building, volcanoes, His 1834 Systems of Mineralogy and 1862 Man-

fixture at Yale for almost three decades,

theoretical

its

framework with

and the origin of continents. ual on Geology

had become

his studies

ence.

He

was not only

a

box and

sent

When Marsh two animals

—

it

small, spare

Dana was

man, with chronic

a force in

American

sci-

senior Yale professor, but also editor and copropri-

etor of the American Journal of Science. his

A

staple texts.

health problems, the fifty-nine-year-old

Mudge wrote

not to Philadelphia, but to

opened Mudge's

parcel,

New

a

new

Haven.

address label for 1

he thought he had the remains of

two jaws from a small reptile. named Icthyornis dispar and the reptile, Colonosaurus mudgei. It was only when further work was done on the specimens, revealing a skull,

The

the hollow bones of a bird and

bird he

did Marsh realize that he didn't have two animals; he had just one

—

a

bird

with teeth. In February of 1873, he published a preliminary notice

on the

find in the

American Journal of Science, remarking that "the fortunate discovery of these interesting fossils

.

.

Birds and Reptiles,

.

does

much

to break

down

which Archaeopteryx has so

the old distinction between

materially diminished."

2

The huge bird Marsh himself had found that summer on the Smoky Hill, he named Hesperornis regalis. Initially, he thought it was related to the com87

MARK

88

mon

loon. But perhaps

A F F E

of the discovery of Icthyornis, he worked

as a result

through the material, and

carefully

j

when

of the students' specimens, he found

the chalk was

the head and jaw. Hesperomis also had teeth.

swimming

nivorous less,

Marsh described

would show

ostrich." (Further research

diving bird was similar in skeletal features to

grebes.).

removed from one

a nearly perfect skeleton,

with parts of "a car-

as

it

that this flight-

modern

loons and

3

Ichthyornis

could

and Marsh would eventually find another

fly,

flying

Cretaceous bird with teeth in Kansas, Apatomis. These two birds Marsh

compared

and

to gulls

Looking

terns, respectively.

at Archaeopteryx, Hesperomis,

and

Ichthyornis,

Marsh argued

that

they were so very different from one another that the evolution of birds

must have begun

at a

much

more than two hundred

earlier time,

perhaps during the Triassic period

million years ago, perhaps even

at

the

dawn of the

age of dinosaurs.

For Huxley in England, the papers coming out of America were sketchy but very promising. Marsh's toothed bird and Cope's birdlike dinosaur

were both

tracks

useful

ammunition

ongoing

in the

and paleontological theory. Too bad aD

battle over evolution

wonderful material was an

this

ocean away. It

was

clear that

Marsh had

out brooding about

he couldn't help

Cope and

it. It

was

quite

enough

do up

to

in

New Haven

with-

the Philadelphian's Fort Bridger material. But

as if there

was

a

sense of personal injury in Cope's

going into the basin and writing up discoveries before Marsh could through

sort

his booty.

do not wonder at your earnest efforts to bring out all your discoveries in view of the fact that Cope and Leidy, both seem to be running a race with you for priority," wrote a sympathetic Spencer Baird in the late sum"I

mer of 1872. 4 But when Marsh found out

that

Cope had

sent Baird a manuscript

on

his

Bridger Basin work, he was incensed, and Baird quickly tried to defuse the

do not want you to think that Cope 'has gone back on The manuscript account of his exploration as far as I can recollect, embraced only descriptions of new fossil fishes. I do not know, indeed,

situation. "I

you.'

.

.

.

whether he intended to

me

to

what

for anything other than

from the Academy

wanted print

it

I

was to do with

for Proceedings.

— on any

at

it

afterward, but

So

my

information.

It

was sent

Philadelphia without any special intimation

far,

subject, although

I

I

sent

it

back thinking

might be

it

Cope

have received nothing from

you appear

to have received

.

as

.

.

in

Leidy 's

THE GILDED DINOSAUR Baird was finding that navigating between

But

tricky.

mount

89

Cope and Marsh could be a man who could

he did not want to alienate Marsh,

clearly,

enough

expeditions big

to gather duplicate specimens for the

man who had the resources to buy a tapir skeleton when the Smithsonian was broke, a man who was affiliated with one of the top universities in the country. Baird was among the first scientists to wander into the growing cross fire between Cope and Marsh. Soon he would have Smithsonian, a

plenty of company.

The main

of Marsh's complaint was those damnable papers Cope

target

kept spinning out.

It

wasn't just that they were inaccurate

Marsh was concerned they were

— but

came

that they

—

so

at least as far as

fast, if

the dates

were to be believed. Marsh, of course, didn't believe them.

But the truth be a

told, the reports

muddle. There had been too

parties, in

too short

a time.

many

This

in a

coming out of the Bridger Basin were discoveries,

seen anything quite like

it

when

day

uniform publication standards, and no

by too many independent

no

there were

final arbiter.

No

one

protocols,

in science

no

had

before.

The system of naming and

classifying species

had been established by the

eighteenth century Swedish naturalist Carolus Linneaus. Linneaus divided life

into

two

great

kingdoms

thing was to be identified by

number of

similarities,

within the genus.

and

The

—

plant and animal.

two names species, a

—

Within each, every

genus, a broad

more

class that

living

shared

specific, closely related

a

group

genera themselves would be grouped into larger

families.

For example, the Australian dingo, red wolf, and all

members of the

Cants dingo, the red wolf, Canis

person

who

a

Shetland sheepdog are

family Canidae and the genus Canis. laterns,

But the dingo

is

and the sheepdog Canis familiaris. The

new species gets to name it, and new name (Hadrosaursus foulkii Leidy).

identifies a

his

or her

own

name follows the To ensure that each species had only one name, scientists relied on the the rule of priority. The first name published in the literature is the one recognized by the scientific community. Since the chances of two scientists finding and naming the same species on the same day seemed incredibly remote, the system worked fine for more than a century. That is, it worked until

Cope, Marsh, and Leidy

all

turned up in the Bridger Basin.

Consider, for example, the remains of a small barely three inches long, discovered that

fossil

summer. This

lemur with

fossil

was given

a skull

a total

— MARK JAFFE

90

of seven posyits,

names by the three paleontologists

different

Limnotherium, Telmalestes, Tclmatolestes,

came from

Part of the confusion material, but part of

going on

sort

out?

it all

Cope argued

name, Tomitherium

that his

more complete description of the species. "Professor Marsh states that this species

of the publication of the paper proposed,"

Cope wrote

the

is

rostratum

Marsh, based on

affine

his

one he named Lim-

.

.

.

My

first

is

also the date

is

rostratum

was

Society's Proceedings.

hour of their appearance, Cope argued,

extremely brief consisting of five

lines

and

original description was fuller, consisting of sev-

enteen lines." In the end, the

1872. This

7,

which the name Tomitherium

states the

"Professor Marsh's description

measurements.

in

American Philosophical

in the

Since neither publication

deemed

circus

affine in a paper in the American Journal of Science and Arts, the

advance copies of which bear the date August

six

on fragmentary

was the product of the taxonomic three-ring

Cope, should take precedence over Limnotherium

notherium

and Tomitherium.

identifications based

Wyoming.

in

How to

it

Tliinolestes,

Notharctus, Hip-

it

would be

name published and

Leidy's Notharctus that

thus the one that

would be

would be used

in the

future.

But the

real

battleground in

taxonomy war would be those huge,

this

weird, many-horned, tusk-toothed beasts that had captured the fancy of

both Cope and Marsh. tatherium

on August

1.

It

who

was Leidy

Cope named

it

dated August 19, Marsh used the names

letin

same

fossil.

The

very next day

complete material Eobasileus

What

is

interesting

is

Cope

first

named

the animal Uin-

Loxolophodou on August 17. In Tinoceras

and

sent another dispatch

a

bul-

Dinoceras for the

naming

his

more

cornutus.

that not only

were they giving the same material

knew they were doing it. Cope's September letter to his father shows that he knew Leidy and Marsh had found similar fossils, and in his August 28 letter to Marsh, Sam Smith said, "we got one different names, but that they

tusk and part of the

jaw nearly one foot

long,

Prof. Lidy got part of the tusk of hear that

Ore

might have thought

that there

he

I

think the same kind that

blowing about."

is

would be an

inclination to sort out

would have been Leidy's preference (not the least because he clearly had priority). But in a sense for Cope and Marsh, this was no longer about some big, old mamthe differences and clean up

mal

the nomenclature. That certainly

that lived fifty million years ago.

There was

history,

but

it

didn't

go

that

far back.

After the pits,

wrong-headed

Elasmosaurus,

Marsh

infiltrating the Jersey

marl

Newberry's Ohio specimens, Cope presuming to trod into Kansas and

THE ULDED DINOSAUR Wyoming, countless

little

cuts

Those huge

skulls

digs,

was

it

Any little Wyoming

man's emotions and

as if each

prod was bound to cause pain and

ego had been rubbed raw. anger.

and

91

from

were, in effect,

big poke in the

a

wound.

The strategy adopted by both men was to defend, deny, and denigrate. The battle would be waged primarily in the pages of the American Naturalist, although Marsh would also use the American Journal of Science and Cope of the American Philosophical Society. All in

Proceedings

all,

was an

it

unprecedented and ugly spectacle.

But Cope's immediate concern upon returning money, and he

him

set

about writing

of three hundred

a total

the door.

He

"New

once again the wolf was kept away from

men were

still

him

to

in Haddonfield. "I

on speaking terms, although just

send you some small specimens

Of course,

boxes! is

they are yours,"

Cope

He

said.

added, "Your bird with

simply delightful." 7

Marsh, however, was having trouble maintaining later,

cordiality. In a reply a

he wrote:

am glad you fully

my

bird with teeth

and

Your paper on the "Proboscidians" came the 20th

inst,

/

appreciated

I

hope soon

to

send you some photographs of it. with postmark

18th ofJanuary, although bearing the date 16th. Wl\y don't you send

your papers more promptly, as I invariably publication even an uncorrected proof (as

promised

do the same.

to

.

.

about those from

do. I

we

all right,

come

at the time I

I

willing to accept as .

.

.

And

Leidy

where are the

rest?

and how

Wyoming?

Tlie information I received on this subject

whom

am

agreed).

.

Kansas fossil you sent came

Trie

it

I

been abstracted from one of your

recently received from Kansas as having

week

brought

also received a fifty-dollar

On January 20, Cope sent Marsh a box of fossils that had accidentally

been sent

teeth

articles that

was

6

As 1873 began, the two barely.

and encyclopedia

atlas

dollars.

Year's present" from his father, so

to Philadelphia

was so

mad

made me

very angry,

with you for getting away Smith

had given valuable notes about

localities etc.) I

and had (to

should have "gone

for you" not with pistols or fists, but in print. I came very near publishing this

with some of your other transgressions including a

Kinne but

No

my

better judgment prevailed. I

don't you get angry about

frankness

if I've

all this,

done anything you don't

certificate from

was never so angry

but pitch into like.

me

in

my

Mr. life.

with equal

In haste yours very

truly.

MARK JAFFE

92

Q C Mws/i* That

letter

more

provoked an immediate, four-page response from Cope.

me

irritating to

"It

far

is

to be charged with dishonorable acts than to lose

material, species, etc.,'* Cope said. "All the specimens you obtained during August 1872, you owe to me. Had I chosen they all would have been mine. I allowed your men Chew and Smith to accompany me & at last when they

turned back discouraged,

them

By

discovered

I

this

lost several fine things."

I

take back

Marsh

basin of

But

"I feel

showed

fossils,

I

to

it

in the present case,

affair last

longer

a

virtue."

summer,

I

of the East

stuck to

As a

"most

sincerely to

be on

slight

or

he was completely unwilling to budge.

I

have usually borne in silence.

made up my mind

two men met

banquet honoring the British

now just

to

.

.

After the

.

that forbearance

was no

10

In early February, the

a thief. It

Marsh

closed his letter asking

have been deeply wronged by you in numerous instances,"

Smith

greatly.

Cope

and would "promptly make amends" for any future

Marsh wrote. "These wrongs

parts

9

replied within days, saying he desired

injustice.

who

new

charges of impropriety.

all

friendly terms"

all

a

& allowed them to camp and collect with me for a considerable time.

.

.

me like

.

a

,"

New

face to face in

physicist, John Tyndall. "I

Cope wrote

leech and

I

to his father.

hope became

York City, at a meet friends from

"Among

others Marsh!

fully satisfied that

I

was not

seems persons had been writing to him and had wronged to dates

I

said nothing."

11

Cope's hope was

in vain, the

me

storm was

few weeks away from breaking.

Marsh published an eleven-page article in the Naturalist titled "The Fossil Mammals of the Order Dinocerata." In it he claimed priority with Tinoceras, which had been named in early 1872. "The Yale Museum contains the remains of many individuals of the order Dinocerata, " Marsh wrote. Where as, Marsh said, Cope had named Loxolophodon based on "a sinIn March,

gle

premolar tooth."

Marsh went on were

a

to describe the animal.

mal weapons something

on

"The horns of

the Dinocerata

remarkable feature. Those on the nasal bone were probably short derlike those

of a rhinoceros, but

the maxillaries [upper jaw] were conical,

much

much

smaller.

Those

elongated and undoubt-

formed the most powerful means of defense. The posterior horns [on top of the head] were the largest, and their flattened cores indicated that they 12 were expanded and perhaps branched." In the same article, Marsh went after Cope charging that Eobasileus was "apparently not distinct from those described previously by Dr. Leidy and edly

THE ULDKD DINOSAUR He

the writer."

also

complained "no

Marsh went on

to

idea that the animal

list

had

than seven of Prof Cope's papers

less

That was tantamount to

are antedated."

93

calling

Cope

a cheat.

sixteen errors in Cope's description and called

Some of the

trunk "quite erroneous."

a

his

mistakes

were simply functions of speed and incomplete material. For example,

Cope had

originally identified canine teeth as incisors.

Marsh took pen

ing such errors even before

conceded

that although

will venture,

he hadn't actually seen

with due difference to express

my

"Cope's description has to be impossible

rapidly than

Marsh

Eobasileus, "nevertheless,

belief he

is

I

mistaken."

unless, indeed, this mythical

under the Professor's domestication, has changed

Eobasileus

more

But he was correct-

in hand. In addition,

Darwin himself ever imagined.

.

.

.

its

characters

Surely such an animal

belongs in the Arabian Nights and out of the records of science." 13 In the very tled,

same

issue

of the

"The Gigantic Mammals of its

four-page paper entiIn

it,

apparently

general description of the animal, say-

a

canine teeth (not incisors) were "shorter than the walrus and

longer than the saber-tooth tiger." 14 that the animal did have a trunk

Marsh

a

Genus Eobasileus."

the

unaware of Marsh's charges, he gave ing that

Cope had

Naturalist,

to separate his

own

Cope went on

and

that

animal and put

none of the it

in

new

to say

he was certain

distinctions

made by

order was "sufficiently

important."

The growing spat was beginning to worry Hayden, even as he urged Cope to quickly finish his analyses so they could be printed by the survey. "You must not be alarmed" by Marsh's attacks, Cope assured him." Give him rope & he will hang himself. ... have priority of him to a large I

degree." 15

But ican

in April,

Marsh

fired three

more

Journal of Science, he picked apart

anatomical analyses. For example, in

Cope

argued, "Prof.

is

a

volleys. First, in a

some of Cope's

note in the Amerosteological and

continuation of the trunk debate, he

entirely in error in saying the

muzzle of this species

could not reach the ground by several feet." 16

Second, he appeared before the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and outlined

Joseph LeConte,

Cope's papers. also

It

the problems with the dates of Cope's papers.

was friendly with Marsh and had

Cope, made

brash, acerbic

Marsh

who

all

a

motion

to set

up

a distaste for

committee to

the

investigate

was defeated.

went to the American Philosophical Society and read

charges there. In large part, Cope's problems

men's club aspect of the als,

a

society.

The

officers

stemmed from

a

list

of

the gentle-

were not full-time profession-

and the gaps between receiving communications, reading them into the

MARKJAFFE

94

them printed depended on how much

record, and getting

men happened to have. "I have another lesson ity of human nature on hand which confirms "The

to his father.

cer has

of the weakness and deprav-

Cope wrote

previous ones,"

acting Secretary of the Philos Soc not being a paid offi-

and

careless

indifferent."

17

member of the philosophical society, Marsh pushed a motion to cenCope and have the society retract the papers. The society balked at that,

As sure

been

spare time busy

a

but did agree to change papers on the great

its

Eocene

procedures and not print any more of Cope's beast.

Cope was ready to battle back, but was finding it difficult. Marsh was outflanking him politically. In an April letter to his father, Cope outlined his problems and asked for help.

Dear

Father,

an answer ready for Marsh which

I have days.

.

.

show

I

.

& 2 others

tion

that but

3 of his changes

will be finished in a few if necessary

and

I corrected before he wrote a line,

have any founda-

the other

is

doubtful.

I have certificates from two persons proving the accuracy of my dates,

show

new

his

order

am

Nevertheless, I

seen ety.

.

.

.

.

in a bit

offix

Secretaries

whom

I

had given

one

$30.00

a piece, so large a

copies the

to

pay

the

was

it

irregular

and threw

that the

the Society. I did so,

and

&

stamp

others of that

the whole thing out. 1

drawing and printing the Society's 1,000

bill for

sum

paper (Dr. LeConte) asserted

that they have already been published. Fraley

then said that

has

respect. Tlie four plates thee

& said I must ask

withdrew permission

to

in

have been published by the Philo. Soci-

to

Tlie lithographer charged

some one

and

without foundation.

of Lox. cornutus were

.

.

is

now have

copies.

[Cope

estimated the cost at $290.] 77/1*5

am

/ will not be able to

pay for a long

my plates

not able to publish

which are throughout false. Text plates will prove

it

age

Marsh

is

.

.

Tliis

is

the whole

& American

it

the only

trying to do me.

Marsh has now Arts

.

& assertion

may

after such vitriolic assertions.

been extraordinarily jealous, and into insanity.

time. Tlie chief regret

so as to confront

would seem

way

Hayden

that I

do, but .

.

nothing but

Marsh has always

have at

last

developed

in which I can counteract the

will do nothing,

editions of the

Naturalist; probably

.

to

is

Marsh's statements

he

is

dam-

a coward.

American Journal of Science

10

times that of the Philosophical

Society Proceedings. If thee can help

With

love to

me

out of this scrape I will be always mindful of it.

Mother

I

am

thy son

&

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

95

Edward D.

In an effort to buttress his claims,

Cope

also got a letter

Pendleton King, professor of natural history

and

affidavits

who

from the printers

at

tH

of support from

the University of Louisiana,

actually set his papers in

pamphlet

form. (From time to time, Marsh also resorted to this form of publication.)

But Marsh argued

that an

pamphlet was not the same thing paper. "Printing

Cope attack

also

is

body receiving

as a scientific

a

a

research

not publication," Marsh maintained.

&

laborators are a 'bad lot' rest!"

unschooled printer typesetting

wrote to Hayden for the money to publish

made on your survey

is

self-

I

well

as

as

on me. Marsh

his plates.

"This

me that your colme appear like the

told

suppose he wants to make

19

Hayden now found himself in the

sniper

between Cope and Marsh.

tire

am

afraid Cope is going to humbug me," he wrote to Leidy in late "He may come out all right, but there is some mischief brewing. ought to have some hold on him. You know what a mule head he is." 20 "I

April.

I

.

Marsh

also

Mammals"

had rebuttal

article,

arguing that

esting additions to the long

based on

Eobasileus,

was merely

Agassiz,

The Harvard siz

a

list

it

.

.

May

in the

contained "no

new

facts,

but

of errors." 21 The Yale professor

some

inter-

insisted that

photograph provided to him by Harvard's Louis

a Titwceras grandis

professor, like Baird,

Museum

was building the

the Naturalist to Cope's "Gigantic

Marsh.

had reasons for courting Marsh. Agas-

of Comparative Zoology

in

Cambridge, but

Harvard had no notable vertebrate paleontologist and,

as a result, no specimens of the fabulous animals being discovered in the West. Agassiz desperately wanted some of those specimens. "No great museum can be without at least some of the most curious types you have discovered," he admitted

to Marsh. 22 (Harvard twice offered

Marsh

professorships, but

he turned

them down.) In that same letter, Agassiz pointed out that Harvard and Yale had actually

been the only two bidders

Eichstadt pterodactyl. "I

You might

have just

as

am

in the sale

sorry

well have obtained

your only competition," he told Marsh. dollars.

Why,

if

of the German specimen, the

you paid such it

It

a

stupendous price for

for half the price ... for

I

had cost Marsh one thousand

only Harvard and Yale had cooperated.

Agassiz was seeking specimens from Marsh, offering to pay for them.

even suggested that ter casts bill

his preparer

of some of the notable

— and

it.

was

the two universities

come down fossil

would

to

New Haven

specimens

and make

— Harvard would

share the casts.

He

plas-

foot the

But Marsh was appar-

•

M

96

ARK

A F F E

J

Cambridge, although he did

cntly reluctant to send fossils to

offer Agassiz a

tapir skeleton.

So Agassiz was happy

Marsh

as a gesture

to pass along the photographs of Eobasilcus to

of friendship and

the photographs of Prof. Cope's siz

solidarity.

"You

welcome of keep

are

long they are of any use to you," Agas-

as

assured him.

have read your reply to

"I

explanation," Agassiz continued. "It

his

sharp, but he deserves to be treated with even

words read In that

same

letter,

Agassiz

made

a

Your

severity.

man who

of an honest

like the expression

more

cutting

been wronged." 23

has

pitch for getting

is

at least a

piece of

Marsh's upcoming 1873 expedition. "I

have long wished for occasion to show you

with your work

you

be ...

take

I

now make

& how

glad

the west gives

start for

it

I

me

for granted

would be such

how

Your statement

to cooperate.

chance. Extensive

a

more means would not be

the following proposition,

if acceptable.

as

at

is

objectionable.

future president into his treasure

room, what odds did

make

have? Besides, Marsh's goal was to

Museum

of Comparative Zoology

—

There was, however, more than sympathies and builders, a

a

the Peabody

In the

May

issue

article entitled

point rebuttal,

am

aim-

let

Yale's

— not

the

just the lust for specimens driving the

and Marsh were

institution

all

They shared was no future

professional cadre of scientists.

gentlemanly science of the society and the academy. Hadn't

Cope's recent woes proved an

I

Harvard professor

Museum

vision of what science could and should be. For them, there

in the clubby,

I

the greatest in the country.

alliances. Baird, Agassiz,

members of a growing

all

chance. If Marsh wouldn't

a

So

have no desire of

I

museum."

to accumulate materials in the

Poor Agassiz, he didn't stand

that

your means must

acquiring specimens for the sake of describing and publishing, ing

sympathize

truly

I

of the

that?

Naturalist,

"On Some

Cope

said that

Cope responded

to Marsh's charges in

of Prof. Marsh's Criticisms." After

Marsh "knows

a

point-by-

my

perfectly well that

descrip-

by a month and more, and he is posterior to Dr. Leidy, by two months. He is, however, not strong enough to state the nomen-

tions antedate his at least

something

clature accordingly, but endeavors to prove

"To sum up the matter," Cope wrote, Marsh's criticism arc misrepresentations dates of my papers are either criminally

.

"it .

.

is

and

else."

plain that

but forbear, believing that with will

be glad to bury them

most of

Prof.

his statements as to the

ambiguous or untrue.

proceed to characterize the effrontery of such proceedings a little

24

I

might

now

in fitting terms,

change of scene the author of them

in oblivion as

is

the writer of this notice."

THE GILDED DINOSAUR It

was wishful thinking. All Marsh wanted to bury was Cope. In May,

Marsh had yet another

now

97

views ...

as well as

He

article in the Naturalist.

much of

revised and corrected

contended

most of my corrections of his

giving credit in either case."

25

on

the structure of this group

that

Cope had

work, adopting "nearly

his

But Cope, Marsh several points

errors,

my

all

although without

insisted, "still misrepresents

and most of his dates

are incor-

rect as before."

So obsessed was Marsh

that

he wrote to prominent

scientists to see if they

could confirm or deny Cope's dates. "In regard to the papers of Mr. Cope,"

James Hall replied from Albany,

"I fear

was absent from the end of July

till

I

cannot give you any

from making spilling

A

a

judgment based on

out menacingly

November. ...

the end of

nothing between the dates you mentioned." this

satisfaction.

Still,

received

I

Hall cautioned

"negative evidence." 26

The

I

Marsh

feud was

over scientific society.

all

continent away, the personal feud was eclipsed by the tremendous

value of the

fossil

discoveries

most

their papers to the

"I always felt that

— and both Cope and Marsh made

influential scientists in

when

sure to send

Europe.

Paleontology took root in 'the United

States' the

energy of your character would give an accelerated impulse to the progress

of science," the great Richard

he added,

papers. "But,"

so productive

in

"I

Owen told Cope in a

note of thanks for some

could not foresee that your virgin

of [such] strange

— and what

is

better linking

soil

would be

— forms."

27

But Marsh would concede no compliments. He had his teeth sunk deep Cope and would not let go. He wrote a rebuttal to Cope's rebuttal. But

the editors of the Naturalist had had quite enough, and in the June edition,

they ran this notice:

"We

regret that Professors

Marsh and Cope have considered

sary to carry their controversy to the extent that they have.

maintain the perfect independence of the Naturalist in

it

neces-

Wishing all

to

matters

we have allowed both parties to have now the controversy between the authors

involving scientific criticism, their full say, but feeling that in question has

called

upon

come

to be a personal

one and

to devote further space to

its

ance of the subject will be allowed only the expense of the author."

Marsh paid

for a nine-page

caustic attack.

He

called

mance with names and

that the Naturalist

is

not

consideration, the continu-

in the

form of an appendix

at

28

appendix in that June

Cope's

May

article

dates" and a "tangled

issue, his longest,

most

"a sleight-of-hand perfor-

web of misstatements and

mis-

M

98

A R K

He went on

representations."

to rebut

piece of evidence, every defense ability as a paleontologist,

the

end of the

A F F E

and

Cope had

reject every statement, every

offered up.

dredging up Elastnosaurus

He

ridiculed Cope's

platyrus.

"After the

of a very perfect specimen for months, he placed the hcod on

investigation

order,"

J

tail,

Marsh

and restored the animal

in the position as the type

of a new

taunted.

"Prof. Cope's errors will continue to invite correction,"

ued, "but these, like his blunders, are hydra-headed, and

Marsh contin-

life is really

too

short to spend valuable time in such an ungracious task.

"The

present controversy," he concluded, "was forced

Cope's misstatements and mistakes, which if

I

upon me by

had borne for years

Prof.

in silence,

not with equanimity." 29

Although he had been

relentless

and quite

merciless,

Marsh could ring no

concessions from Cope, even though the battle had surely taken the July issue of the Naturalist,

appendix.

was

It

a brief,

Cope

its toll.

In

offered his final rebuttal, also in a paid

one-paragraph statement: "The recklessness of

assertion, the erroneousness

of statement and the incapacity of compre-

on the part of Prof. Marsh render further disupon which we disagree unnecessary; and my time is too fully occupied on more important subjects to permit me to waste it upon personal affairs which are already sufficiently before the public. Professor M. has recorded his views 'oere prenne,' and may continue to do so without personal notice by E.D. Cope." 30 Through the entire battle, Cope continued to turn out papers and articles on a wide range of other topics, for he simply could not rein in his active and curious mind, which danced over subjects as varied as the intelligence of monkeys, the coloration of fishes, life on the plains, and the con-

hending our

relative positions,

on the

cussion

trivial

matters

sequences of evolution.

While Such sional

war raged on, noticeably absent from the action was

this

Leidy.

a

vengeful fight was clearly contrary to both his personal and profes-

approach to science. Leidy had been delighted with

Bndger,

until

his trip to Fort

he returned to Philadelphia and the brewing war between

Cope and Marsh. "I think

I

shall take

Hay den. "However, Bridger

tertiary, to

ther with

it."

as

another

trip to the

Marsh and Cope

west next summer," Leidy told

are

now working

avoid the excitement of competition,

I

actively at the

shall

go no

fur-

31

But poor Leidy could neither avoid the race nor keep the pace. "In my absence," he told Hayden, "Marsh has described many new species and genera,

and

I

am

told that Prof.

Cope

has descriptions of new species constantly

THE ULDEI) DINOSAUR being published to which

many

errors

"We ferent

have no access.

I

may be made. some

have no doubt in

.

.

99

You

.

cases described the

how

will perceive

same things under

dif-

names and thus produced some confusion, which can only be cor-

rected in the future."

Try

as

he might, Leidy could not escape the

complaining about one of

to him,

which you

the dates of Cope's

may decide

A

his papers. "I

virtually

am

Marsh wrote

troubled about

a little

adopt in your synopsis and fear you

the question by tacitly admitting them,"

professor suggested putting dates.

battle. In April,

Marsh

said.

The

Yale

question mark next to each of challenged

a

32

few days

and added,

later,

Marsh was

"I hear that

Cope's 'Reply Broadside'

Naturalist for May. If

he

him hard next time."

33

Of

lobbying for the question mark notation

still

states

anything that

course, putting a question

endorsing Marsh, so Leidy tried

is

will

come out

not true or

fair

I

in the shall

Am.

go

for

mark next to Cope's dates was really to compromise by suggesting that it be

noted that the dates were "disputed" by Marsh. 34

But another reason from paleontology was

that the Bridger battle a financial

one. Both

pushed Leidy further away

Cope and Marsh were

already

spending large sums on exploration and the purchase of fossil material. As

no other

university professor, with

money

resources, Leidy simply didn't have the

to keep up.

"Formerly every else

a

bone found

fossil

in the States

came

me, for nobody

to

cared to study such things," Leidy explained to a British colleague, "but

now

Professors

come

used to

to

Marsh and Cope, with long

me

and

for nothing,

purses, offer

in that respect,

I

money

for

what

cannot compete with

them." 35 It

was obvious to those

who

had seen the competitors. "There's no use

contending against the machinery Prof. expeditions and his employees to clean

For

a

up

this

few

left

M employs,

in the field

may

i.e.

—

$'s

and

cts.

His

reasonably be expected

country," Dr. Carter told Leidy.

years,

Leidy would try to keep up and then

withdraw from the

field

finally

decide to

almost entirely and spend the remainder of his

under a microscope. There may have been another reason for Leidy's retreat: The very nature

career studying tiny aquatic animals

of the science was changing. interpretation

Huxley than already

come

Cope and Marsh were pushing

and publishing papers

Leidy.

The

at a

the bounds of

speed that was more attuned to

quiet, methodical, descriptive, Leidy approach

in for criticism. In

any

case,

Leidy vacated

his title as

had

Amer-

— MARK

100

Owen

ica's

And

and

left it

A F F E

Cope and Marsh

to

speaking of fights,

Assessing the

J

who

combat with the long

to fight over the crown.

won

really

lens

the battle of the Bridger Basin?

of historical perspective, University

of North Carolina paleontologist Walter Wheeler calculated

August 1872 to June 1873 Cope and Marsh each published 16 cles

on

virtually ignor-

priority

';e

of

was nomenclatural chaos." 36

name was

Nevertheless, Leidy's tathere. It

different arti-

:

and they both

other's scientific names, result

"from

Neither one paid any attention to the priority of the

Uintathere.

Leidy's.The

that

first,

and the beast

is

now

called a Uin-

turned out that both Leidy and Marsh had obtained specimens of

Uintatherium from the lower

Eocene

beds.

younger Wasatch Basin

geologically

But Cope's animal came from the

— which

is

upper Eocene

— and

so

eight to ten million years separated Cope's animal from Marsh's animal.

Cope's specimen was

a

more developed,

larger species.

largest

of

Much

of the arguing and confusion came from the

all

the uintatheres, and,

name

for the beasts

synonym. But

mists call a junior

Marsh sil

such,

it

was, in

Eobasileus.

Cope and

when

they didn't.

— was

clearly late,

the cases of

fossil

what taxono-

horses and birds,

displayed a penchant for collecting, and only he gathered

remains over the years

— more than two hundred

the

name

species,

as in

fact,

fact that

retained the

Ditwceras

Marsh thought they had the same Marsh's

as

It

individuals

enough

—

fos-

to write a

comprehensive monograph on the animals. His 1884 Dinocerata ran 237 pages and included fifty-six lithographs and two hundred woodcuts.

"During the Mesozoic period, all the mammals appeared to have been and it is not probable that any of large size existed, as reptilian life than reigned supreme," Marsh wrote. "With the dawn of the tertiary a new era

small,

began, and

mammalian

development.

.

.

.

life first

Dinoceras

and

found the conditions its allies,

in the

for

its full

and rapid

middle Eocene, were

much

larger, and were clearly the monarchs of the region in which they lived."

The

reason for their disappearance, for a Darwinian like Marsh, was "not

difficult to find."

character and

new

He

suspected that their "small brain, highly specialized

huge bulk rendered them incapable of adapting themselves to Smaller mammals with large brains and more plastic

conditions.

.

.

.

structure readily adapted themselves to their environment and survived or

even sent off new

lines."

37

name, Dinocerata, is used in group name for uintatheres, although the

In deference to this massive work, Marsh's

some modern genus

it

classifications as a

was based on,

the uintathere's trunk

Ditwceras,

— or

is

never used. Marsh was also right about

lack thereof.

The animal

Lost in the heat of battle over this single

fossil

simply didn't have one.

was the

fact that

once again

THE GILDED DINOSAUR Cope and Marsh had done much entire ancient habitat.

For just

seashore that once was Kansas,

as

exhume not just

to

species, but an

they had rediscovered the humid, lush

of subtropical, Eocene Wyoming,

rhinos,

and

a

land of lions, camels, crocodiles,

turtles as big as grizzly bears.

fight in the journals

had run right into the 1873 collecting season, and

Cope, Marsh, and Leidy were

to

few

a

they had reconstructed the Cretaceous

now

forests

The

101

all

making

plans to return to the West.

Marsh had rustled up a party of thirteen students. His plan was Fort McPhearson and, once again, head through the Sand Hills

the Niobrara River valley, the region denied to

Sioux wildfire. Then they would head

Cope was planning another

rail

line

to ride the

ace of Sioux was palpable that year. "I

expense of sending I

and two mules

Cope tial

and

years earlier by a

Bndger.

new Northern

Pacific

Railroad, yet

me

.

.

.

at

do not know that I shall get West this May. "Hayden objects to the

to his father in

but he

can never rely upon him."

defrayed."

to search

pushing west, out into the Dakota badlands. But the men-

summer," Cope lamented

sons.

for Fort

him two

to return

is

a

wire puller, and

Cope

still

had

his

I

suspect other rea-

wagon, harness, horse,

Fort Bridger. "So," he said, "that part of the cost

is

already

38

lobbied Hayden telling him that that

a full-scale

expedition was essen-

he was "compelled to employ the manner of Prof. Marsh.

It is

" y)

compete with him successfully without money. Hayden did ante up $250 for the season, but instead of the Dakotas, Cope went to Greeley, Colorado, about forty miles north of Denver. From

useless to '

there,

he headed

the very

east across the

early July,

northern plains of the territory

—

this

was

which Marsh made his 1870 badlands discovery. Cope was just one hundred miles southwest of Marsh's party

same region

in

In in

Nebraska.

Cope,

like

Marsh, found titanothere

fossils,

including a

new

species he

dubbed symbrodon. Cope had a small party of hired men, but no escort. "Without the good effects of Grant's peace policy [with the the exploration

wrote to

I

do not

his father.

hesitate to say

military Indians]

could not have been made,"

Cope

40

When Ulysses S. Grant had become president a year earlier, he had set no great goals for his administration or the nation. He would administer the laws

—whether he agreed with them or not— and pay

gold

if

need

be.

The only

issue

the national debt, in

he stepped forward on was

a call for a

new,

MARK

102

A F F K

J

exploitative Indian policy.

less militaristic, less

"The proper treatment of the

original occupants of this land

—

study," he

ans

is

one deserving of careful

address. "I will favor

announced

in his

—

first

the Indi-

inaugural

any course toward them which tends to their

civiliza-

tion and ultimate citizenship."

Grant's policy of appeasement and negotiation

— which included

replac-

ing politically appointed Indian agents, mainly spoilsmen and entrepreneurs, with representatives of religious missionary groups

—

played well in

the east where people were war weary, reluctant to finance the military, and increasingly sympathetic to the plight of the "noble savage."

Out a

west, homesteaders, politicians,

army

officers, Sitting Bull,

few other Indians remained dubious about Grant's was

thought

it

he went

fossil

safe

enough

Annie join him

to have

sharp eye could not help but take in animals living in a rain puddle.

taceans, insect larvae

longer than thirty

fly

Cope

few weeks while

insects,"

all

in search

prairie

of

fossils, his

— even

tiny

that rain pools lasting only a

few

forms of nature and

life

teemed with worms, small crus-

adults. In a single puddle,

no deeper than

he counted three species of worms,

feet,

one

crustaceans, and

and

Colorado

to

He found

on the Kansas and Colorado

"The

for a

and quite

Still,

hunting.

But even though Cope had come

days

policy.

or

a foot

six insects, eight

spider.

he reported

... a slender beetle

.

.

.

paper on the subject, included "a bluish

in a

[and

a]

cosmopolitan boatman

back, the hemipterous notonecta."

who swims on

his

41

Meanwhile, up on the Niobrara, Marsh was collecting more Pliocene mammals, especially fossil horses. The trek through the Sand Hills had once again been hard.

One

day, the party

was

left

hailstorm. After twelve days of collecting,

wet and bruised by

Marsh headed back

a ferocious

to the Fort

McPhearson and boarded the train for western Wyoming. From his camp on Pawnee Creek, near the Wyoming

border, Cope Union Pacific tracks to catch the train at Pine Bluffs for a quick trip to Cheyenne for supplies and mail. When the train pulled into Cheyenne and the passengers got out of the coaches, Cope looked down the platform, and there was Marsh. He was, Cope reported to his

made

his

father,

way up

"running about

to Bridger."

The lecting

to the

in great excitement. ...

He

is

said to

be going west

42

Yale party reached Fort Bridger on July 25 and spent ten days col-

around Grizzly Buttes and Henry's Fork. They harvested

material.

"Among

dents reported.

its

Then

prizes it

were

a perfect Ditwceras skull,"

was on to

Salt

five tons

one of the

of

stu-

Lake City, where they received an

THE GILDED DINOSAUR unexpectedly cordial welcome

Young

— and

a

103

with Brigham

special interview

himself.

"After the conversation opened, the subject of fossil

cially to

"He made

it

Brigham Young bent

horses/' according to

point to ascertain minutely where

a

a

his inquiries espe-

New York Tribune

fossil

story.

remains of the horse

family were found; he asked particularly as to the facts respecting this peculiar

group.

.

.

.

When

at

length his curiosity on

Brigham Young explained

cause.

its

London, the point was

cussion in

of Mormon,

as revelation, that

prehistoric era. ...

time of

try at the

It is

its

well

it

all

these points was satisfied,

years ago, during a public dis-

of the Book

raised against the authority

spoke of horses existing

known

discovery,

Some

and

that there

in

America

were no horses

that the Spanish

first

in this

in the

coun-

introduced these

animals.

"So

seems that while most theologians are regarding the developments

it

of the natural sciences with fear and trembling, the chiefs of the religion are prepared to hail the discoveries

peculiar belief.

"And theory, a

.

From Oregon

of paleontology

as

an aid to their

.

thus Prof. Marsh,

one of the warmest advocates of the development of defender of the faith." 43 Young gave Marsh

raised to the ranks

is

Bible as a

east,

.

Mormon

memento of their

Salt

to collect

with

meeting.

Lake City, some of the students went to the John Day Basin in

The group reunited in San Francisco and headed Kansas. They returned to New Haven in the late fall

fossils.

a brief stop in

with forty-nine crates of fossils.

Meanwhile,

on the northern

after collecting

south to Pueblo, Colorado, and then

plains,

finally in early

October, about the

time the Yale Party was in Kansas, he reached Fort Bridger.

hundred

dollars

finally sell his

from

his father

stock and wagon.

was waiting

He

for him.

Cope had gone

He

A check for two was

also able to

spent several days collecting and got

some valuable material. "Among others," he told his father, "another cranium of Loxolophodon comutum." 44 "I find Marsh at a discount out here where his manners have produced the same impression they have back East," Cope wrote in the same letter. The two men remained very much in each other's thoughts. Marsh, it seems, continually fretted about Cope's whereabouts and activities. "I

know nothing of Cope,"

letter in his

Smith here."

.

43

.

.

Dr. Carter reported to

hand writing reached here

addressed from Greeley, Colo.

But Carter was "able

I

five days

Marsh

ago addressed to

scarcely think

he intends coming

to learn" that his instructions to

focused on the Bitter Creek region.

"A Sam

in August.

Smith

MARK

104

Marsh had again hired Smith and and Carter served

in the basin,

up the

lied

it

Chew

items such

listed

as

to collect for

him

summer

that

Marsh's agent. In November, Carter

the summer's work.

bill for

detailed that

as

A F F E

J

two

It

pairs

came

to $2,218.51.

tal-

was so

It

of moccasins for $4.50 and the

purchase of pears ($0.60), jam ($0.75), and coffee ($0.50). 46

Leidy also spent July

at

hadn't been particularly

he had explored

and had discovered

new

a

a

fruitful.

field east

at

Cope

that his

in Denver.

of Denver and south of the U.P.R.R.

multitude of fine

But Cope's behavior and plained to his friends

Leidy had met

Hayden

Cope and Marsh, "He told

unlike the "eminently successful" expeditions of

trip,

me

Fort Bridger, but he reported to

fossils,"

Leidy wrote. 47

attitude clearly bothered Leidy,

Fort Bridger that

Cope was

who com-

"overzealous in science

and does no scruple to take advantage of his opportunities."

At the outset of the summer, Cope had considered riding the new Northern Pacific Railway to the Dakota badlands, but by September the Northern Pacific had ground to

and the

entire

a halt

economy of

and was on the verge of financial

the nation was tottering.

The

collapse,

reason

—

the

Franco-Prussian War.

Back the

in the

war

in

summer of 1871, when Marsh was on

Europe had

just

broken out,

was

foreign war.

But what he and everyone of the world were

that the nations

before. Incredible as

American

railroads,

American economy. ing for

it

was, a

western It

German

settlers,

how

started

more

room

day the crash of 1873 began

more

now more

late

1873

closely knit than ever

siege of Paris

was

now to

affecting

mention the

tightly hitched

and firmly cinched

— September 18 — could

hardly have

agreeably. After spending the night at Jay Cooke's fifty-two-

Philadelphia mansion, Ogontz, President Grant breakfasted

and kippers with

his host

great financiers of the day, It

little

Platte,

he cared about

had learned by

and Sioux Indians, not

than ever.

The

else

North

even determined where paleontologists went look-

Yes, the world was

fossil.

expedition and

a cavalry soldier in

Nebraska, had declared with "forcible profanity"

some

his first

was Cooke

who

on eggs

and returned to Washington. Cooke, one of the

went

to the offices

of Cooke and Company.

helped finance the Union

effort in the Civil

War by

The war had left Cooke a wealthy and honored was really rich, folks would say he's "as rich as somebody when man. Why,

brokering bonds abroad.

Jay

Cooke." 48

THE GILDED DINOSAUR After the war, railroad, the

Cooke switched

Northern

of money, more

Pacific.

money

Building railroads demanded huge quantities

still

struggling with Civil

aggressively marketed railroad bonds

By

1890, roughly

third

a

second transcontinental

than was to be had domestically, particularly with

government

the federal

to financing a

105

in

War

Europe, and the

debts. So Cooke money poured in.

of all American railroad stocks and bonds would

be held by Europeans.

The outbreak of the

Franco-Prussian War, however, forced

num-

a large

ber of German investors to redeem their bonds. At the same time, interest rates in

England

rose,

The Northern on the bonds

putting further pressure

Pacific

started.

on

the

in overdrafts

Then rumors of Northern

bubbled to the surface. The run turned into o'clock

on the American market.

had millions of dollars

morning of September

18,

a

Pacific

when

the run

mismanagement

stampede. Just before eleven

Cooke and Company

shut

its

doors. By that afternoon, thirty-seven banks and brokerage houses in New York City had also closed. By the end of the week, work on the Northern Pacific had stopped in the Dakota Territory, and as cash dried up, eighty-nine other railroads from Maine to California defaulted on their bonds. Five banks in Chicago went

under, and within

a

few weeks,

five

thousand commercial businesses went

bankrupt.

The

crash of

1873 lead to

a

depression that dogged the country for

of the decade, leaving three million unemployed, breadlines

New

in

rest

York

and Boston, farmers burning unsold crops, and doctors and lawyers forced to cut their fees

The

by

half.

building of the Northern Pacific had been creating

and tensions with the Sioux. At default

would

at least

first,

War Department

officials

pressures

thought the

reduce the strain and buy them some time for dealing

with the problem. But instead

it

created an atmosphere in

resentment would build and find focus in leaders

Crazy Horse, and

new

its

which Indian

like Sitting Bull

ultimate expression at a place

called

and

the Little

Bighorn. Yes,

it

had come to the point where even

had to pay attention to English.

As

for Jay

distant

in

North

Platte,

Nebraska, one

wars fought by armies that couldn't speak

Cooke, he was forced to move from Ogontz

to a tiny cot-

tage.

Back

east,

the battle of words between

Cope and Marsh continued

to rage

M

106

on and continued

to

A R K

draw other

Dinocerata came early

this

A F F E

J

scientists into the fray.

week and

Dana wrote

October no.," of the Journal of Science,

"

But he warned Marsh,

a full

also

all

"I

cannot give

of Cope's and so making

Marsh included "only

a

to

"Your note on

for an art. in the

Marsh

in

September.

of species without putting

list

muddle of

a

up

already set

is

Dana suggested

it."

in

that

few of the prominent types." 49

Wild West show arrived in New Haven and played the Music Hall for two days. Bill tried to see Marsh, even left a free ticket for him at the box office, but the two never connected. "Should you visit Nebraska," Bill wrote in a good-bye note, "call and see your old guide. Major North and myself are in the cattle busi30 ness 60 miles north of North Platte on the Dismal River." Marsh's obsession with Cope continued on every front, as he now tried In the midst of the duel, Buffalo Bill and his

to suppress

Cope's papers for the Hayden Survey. Late in the

Marsh

year,

was pressing Hayden to muzzle Cope, and Hayden once again found himself navigating those

Marsh wrote justice,"

he

dangerous shoals between the two paleontologists.

a detailed,

said.

seven-page complaint. "I ask you only for simple

31

Writing from Washington, the Interior stationery

DC, in early December— on Department of

— Hayden

carefully laid out his position.

/ have consulted with Prof. Baird and to be here

Mr

S.

and they both agreed with my own

ing in the case except where Prof

obtained a promise

to that effect,

Cope and

H. Scudder who happened

decision that I can do noth-

uses personalities. I insisted on

I do not

now know of a

As

sonal allusion to you that could be offensive in the report for 1873. dates, claims for species or discoveries, those matters

parties

and they

competent

must

undoubtedly in due time. I do not consider myself

to decide disputed claims.

an offensive way,

reclaim

I can

is

to

[Cope's] The Cretaceous of

up and

evidence.

Cope

settled

You

call

claims to be as

me

upon me

much

not,

and

become so many

to

to decide against

Cope

in the right as yourself,

and

by experts. Gill and Leidy should take the matter

investigate all the circumstances

would forever

you person-

one of the collaborators of the Survey, you are

matter which

which must be

is

.

become such though requested by

times within the last three years. in a

.

do nothing. If he claims your species you

them and present your

Prof Cope have refused

to

should be settled by the

will appear first, but as long as he does not allude to

Kansas ally in

will be

and

single per-

settle the difficulty. I

am

and

sorry,

their opinions placed

on paper

of course, but the above view

the only one I could take under the circumstances.

.

.

.

'

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

Now

in this

matter you must take any course you sec fit.

Your disputed

as plain as anything can he. settled

107

My course

is

claims must he wholly

scientific

between yourselves (Cope and Marsh) and such experts as you can

agree on. There

no need for haste so far as the other publications are con-

is

cerned. Tlie whole affair

a struggle in which I uHsh you well, but can do

is

nothing more than I have done. Sincerely,

F.V Hayden 52

Cope might

have seen Hayden

Hayden had backed him

as a

"coward" and

"wire puller," but

a

Of course, if Marsh had agreed

up.

to collaborate

Cope join-

with Hayden's survey, the story might have been different with ing Newberry, Hall, and Leidy

were

allies,

fort to his

and

as far as

as a

got a clear shot, he

Knowledgeable

But now the two men

castoff.

Marsh was concerned, those

enemies were enemies

when Marsh

Hayden

scientists

as well.

would

that gave aid

Hayden had become

take

and com-

a target,

and

it.

sympathized with Hayden. "Cope

is

a

man of

& ability and were he not in so burning haste would always do splendid work," Dana told Hayden in the fall of 1873. But he assured him that he had been right to use Cope for his survey. 33 great learning

Dana wrote. "I wish they would stop their race and work quietly. I have told Marsh more than once that it would do more for his reputation among zoologists to describe one species "Marsh could

[do]

no

service to you,"

thoroughly than to be the one to name tions

make an

earnest zoologist curse

a

hundred.

American

Marsh was haunted by Cope and

Still,

.

.

Insufficient descrip-

.

science."

fretted

about

34

his success in the

He had hired another collector, Ervm Devendorf from Greeley, to cover pretty much the same Colorado territory Cope had explored and was

west.

coming away with

constantly badgering Devendorf, fearful of Cope's

something good.

"You mentioned tive

he

that

did.

on December

A

few days

I

12.

Cope's getting 8 or 9 of those large heads are

myself rather doubt

it,"

later,

tinctly

.

.

made

I

"I have been making inquiries as Found you were misinformed by somesummer that he had knowledge in Nevada, .

.

.

presume by Cope, so

next spring. Those marks are

know where

posi-

Marsh

he wrote to Marsh:

Cope said last Wyoming and the grounds where we were .

you

to assure

33

regards Cope's successes.

one.

Devendorf tried

they were." 56

now

I

I

discerned marks dis-

judged he could

strike certain places

this fall. ...

defaced by the sole of

my

boot, but

I

Chapter Eight

One

APRIL 22, 1874, Marsh received

Newberry. today."

A

few days

from Theodore

Marsh received an

later,

Gill, a zoologist

and

Smithsonian, informing him that

had been elected

— almost

telegram from John

a

Academy

read, "Elected triumphantly to the

It

unanimously

—

as

a

official letter

assistant librarian at the

at its

spring meeting, he

member of

the National

Academy of Sciences. It

was,

on

other,

really didn't

it

some might

mean much,

and informal

gars

and

the

academy was

a

moribund, and

the pet project of the "Lazzaroni," an exclusive

scientific coterie that

The

Lazzaroni

riffraff

—

the

Bache

—

reigned from the 1840s to the end of the

name was used

to describe Neapolitan beg-

— included Henry, Dana, Agassiz, and the

mathematician, Benjamin Pierce. Dallas

for the

Hall,

say bogus, body.

The academy had been Civil War.

— Dana, — were members. But on

the one hand, an honor. All the top scientists

Hayden, Meek, Newberry, Leidy, and Cope

The

brilliant

Harvard

group's ringleader was Alexander

the superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey

and the great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin. In 1828, Bache had, at the age of twenty-two, become professor of natural history Pennsylvania, and fifteen years coastal survey

— one of

years after that,

position

The

at

later,

at

the University of

with Henry's help, he took over the

the major federal scientific agencies. In turn, four

Bache was instrumental

in getting his

good

Henry

friend

his

the Smithsonian.

Lazzaroni's stated aim was "to eat an outrageously

together." But the subtext was to set

American science

policy.

good dinner

The

"Lazza-

roni agenda" included developing scientific standards to separate "charla-

tans" from "real

working men of science";

increasing support; recruiting

raising the status

good men; and

enlisting

of

scientists;

government

in the

cause.

One

desire they nursed

was for

a

more

elite

group to counter the Amer-

—

an organization that ican Association for the Advancement of Science anyone, anyone at all, could join. On a visit to England, Henry had been impressed by the "aristocratical" nature of the British association. 108

It

was run,

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

109

Henry noted, by "those who have some reputation body of the members have no voice."

for science.

.

.

.

The

great

But

was precisely that kind of scientific elitism that engendered suspi-

it

among congressmen and Americans

cion

surprising that

it

was

1863 congressional

session,

the National

a bill creating

in general.

So perhaps

wasn't

it

late at night, during the closing, chaotic hours

of the

with the nation in the throes of a Civil War, that

Academy of Sciences,

masterminded

legislation

by Bache, slipped through both houses.

The

an academy of

legislation created

fifty

filled

by

vote of

a

its

Any

that

future openings in the

At the time, there were not many

scientists in

its

member

fifty

that

the

its

self-

president.

America.

Tlie Dictionary of

American Biography listed only 370 in 1876, but perhaps that or exclusion from the academy's

at

academy would be

members. The Lazzaroni had created

perpetuating, elite club, with Bache, of course, as

a charter

would,

examine and report upon any

request of the government, "investigate,

question of science or art."

members

much more

made

selection

intense. Baird wasn't

because Agassiz was displeased with him. George Bond,

the director of the Harvard Observatory, was blackballed by Gould, Pierce,

and Bache. Cope became Europe, but Marsh After the

—

still

a

member soon after returning to the States from much unpublished had to wait.

—

pretty

meeting of the academy, Leidy,

first

who was a charter member, me to be nothing more

wrote to Hayden saying that the body "appears to than the formation of an

illiberal clique,

another

it

letter,

Leidy called

"a grand

based on Plymouth Rock." In

humbug." 2

The scientists might have had their elite academy, but that didn't necesmean the government was much impressed. Other than advising the administration on some wartime technology, the National Academy of Sci-

sarily

ences had not been asked to do anything of consequence for decade, and

When

its

only published works were

a

more than

a

few memoirs by members.

Bache died in 1867, the academy might have died with him. But Henry in deference to Bache's memory took on the presidency, and he set about reorienting the academy from the role of policy adviser to

—

—

an organization promoting research by issuing grants and prizes funded by a legacy size

Bache had

of the group

—

left

the academy.

Henry

also slowly

began to increase the

despite the resistance of his Lazzaroni friends.

By

the end

of the 1870s, membership had doubled to one hundred. "His cautious policies

had saved the organization and allowed new blood to enter

of its position

as

it

at

the cost

an active adviser to government," said science historian A.

Hunter Dupree. 3

And

so

Marsh was now poised

to

become one of

the select. Although

M

110

A R K

A F F E

J

even here the tensions of the paleontology wars surfaced. his election,

Marsh received

"Your name

is

a

being used extensively here

at this

to sanction a statement that the survey of which It is

Two

days before

note from Hayden in Washington.

working to your disadvantage.

Is

time by certain parties

have charge

I

the use of your

name

is

a fraud, etc.

in such a

con-

me on receipt of this 4 for your own good."

nection authorized by you? Please write or telegraph at

my

expense.

I

wish to make use of your reply

Hayden was thin-skinned and behind

his

back

at

insecure

enough

any time. But that spring was

to fret about

bad words

a particularly difficult

time.

By

1 874, the federal government was funding six different surveys. There were two geological surveys under the Army Corps of Engineers. The

Interior

Department had two

Powell's), plus a civilian

civilian geological surveys

homestead land-parceling

survey.

(Hayden's and

The

U.S. Coast

and Geodetic Survey, under the Treasury Department, was developing

maps of the nation's coastline. There had even been clashes between surveying

detailed

George M. Wheeler, head of the army's poaching on

his land in the

Arkansas River basin.

again in Colorado. Hayden's and the other

conducted along the

survey,

fortieth parallel

Utah. John Wesley Powell noted

War

parties.

The two

surveys collided

Department's survey, being

by Clarence King,

that

Lieutenant

had accused Hayden of

also

overlapped in

he and Wheeler duplicated work

along the Colorado River.

At

a congressional

hearing that spring on the

competition exploded into

a

state

of the surveys, the

sharp rancorous exchange between

and Wheeler. The outburst was so bad

that the

Hayden

chairman of the Committee

on Public Lands chided both men for "ill-judged and hasty expressions which good taste would have withheld." Wheeler presented one deposition that quoted Hayden saying that if Wheeler engaged in "attempts to interfere with me or my survey in any and I have enough Congressional influence way, I will utterly crush him 3 to do so, and I will bring it to bear." Powell testifying at the same hearing was more measured, but he noted that Wheeler had gone over an estimated twenty-six thousand square miles of Colorado River territory already done by his survey Both Cope and Marsh were linked to the surveys because of their interests in western fossils. Cope had become a valued scientist for Hayden, but he would also use the resources of Wheeler's survey. Marsh was already

—

receiving specimens from both Powell and King.

There was, however, should be reformed.

a

growing

Some

in

feeling in

Washington

that the surveys

Congress simply wanted to cut

costs.

Others

Til K

GILDED DINOSAUR

mainly wanted to improve the surveys.

"We

111

are inviting thousands

of for-

eigners to come here/' Joseph Henry said in an address to the National Academy of Sciences, "and we ought to be able to tell them what we have to offer." But that would mean that somebody's survey was going to be shut down. It was in this atmosphere that Hayden heard that Marsh was report-

bad-mouthing

edly

It isn't

that

it

clear

his operation.

what kind of response Hayden

wasn't the missile hurled back

anticipated, but

him from

at

New

it is

fair to say

Haven, for Marsh

sat

down, grabbed a pencil, and angrily scrawled a reply. "Your letter of the 20th came duly, and I regretted extremely to receive it. Your language could admit of only one interpretation, and that was an implied threat, that if I did not at once endorse your survey, I should suffer for

it

at

the Academy. As

no personal considerations whatever, could induce

me

to yield in such a case,

saw

fit.

As the Academy

answer your I

letter,

I

made no

reply, leaving

for

this

you

me

to."

a

you

to act as

reaches you,

with the same candor, but hardly with kind

should have done had you written

rumors you allude

it

adjourn before

will probably

I

now

feelings, that

straightforward letter about the

6

Hayden did not vote against Marsh's candidacy to the academy. Still, the were becoming more pronounced. The vote was thirty-seven to one. The lone opponent to Marsh's membership was Cope. In the meantime, Hayden was gathering support from the scientific community for his survey, warning that it would be "crushed out" under

battle lines

memorial from Yale College," he told

the military. "I received a splendid Leidy, "signed

The

by

all

the Professors

.

.

.

except Marsh." 7

community wanted a reformed survey in the hands of civilHayden or Powell, but Grant, being an old soldier, was reluctant to

science

ians, like

deal the

army out of

and death

"The President has leaned strongly Hayden told Leidy. "It is a case of life

the business.

War Department for the survey. The

toward the

.

.

.

,"

struggle

for scientific friends to indicate

is

what they

a

desperate one.

will do.

.

.

.

Now

Marsh

is

is

the time

working the

other way." 8

But Grant's backing of the army entists for a civilian

survey led to

against the

push by reformers and

a political stalemate,

and

that

sci-

was the end

of reforming the surveys.

Summer was now

approaching and with

hopped from Hayden

to Lieutenant

it

another collecting season.

Wheeler and arranged

Cope

to tag along

MARK JAFFE

112

New

with one of his mapping parties in a part

Mexico. This was virgin

territory,

of the country not yet explored by Leidy or Marsh. There were other

reasons for changing surveys.

"The

points

Hayden had

in

view

are too near

the hostile Indians to be safe," he explained to his father. 9

Marsh had considered making gotten the support of E.

P.

Smith even wrote to Spotted

Smith, the commissioner of Indians

and

hills

mals.

.

.

valleys.

The

.

.

.

want very much which used to range over

Father's "white children

to learn about the buffalo and other great animals,

the

Affairs.

Whetstone Indian Agency,

Tail, a chief at the

some of the Great

to explain that

into the Dakota badlands and had

a trip

.They want

to find

some of the bones of these aniwhose name is Professor

teacher of these white children

Marsh has told the Great Father than they cannot learn about these things without coming out upon the plains." 10 But Marsh was now much too busy in New Haven to go west. The Peabody Museum was finally under construction, and he and his Yale students had already gathered so

demanded

Besides, boxes at

much

material over the past four years that

were

still

coming

in pell-mell. After losing his professorship

the Kansas State Agricultural College in

a

political fight,

Benjamin

Mudge had become a full-time collector for Marsh. Marsh would Mudge with one thousand dollars in 1874 and in return would thirty large

In July,

it

sorting.

boxes of fossils from Kansas.

George Custer

invited

1

finance receive

'

Marsh

accompany him on an expedi-

to

tion into the Black Hills of Dakota, but

Marsh

passed. Instead,

he sent

George Bird Grinnell.

Then

in the

fall

came

a letter,

wrote to Marsh saying that "a

an enticing vast deposit

letter,

of

from General Ord.

fossil

He

remains of extinct

marine and other animals has been discovered ten miles north of the

Red

12

Cloud Agency covering an area six miles square." The bones were just immense stretch of the plains. Marsh was persuaded to

lying there across an

make

a

quick

trip for a

politics, prejudice,

unlike Cope, into

its

who

quick look.

He

idea of the maelstrom of

corruption, and violence he was about to enter. For

had steered

clear

of Indian

the time

Marsh got off the

train at

nous and has he rode to Fort Laramie,

Red Cloud

Just

little

territory,

Marsh was heading

very heart.

From the

had

got no better. Times were bad

at

Agency. There was trouble in the Dakotas.

two weeks

pole incident."

it

Cheyenne, the news was omi-

earlier the

The

agency had been in turmoil over the "the

Indian agent, J. J. Saville had ordered his

men

flag

to erect a

flagpole in the agency stockade. But the Sioux protested, saying that they did

— THE GILDED DINOSAUR not want an American flag flying

an army post. Saville paid

The

little

next day, however,

a

let

band of braves appeared

When

in the

compound

men went

to

to pieces.

One

work on away the laborers, and set upon

the agency

out war hoops, scared

and tomahawks, chopping

the flagpole with axes

was not

their land. This

attention to the complaint.

armed and covered with war paint. the pole, the braves

on

agency,

at their

113

it

of the

agency clerks quickly rode to nearby Fort Robinson for help.

Emmet Crawford

Lieutenant

by the time he arrived

at

was dispatched with twenty-six men. But

the agency, there was

huge crowd of several hun-

a

dred braves facing his detachment, yelling and firing guns into the

Crawford and

army

men

his

advanced while the Sioux encircled them. The

unit was close to being

Sioux formed

a

overwhelmed by the crowd, when some of the

between

wall

air.

their tribesmen

and the

soldiers, enabling the

cavalrymen to withdraw to the stockade, where they waited until the crowd disbanded.

On November

4,

Marsh

detachment of

soldiers,

search for

—

He

fossils

arrived at the agency with several wagons, a

and four

testimonial to

a

who

officers,

how

popular

had volunteered to help

fossil

hunting had become.

arrived the very day a critical council of chiefs was under way.

— —

The Marsh party pulled up to the agency compound eleven roughhewn buildings surrounded by a ten-foot-high stockade which sat on the banks of the narrow, serpentine White River. The compound was dominated by clusters

a large

barn and warehouse. All around, the plains were dotted with

of teepees, thousands of teepees. "The whole vicinity was

and

Indians, their families,

their

account. "It was impossible to

ponies

move even

.

a

.

.

alive

with

according to one press

,"

few paces without encounter-

ing Indians. Indians were everywhere." 13

The

tribes

of the reservation had gathered for the annual disbursement of

goods. But the atmosphere hadn't cooled since the flagpole incident, and the

day Marsh arrived, the council of chiefs rejected

demand

for a census

would be withheld Saville

Saville

The

a

warned

Bureau of Indian

Affairs'

that rations for the tribes

until they capitulated.

had tried to count lodges

year earlier, but a hostage.

of the Sioux.

when he

band of braves blocked

first

his

arrived at the agency a

way and

briefly held

him

braves said he was under "arrest." This time, the chiefs had

held council for a

week

down. The agent replied there was

nothing,

if

since he

had arrived

Saville delivered this

no in

him

a dressing-

flour,

no tobacco,

before calling Saville in to give that there

would be no

beef,

no

census. Considering everything that

August of 1873,

it

had happened

was with some apprehension

ultimatum. Expecting trouble, he sent

a

that

message to the

MARKJAFFE

114

commandant of the neighboring army he had on hand. All Marsh wanted was safe passage

him how many

post, asking

to the

soldiers

Dakota badlands, some

sixty

miles to the northeast, for a few days collecting. This, however, was not

going to be

a

simple request, for the paleontologist had unwittingly walked

into the middle of a conflict that had gle pitting the roads,

area

—

of interest to Marsh

— was not

—

settlers,

a strug-

the

the sprawling, desolate

White River bad-

technically tribal land, for not even the Sioux

Sioux escort for

territory,

wanted

and times were tense enough,

But that

and Marsh put

his case to the chiefs,

immediately suspicious. Collecting old bones in the badlands

winter threatened to sweep across the plains?

seemed more

likely

It

sounded

was that Marsh was planning to

far-fetched.

One

chief,

White

Tail,

jumped

up, interrupted

a

gold

thief.

them

that

bones were

at

a

Cope had Marsh

a day,

paid his also said

which was

men

in the

still

fears.

He

tried to

he would pay for

him. Sitting Bull,

some

bargaining,

50 percent more than the

who

Marsh

daily rate

Bridger Basin. 14

he would serve

as

an emissary for the

complaints about the Indian agency back to federal

seemed Marsh had won the

a

out

reservation chief, proposed that

the braves each be paid five dollars a day. After

agreed to $1.50

in, that

who accompanied

the council, even though he wasn't

flat

Undaunted, Marsh, speak-

he was interested

all

the services of the Sioux braves

do.

Marsh, and delivered

ing through an interpreter, did his best to ease the chiefs' assure

What

man would

long litany of the abuses and misfortunes the Sioux had suffered, and accused the Yale professor of being

as

into the nearby

slip

Black Hills to look for gold. That was something the white

It

it.

his collecting trip.

Saville called the council together,

who were

was

rail-

urged Marsh to get both the permission of the council of chiefs and

Saville a

Sioux against the Indian Bureau, the white

was close enough to Sioux

it

testering for six years

and the army.

The lands

been

was agreed

tribes, taking their

Washington.

officials in

that the party

day.

It

day,

and with the snow came

would

leave

the next morning.

But

it

The

Sioux. harsh

snowed the following

a

change

departure was delayed, and in the next few days

realities

of winter

—

banks of the White River. its

facing the

the tribes capitulated, and the census was done,

revealing that twelve thousand Ogalala Sioux were

agency, but outside

—

in the

now

gathered on the

Camped

orbit,

north of the river, not far from the were another three thousand "northern"

Minoconjous, Sans Arcs, and Hunkpaps. While refusing to live on a reservation, these tribes, led by chiefs such as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, were

THE ULDED DINOSAUR when

not adverse to showing up

of fifty-three

a total

were distributed and getting

(The Indian bureau estimated that there thousand Sioux in 1874, with seven thousand to

some of the Great Father's were

supplies

115

gifts.

ten thousand thought to be hostile.)

When

agency with

But the

Marsh was ready

the weather cleared,

and arrived

wagons, military escort, and fossil-hunting army

his

of the

sight

to start

soldiers,

census and inferior rations,

at

the

officers.

coupled with lingering bad feelings over the the Ogalala restive and

left

undermined Marsh's

agreement.

A

throng of Sioux braves carrying

party and Bull,

its

who

wagons.

One

him the Ogalala

told

northern tribes across the

crowd. "The white

Chief Little Crow. in the

crowd

would now

A and

river.

men

"We

Red

are

Cloud, perhaps trying to save

gold.

scattered as

The

face,

once

charge drew shouts from the

going into our country to find gold," shouted

The women and children guns were drawn. Any attempt to move forward

must stop them

at

once."

set off gunfire.

badly rattled Saville,

who

a cavalry office killed

agency

braves were afraid to go because of the

Marsh of seeking

again accused

and revolvers massed around the

rifles

of the chiefs blocking Marsh's path was Sitting

they could.

as fast as

had seen

in the last year

by Sioux, urged Marsh and

The wagons and a half down the

his

brother-in-law

his party to leave the

the soldiers retreated to Fort

They were followed all the way back by a swarm of Sioux that pinned them in on both sides of the trail. Marsh was frustrated, but there was no simple solution. Robinson, about

The

a

mile and

road.

Yale professor had walked into a thicket of problems that were sup-

posed to have been settled by the 1868 treaty between the U.S. government

and the Sioux nation.

soon

as

it

The

treaty,

however, had begun to unravel almost

was signed. The agreement had given

the Missouri River to the Sioux as a

included the sacred Black settlers.

The

Hills,

all

as

of South Dakota west of

"permanent reservation." This

which were

absolutely off limits to white

region north of the North Platte Paver and the Bighorn

Mountains was

called

"unceded Indian

that this still-disputed land stretched

all

territory."

the

way

The Sioux maintained

to the Yellowstone

River

in

Wyoming. There was a bitter argument among the tribal chiefs as to how they would respond to the treaty. Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Gall led thousands of Sioux

who refused to

abide by the terms and continued to

roam the

M

116

plains, particularly

in the

A R K

A

J

F K

F

around the Powder and

area

These "northern" Sioux remained

Rivers.

engaging in skirmishes with army

free, obstinate,

Bighorn

Little

and combative,

patrols, railroad-surveying teams,

and

set-

tlers.

Red

Cloud, however, had already waged an unsuccessful war against the

and he

white

soldiers,

tions,

where they would be

dutifully led his

Red

proved no solution for

recipients

Cloud's

After the Civil War, white settlers

an impediment to progress, solution was simply to

as

well

felt

as a

Indian-hunting

"Governing the Redskins

as

1872

1

new

reserva-

But the move

aid.

D

that the Sioux's very presence

was

source of fear and hate. To many, the

the Sioux and dissolve the Indian bureau. Dakota

them poison

bread, and organized

The Army & Navy Journal, in an 1878 article titled Indians," said, "The rough and ready settler looks upon the

parties.

varmin

Ignoring the

allied tribes to the

of government

tribe.

paid bounties for Indian scalps, fed

settlers

in

kill

and

that

treaty,

ought to be exterminated."

the Dakota territorial legislative assembly passed a

be opened to

calling for the Black Hills to

settlers.

The

bill

legislators

sought Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano's support. Delano, rather than pointing out that the United States had a sovereign treaty with

the Sioux, simply indicated that

if

the Indians' acceptance could be won,

Washington would go along with it. Such an agreement was not forthcoming, but the keep pushing. The

settlers to

Red Cloud Agency

idea of

was

first

it

incited the

established in

1871 on the North Platte River near Fort Laramie in eastern Wyoming.

Two years

later,

responding to complaints that the Sioux had too

the agency was relocated to the eastern corner of what

would be moved

The

greatest pressure

ment or treaty

yet again, in another

years, to

the Sioux, however,

the settlers, but from the railroads.

was to keep the

the south.

pushed

on

two

By

tribes well

as far as

came not from

One

much

land,

Nebraska.

It

the govern-

of the goals of the 1868

new Northern

Bismarck and surveyors

now

South Dakota.

away from the Union

1871, however, the

is

— with

Pacific Railroad to

Pacific

Railway had

army protection

— were

moving steadily across the Dakotas, across Sioux territory. It seemed there was nothing either the government or the Sioux could do about the ever-lengthening iron rails. Laying rails was the great American exercise of the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1850, there

were nine thousand miles of track was 30,000, and by the 1880s,

it

in the nation.

Ten

years

later,

the figure

had reached nearly 116,000 miles, with

some eighteen thousand locomotives hauling fifteen billion tons of goods. "Through its energetic railroad development, the country was producing

THE ULDfcl) DINOSAUR real

wealth

no country ever produced

Adams Jr.,

Francis

Of

as

Harvard historian and chronicler of the

a

era,

itself."

wasn't, however, just a question of

road was the

Pacific.

effort that

generation was "already mortgaged to the railways, and no

one knew better than the generation It

Union

was such an all-consuming

course, financing railroads

his

before," proclaimed Charles

it

the railroad reformer and president of the

Adams's brother Henry, lamented that

117

emblem of the

money and development. The

"There

time.

rail-

more poetry in the rush of

is

single railroad train across the continent than in

a

the gory story of the

all

burning of Troy," wrote the western poet Joaquin Miller.

Even

scientific discovery

was dictated by the

Station, Nebraska, that Marsh had gotten sils,

and for the next

thirty years,

names

had been

at

Antelope

"hat full" of western fos-

associated with the railroads, like

Buffalo Park, Kansas, Golden, Colorado, and also

rails. It

his first

Como

Bluff,

Wyoming, would

be closely linked to paleontology. Neither the Sioux nor the

tosaurus

could withstand the

For the tribes of the

brought

was sealed even before the

plains, their fate

settlers, for first

came

the buffalo hunters,

who

The

estimated ten million bison roaming the prairies.

exterminated an

safe for

and to enable the transformation of the land into farm

do

speeding

fields.

But

as

way of life. What could

the buffalo vanished, so did the plains Indians' very the Sioux possibly

railroads

bison were wiped

away to feed railroad work crews, to make the plains trains,

Broti-

railroads.

to stop such a force?

In the early 1870s, the federal

government sent

a

delegation to persuade

the tribes to allow the railroad to cross their territory and floated the idea of

purchasing the Black Hills from the Sioux.

mous

in their refusal.

The

The

tribal chiefs

were unani-

a severe impedwould not be able to present any they had "neither ammunition nor subsis-

delegation didn't believe this was

iment, reporting back that the Indians serious

"combined

tence to undertake Still,

resistance" as a

general war."

the Sioux had

won

at least a

brief respite from the "iron horse,"

thanks to the Franco-Prussian War, and those in the Grant administration trying to defuse tensions along the frontier also

seemed

that

industrial

it

was impossible to untangle the western

economy and

that followed the crash

payments again,

—

welcomed

speculative markets.

of 1 873 was

a

craving for

particularly to foreign investors

would prompt white men

One

—

result

the hiatus. Yet plains

it

from the

of the depression

more gold

in "specie."

to

And

meet debt that,

once

to eye Sioux territory.

George Armstrong Custer contributed mightily to this problem. In August of 1874, he was dispatched from Fort Abraham Lincoln, on the

M A

118

K K

A Y F E

J

banks of the Missouri River, to make an expedition into the Black

was

a direct violation

of the

But the general

treaty.

mining, and development interests

railroad,

potential resources

of the

hills

feeling

needed

all

was

Hills. It

that military,

on

the

It

was

treaty, there

was

a better grip

the Sioux called their sacred Pa Sapa.

Custer had invited Marsh to join.

this trip that

Even though the expedition was

a clear

breach of the

He

nothing clandestine about Custer's approach.

left

Fort Lincoln with

twelve hundred troops, including ten companies of the Seventh Cavalry, one

each of the Twentieth and Seventeenth Infantry,

detachment of Indian

a

110 wagons and ambulances, three Gatling guns, three newspaper

scouts,

correspondents, one photographer, four

scientists,

including Grinnell; Pres-

ident Grant's son, Colonel Fred Grant; and Laurence Barret, an actor friend

of Custer's from

New

mounted on white

York

City.

There was

also a full military band,

horses. This parade departed Fort Lincoln

on

July

1,

1874, and nineteen days later crossed the Belle Fourche and headed into the hills.

16

wonder

It is little

Sioux, for they

The

prairies. ite cliffs,

coat of thick forest turns the

and once inside

this

The Custer party— and Black

Hills,

—

and

violets

—

as

hills

One

Game

day Custer led

Black Hills

—

for

played baseball.

a

The

magically transformed.

— found

the

Wild cherries, blueberries, would scoop up wildflow-

soldiers

they rode along to weave into garlands that they

was

at

clear.

The

air

was

filled

with

plentiful.

hike up Harneys Peak

luncheon

is

grasses.

draped on their horses. Streams ran cold and "sweet, wild odors."

black against their gray, gran-

probably the correct word

is

luxuriant in knee-deep, fresh

daisies

out of a sea of bleak, relentless

domain, the world

party

and gooseberries abounded. Cavalry ers

awe and reverence from the

that the Black Hills inspired

rise up, like a mystical island,

the summit.

—

Back

the at

tallest

mountain

in the

camp, the enlisted

score that day was recorded as eleven to

Actives defeating the Athletes. "In the long evenings, we'd

six,

men

with the

make

a great

campfire," recalled Sergeant Charles Windolph, "and almost every night

band concert. ... It was something to stretch out before a big open fire and listen to the music. Soldiering wasn't half bad those times." Windolph described the expedition as a "long picnic party." there'd be a

Custer's reports praised the

hills as

perfect for timbering, grazing,

and

communique, which "Gold has been found in

farming. But the key dispatch was his August 2

announced

that there

in the Black Hills.

was gold

several places," Custer said. "It

attention to this subject that

In a dispatch

two weeks

it

is

the belief of those

will

later,

who

are giving their

be found paying in large quantities."

he wrote "on some water courses almost

THE Ml. I»K every pan ers,

DINOSAUR

said,

even found "gold

among

the roots of the grass."

with no experience mining were finding labor."

Why, men

"at an expense of but

it

little

17

touched off

Press reports of Custer's findings immediately

among That

119

of earth produced gold in small yet paying quantities." Min-

full

Custer

I)

scramble

a

prospectors and would-be prospectors to get into the Black Hills.

Gen. Philip Sheridan, the commander of the

in turn led Lieutenant

Department of the Missouri, who had ordered the Custer reconnaissance, to new orders from Chicago. General Alfred Terry was directed to place

wire

his forces

along the Missouri and stop prospectors, seize and destroy wagons,

and "send the argonauts themselves under post."

ham

It

would, however, be

a losing battle.

arrest to the nearest military

Custer returned to Fort Abra-

Lincoln on August 30, but the damage was done.

some

eight

By

hundred prospectors would be working the

winter, there

would be

fifteen

thousand.

the next

hills.

The

summer,

following

18

The Sioux called Custer's expedition the Trail of Thieves. It is little that when Marsh turned up in October with his story about want-

wonder

ing to go into the badlands to search for bones, the chiefs were suspicious. If the

conduct of the

cient to incite them.

changed on

supplies,

and the army wasn't enough

railroads, the settlers,

to anger the Sioux, the behavior

The

of the Indian bureau was more than

suffi-

reservation tribes were constantly being short-

and those

that they did receive

were often of inferior

quality.

As ers

—

early as 1871, a

an investigation by the Board of Indian Commission-

civilian oversight

widespread cheating by

group created by President Grant a

—

discovered

group of bureaucrats and supply contractors

dubbed the "Indian Pang." 19

The

board's secretary, James Walker, found

example, that at

J.

the rate of 6

W.

1

/,

cents a

contract had been

government SI 5,000 had

a

the

pound when

Red Cloud had

the going rate was

a

4V2

D.J.

McCann, of Nebraska

for freight hauling,

City,

The

total

had overcharged the

contract to provide corn at the hundred- weight price of

few of the more rapacious contractors

from obtaining government contracts.

and sent to jail for

cents.

and G. M. Dodge, of Council

S2.26 while the going market price was SI. 50.

A

Agency, for

contract for beef

worth $756,700.

Another contractor Bluffs, Iowa,

at

Bosler, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania,

six

months

—

like Bosler

McCann

for his role in

was

—were banned

actually prosecuted

gouging the government. But

retribution was limited. "Let us be charitable in regard to the past," the

board concluded, "and more watchful in the future." 19

MARKJAFFE

120

When

Walker's report became public, Secretary of the Interior Delano

own

sent his

cies in 1873.

commission, led by Episcopal Bishop

The Hare

report was largely

W H. Hare,

whitewash, blaming most of the

a

problem on the Indians and commending the agents

good job under

among

difficult

to the agen-

for generally doing a

circumstances. Hare said the "wilder spirits"

the agency Indians and the recalcitrant northern Sioux were the real

problem. "The government owes

it

to

them from the

agents to save

its

of being the toys or

tools of lawless savages," the Hare report went on to describe rebellious Indians getting supplies by intimidation, war parties running offentire herds of cattle, and teamsters and

necessity

and

stated,

it

being shot.

soldiers

"These gentlemen have performed trial

.

.

.

their

with great energy, honesty, and entire

government and the Indians," the report agents Hare exonerated was J.J. Saville,

sidering that Hare had

But was

a

Saville,

man

who

recommended

it

the

his

Upon

time of great

a

of the agents. 21

appointment

was Marsh's primary contact

at

One

in the

first

place.

Red Cloud Agency, An ordained Episcopal

Red Cloud Agency on August isolated spot

on

8,

1873, just

the banks of

River.

his arrival, the

and

faced

ille

of the

so surprising con-

former agent, J.

W

Daniels,

and

his clerk left

out providing any documents, records, or instructions. The agency a tent,

of the

the

his head.

had been moved from Fort Laramie to an

White

at

which may not be

deeply and desperately in over

minister, Saville arrived at the as

said

duties

fidelity to the interests

all

was

on the ground under tarpaulins. Savunhappy Sioux. "Inexperienced," he wrote

the supplies were piled

some

eight thousand

in his first annual report, "it Saville set

with-

office

about hiring

was

a

complicated business." 22

clerks, constructing

permanent

buildings,

and

dispensing the rations for the tribes. Here again he ran into trouble. Drifting

down

to the reservation was a large

number of

the northern Sioux.

"They flocked in and doubled the numbers claiming rights and rations beyond the supplies available," Saville said in his annual report. "They were unused to the agency, vicious, insolent and demanding." Throughout the winter, tensions grew. On the night of February 8, 1 874, Frank Appleton, an agency clerk, who also happened to be Saville's brother-in-law was shot dead right in the compound. shot Appleton was ille

a

"The

Indian

Miniconjou named 'Lone Horn of the North,'

who

" Sav-

said in his report.

The Appleton more than

three

shooting was followed by

hundred Sioux

a

demonstration during which

braves, in battle regalia, besieged the

unfinished stockade, singing and shooting off their

rifles.

still-

Saville asked for

THE GILDED DINOSAUR help from the army, and General

with ally,

six

E.

Smith arrived from Fort Laramie

companies of cavalry, eight of infantry, and

Smith was to

named

John

121

set

up

Fort Robinson,

a small

in

army post within

memory of a

a

wagon

sight

Eventu-

train.

of the agency.

was

It

cavalry officer recently killed in the

region by the Sioux.

It

was into

that

all this

Marsh had plunged with

the welter of political and social issues,

around and go back to thing,

it

New

innocent request to take

failed

first

might have been wise to just turn

it

Haven. But once Marsh got started on some-

was awfully hard for him to

After Marsh's

his

the badlands. Perhaps facing the hostility, the danger, and

his small party into

stop.

attempt to leave for the badlands, Saville sug-

gested that he hold a feast for the chiefs in an effort to

quet was held in Sitting Bull,

a large tent,

Red

Cloud, Pawnee

Afraid of His Horse.

Marsh gave

a

make

peace. The ban-

and the assembled party of Killer,

fifty

included

Pretty Crow, and Young

They dined on meat,

rice,

and dried apples while

speech. Again the chiefs gave their consent, and

son-in-law, Sword, was appointed to lead the party.

Man

Red

Cloud's

Marsh was warned

that

he had to avoid the Northern Miniconjous across the White River for they

would

The

surely massacre the entire party.

next day, Marsh sent word that his party was ready to move. But once

again his Sioux escort balked at leaving camp. Infuriated, delay

no more.

the badlands.

A

little after

The

procession had to snake close by

camps, since there was only one ford in River.

Dogs barked,

the

Marsh would

midnight, he took his wagons and headed for

some of

a fifteen-mile stretch

wagons rumbled, but there was no

the Sioux

of the White effort to stop

Marsh.

Then it was out onto the huge swells of buffalo-grass plains, wave after wave of gold prairie capped with patches of snow. This was a land so vast that anything

human was reduced

to nothing

As the party moved north, the smooth

more than

prairies

a

speck.

began to be broken by

rocky outcrops. As the miles passed, the rocks got bigger and bigger, until buttes,

showing

landscape.

stripes

Off in the

of cinnamon, green, and gray started to stud the

distance, the badlands

loomed.

One soldier, protecting railroad surveyors, described it this way. "A day or we reached the Badlands, we could see them in the distance, and

so before

a pretty sight

it

was.

It

looked

like a great city in the distance, great

sand

buttes looking like buildings, castles, forts, everything about a great city."

MARK JAFFE

122

Awesome and

other-world countenance, the White

terrible in their

River canyons were the greatest and most spectacular of western badlands. It

was fantasy terrain seventy million years in the making. The oldest rocks

formed during the Cretaceous, when continent. As the sea drained,

it

swnmpy plain, which was dawning Age of Mammals.

home to the first species of the The area eventually dried into due

that vast inland sea stretched across the

was replaced by

a vast

savanna. There was

open

to sparse rainfall. This left the land

winds and the

relentless

rare,

a

little

to the forces

vegetation

of erosion: the

Deep canyons began were sculpted by wind and

but intense bursts of rain.

to be cut into the plains. Cliffs

and parapets

water, and eventually the process laid bare layers of gray and green sands,

blue clays, yellow and pink gravels, dark volcanic ash, light buff-gray shales,

and brown sandstone.

The

product was

final

buttes,

cliffs,

and

bluffs,

a

labyrinth of multicolored hard-rock canyons,

with

vegetation and virtually no drinkable

little

(What pools there were were

water.

region mako

sicha,

turned that to mauvaise

But fossils.

terre.

23

There was the Pteratwdon fish

from the Cretaceous

,

a

sea, as

winged, hang-gliding well

and the Ammonitids, with

turtle Archelon,

Then

Indians called the

exposed in those rocks were millions of years of life, captured

also

snatched

The

heavily alkali.)

meaning, "bad land." The French Canadian trappers

as

that

reptile

the Plesiosaurus, the giant sea

their strange coiled shells.

thirty million years ago, Archaeotherium, a giant pig,

a fox-size,

in

three-toe ancestor of the horse

roamed the

land.

and Mesohippus,

There was

also

the Brontotherium, a rhinolike animal almost fourteen feet long and seven feet high.

The White River the West, the earliest later,

badlands were one of the fossils

first fossil fields

identified in

having been collected there in 1843. Ten years

the Smithsonian and the Philadelphia

Academy of Natural

Sciences

financed Hayden's exploration of the area. 44

1

think

it

must be the greatest cemetery

malia," Leidy wrote to Hayden

my mind

has

in 1851.

become inflamed upon

in the

this subject.

of strange forms, Eocene crania with recent eyes

mamhow much

world for Eocene

"You can have no Night in

idea

after night,

I

dream

them." These were the

Marsh now sought. the Marsh party reached the edge of the badlands, they

treasures that

When camp

in an area screened

scattered over

a

by ravines and started collecting. The

fossils

ten-mile circuit, and the weather was so intensely cold that

everyone worked hard just to keep warm.

and he had

up were

set

to chip

them

Icicles

formed on Marsh's beard,

off so he could eat dinner.

Each morning, he had

THE GILDED DINOSAUR to

thaw out

seemed

him

boots before he could get his feet into them.

his

quickly built sentinels

The group

of fossils. Meanwhile, on the nearby buttes, Sioux

a large pile

monitored the Marsh

to truly be collecting

the "Big

123

Surprised by the fact that Marsh

party.

no more than rocks and bones, they dubbed

Bone Chief."

Marsh had always expected the expedition to be a brief one because it late in the season, and the threat of snowstorms hovered over the party every day. But the prospect of another menace abbreviated the work even more quickly. Sword and Red Cloud's brother, Spider, came riding into camp one day to warn Marsh that the Miniconjous had sent their women and children to the Black Hills and were preparing a war party to was so

attack the paleontologist's group.

This created

dashing across the prairie would

be broken to

bits.

They could

necessitate using lanterns in

and an easy

The

might come

attack

dilemma. Hastily throwing the

a

target for any

mean

try to

all

that very night.

wagons and

into the

the specimens

would

surely

pack through the night, but that would

one of the

war party

that

fossils

tents,

which would

beacon

create a

Marsh decided

in the vicinity.

to spend

one more day packing. Then with some two tons of fossils, the Marsh party

moved out less than a day before the Miniconjou war party passed through the area. Not finding Marsh, they apparently decided not to try to follow him back to the Red Cloud Agency and Fort Robinson. Marsh returned with a great cache, especially a large number of bronothere bones, which would enable him to add this beast, like the earlier uintathere, to his detailed

Meanwhile, Cope was

in

description of early

mammal

life.

an entirely different part of the country, exploring

an entirely different niche of ancient history. In

fact,

Cope had made

perhaps

the most important discovery of his career, the Puerco formation in north-

ern

New Mexico. The

Puerco turned out to be the oldest formation in the

country with significant

mammal

fossils

—

the true beginning of the

Age of

Mammals. Cope's challenge his way.

in

New

Unlike Hayden

who

Mexico was keeping

the

army from getting

in

fancied scientific work, Lieutenant Wheeler,

a

by-the-book West Point graduate, was focused almost exclusively on topography and geology. Making maps

is

what the army survey was about,

and the thirty-two-year-old Wheeler, who had graduated

first

in his class in

engineering and mathematics, was determined to churn out maps. Technically,

Cope was

there as a geologist for the army. 24

MARKJAFFE

124

"It

absurd to order stops here where there" are no

is

where

there

through

this,

abound!" Cope wrote to

fossil

however, and will

lay

it

fossils,

and marches

"We

are breaking

his father.

aside before long."

25

Lieutenant Wheeler had placed zoologist H. C. Yarrow in charge of

Cope's group, but had been quite

disregard these [orders]

specific

about

his orders.

This

left

told Annie,

and

can not regard them and succeed in

I

"was not courageous enough to

26

As

irritating as things were,

mention

his

complaints to anyone, "especially of Hayden's people."

work."

But Cope was resign as leader

Cope

Cope

Yarrow,

totally frustrated.

Cope

particularly asked

so determined and so difficult that

my

Annie not to

Yarrow was ready

to

of the group. Yarrow and Cope went to Santa Fe and put the

commander, General Gregg. "To my delight," Cope reported, "the Gen. at once took my view of the case and set the Dr.

issue before the regional

at liberty

able."

to violate

and disregard the points

had found so objection-

I

27

The

party headed over the jagged crest of the

Cope found

Santa Fe, where

a

Jemez Mountains, west of

Pliocene badlands, with marl "as red

blood" and "moderately rich" in the

fossils

as

of camels and horses, mastodons,

and weasels. Orders had the party then heading to Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Yarrow

and Cope fought again. "Knowing that to obey orders was to dition a

I

resolved to risk

pack animal and

left

a

the concern with rations for 4

traveled through beautiful

They a

kill

violation of them and took guides, Mr.

men

the expe-

Shedd and

for 7 days.

and mountainous country," Cope wrote.

crossed over the mountains into the San Juan basin and discovered

harsh, rolling plain of gray

and green rock, which had been created

down onto When Cope

the basin's older Cretaceous

sand

surveyed

this

knew

it

barren expanse,

was Eocene.

Still,

it

looked to him to find

"My

everything he found in the San

dream was

hunted awhile and then rode to our camp

like the

some of the same

Juan badlands was "rare and strange." Cope suspected he had even older than the Bridger.

the

and

strata.

Eocene badlands of Wyoming, and when he began of fossils, he

as

mud

streams from the surrounding ancient mountain ranges carried

sorts

We

28

realized,"

in the

he

a

formation

said,

"and we

narrow canyon

in high

spirits." It was, Cope thought, "the most important find in geology I ever made, and the paleontology promises grandly." The next day he wrote to Lieutenant Wheeler, asking that the men and wagons be sent to him. Meanwhile poor Yarrow was facing virtual mutiny the teamsters and

cook had balked

at

going any farther with him

—

—

so he, too, wrote to

THE CILDKD DINOSAUR

125

Wheeler asking him to settle affairs. On September 13, Cope received a message from Wheeler summoning him immediately to Tierra Amarilla.

Cope cached reached the

about to

his fossils

town

little

leave.

and

left early

He

the next morning.

at five at five in

rode

the afternoon, just as

day and

all

Wheeler was

turned out that Yarrow had decided to quit the surveying

It

team altogether and return to Washington, D.C.

The been in

when

his revolver accidentally

charge of the party. This suited

The one

end of the season," he

fine.

Cope

As precious

new

covered another

later,

Cope would Marsh

valuable find. In late October, a few days before

was preparing to leave

didn't have

until

"Wheeler complains of Gov't

told his father.

the San Juan basin was, a few weeks

as

New

half of

me

can hardly get enough for the commonest wants."

I

make an even more

He

Cope just

off.

cannot therefore send thee the SI 25 thee kindly lent

stringency and

northern

went

setback was the fact that Wheeler could only give

his salary. "I

the

P. R. Ainsworth, had So Wheeler put Cope

other professional in the group, topographer

killed

New

Haven

for the

Red Cloud

Mexico town of Nacimiento

much

Agency,

formation near the Rio Puerco and not

be

(later to

time to explore that season, but

known

was

it

Cope

dis-

from the

far

as

Cuba).

clear this layer,

below the San Juan and above the Cretaceous, was the oldest Eocene rock

Cope would send

he had ever seen.

the next decade, he

93 mammalian

collectors

back to the Puerco, and over

would describe 107 Vertebrata

species. (In time, paleontologists

it

contained, including

would

realize that the

Puerco was not Eocene, but part of the even older Paleocene epoch, sixty to sixty-five million years ago, just after the last

died out.

The formation would

In 1877, tology, the

also

Wheeler would publish plates. It detailed

time

of the dinosaurs had

be renamed the Nacimiento.) a fine

volume on

his survey's

second part of this work was Cope's 364-page report,

by eighty-three

a

dozens of

paleon-

illustrated

fossil fish, reptiles, birds,

and

mammals from the New Mexico formations, as well as an astounding array of carnivores, some weasel size, others as large as a jaguar. 29 All in all, Cope had a fine time in New Mexico, delighting in the strangeness of the Southwest. "This

is

to an

American

... a foreign

coun-

Cope wrote to Annie from Taos. "I rather like these Spanish AmeriThey are lively and pleasant. The chief fault in their expression is absence of intelligence. am agreeably disappointed in them. The signo-

try,"

cans.

an

.

.

.

I

and signoritas

ras

out

real beauty.

It

was

fessed, "I

a

handsome and only need intelligence The churches are great piles of mud!" 30

long

are often

letter,

running more than

am somewhat

six pages, in

to bring

which Cope con-

homesick," and asked Annie to "send me one of thy

MARK

126

...

photos.

"The "They the

I

wish

Cope wrote to his daughter, Julia. will show thee photographs of;

Indians are often in our camp,"

live in

little

Mamma

queer houses which

round things

like bee-hives in front are ovens,

where they bake

made of blocks of mud, which

are dried in the

31

The as their

to

A F F E

had some more $ to send thee."

I

bread. ... All the houses are

sun."

J

sell

Indians were "very friendly,"

own tongue

milk, eggs,

teries in their

Cope Sunday loaves

so

we

In

fish, etc.

"They use Spanish

noted.

as

well

a

we hope

short time

come some of their mys-

to see

council chamber." 32

did not neglect his

fishes. "I

own

"mysteries," holding his

one Sabbath

services, reading

and

Cope

can get along with them very well. They

St.

own

tent-side

John's story of the miracle of the

always feel the love of God after those services," he told

Annie, "and sometimes during them."

While Marsh's

travelogue nor his the

Dakotas may not have been such an easygoing

trip to the fossils as

valuable as Cope's, he did

White River badlands with

his

bones

— and

manage

his scalp

to get out

— and

that

of

had to

count for something.

Meanwhile, between the friendly Pueblo restive

Sioux

in the Dakotas, the

the Southwest and the

in

army was engaged

in a full-scale military

campaign against the Kiowas, Comanche, and Cheyenne

War" of northern

Red

Texas.

Cloud's effort to warn the party

left

the Indian agency.

warning and

"We

escaped

"This act of kindness led I

sticky to the touch."

a

The

and the contractor was

first

in

consequence of

Marsh was to explain. the agency to make further believe their charges of misman.

.

.

,"

stuff," the coffee

beans green, the tobacco

dark viscous liquid, the flour "dark in color and cattle

still

being driven into the agency were scrawny,

Bosler, even

though he was supposed to have

been banned. Marsh went into the warehouse and found eighteen blankets, where there were supposed to be thirty-five.

He

to the

frustrating days

essentially true."

Marsh found the pork "rusty runny with

in those

war party of Indians

by

soon found reason to

agement and fraud were "vile" and

a

Red Cloud me on my return to

assistance sent

investigation. ...

"Red River

Marsh more sympathetic

Sioux's complaints than perhaps he had been at

in the

33

bales

even used an odometer to measure the distance between the

Cloud Agency and Cheyenne, suspecting

that the

of

Red

government was once

— T

II

GILDKD DINOSAUR

K

again being overcharged for hauling. ples

of the inferior supplies and the

neither of who had

much

He

left

stories

127

the Dakotas

armed with sam-

of both the Sioux and soldiers

use for the Bureau of Indian Affairs or

Marsh promised Red Cloud

that

he would take

his

its

agents.

complaints to Wash-

ington.

Red Cloud

didn't place

much

faith in

Marsh's promise to plead the

Of course, Red Cloud could not know man cut from a different cloth. P. T. Barnum could have told him that. Cope could certainly have told Red Cloud that and more. Pretty soon both Red Cloud and Ulysses S. Grant would learn the Sioux's cause in the far-off capital.

that

Marsh was

same.

a

white

Chapter Nine

On

Friday evening, APRIL 23, 1875, Buffalo

Carson took the stage of Ford's Theater triumph,

bullet into a

on the Border.

Life

which ten

years earlier had

American

tragedies

Abraham

and Kit

Bill

in their box-office

The Washington

playhouse,

been the scene of the

greatest

when John Wilkes Booth pumped

of a

Lincoln, was packed this night with army officers and

"large representation of the best theater going circles." Everyone was

"bear fight"

the

anticipating

which the newspapers

finale,

said

was

absolutely thrilling.

Marsh was

also in

town and

about

also thinking

although he apparently wasn't in the theatergoing

Academy of his visit.

But

Sciences' spring meeting as

— Marsh's

first

life

— was

the reason for

well as his scientific papers, he carried the flour, tobacco, and

make good on Just

his

promise to

He

told

far

from

up,

and showed

his story

satisfactory.

a

might have occurred

Indians, he explained,

Then Marsh

his samples,

The commissioner

He

few hours before the cur-

the

Affairs E.

inferior rations I

I

Smith.

suggested that the samples might

intimated that the spoilage, particularly of the after

it

was

in the possession

of

issue

Saville's

of the Sioux. The

flour.

incompetence, and Smith

allowed there might be some problems. But he pointed out that

of fifteen hundred

P.

but Smith's response was

were not accustomed to using

raised

was time

earlier. It

Cloud.

Marsh met with Commissioner of Indian

Smith

have been picked over. flour,

Red

one block away from Ford's Theater, and

went

tain

border,

The National

sugar he had taken away from the Dakotas five months to

on the

circle.

dollars a year,

it

would be hard

to get

anyone

at a salary

better.

"The

exhibited were plausibly explained and the damaging facts

had observed were of

little

consequence," Marsh would recount of the

meeting. Totally dissatisfied and deeply irritated, ell,

the postmaster general and

him

to arrange a

now

former governor of Connecticut, and asked

meeting with President Grant for the very next

was determined to make was

a

Marsh sought out Marshall Jew-

entering

a

his point,

but what he

failed to realize

day.

was

Marsh that

he

Badlands of an entirely different sort those he had 128

THE GILDED DINOSAUR known out

129

west.

Washington

in those

postwar years was

unfinished place that

a small,

still

barely covered a patch thirty blocks by twenty-three blocks. "streets"

were merely

dirt lanes, lined

with vacant

Many of the

grazed by cows, pigs,

lots

and sheep.

The

Capitol, with

grand white dome, had recently been completed,

its

Monument was

but the Washington

only half built and looked

like

smokestack surrounded by shanties and livestock. Mark Twain called

"memorial Chimney." Behind the Capitol, of town,

The

sat

the

jail,

heart of

American government was

and the emerging West were

A

southeast section

a

still

backwater, yet,

and

a

whole continent, centering

city

individual

had become

a

you encounter

magnet

words of Henry Adams's 1880

in the city

Twain and Charles Dudley Warner est

bureau chief, clear

night

watchmen

down

to the

—

of political

sorts

all

aspirants.

"Every

of Washington, almost," wrote Mark "... from the high-

in Tlie Gilded Age,

maid

in public buildings

Department spittoons

of peo-

Washington."

at

for

the

war, growing international demanding and transforming

novel, Democracy, a "clash of interests, the interests of forty millions

The

as

civil

forces

all

national governance and creating, in the

ple

a

the

poorhouse, and the congressional cemetery.

nation was changing, so was the town. trade,

swampy

in the

it

who

scrubs

Department

who

and the darkey boy

represents Political Influence.

ered from every corner of the Union."

.

.

.

halls,

the

purifies the

They have

gath-

1

This was a Washington of "appalling contrasts," said historian Allan Nevms. "Shining carriages laden with sealskins and diamonds stuck in mud holes of unpaved streets. Mansions resplendent with crystal chandeliers,

mahogany and There were clerk, living in

silver

stood beside Negro shacks." 2

really several

Washingtons. There was the Washington of the

rooming house and eating

in a twenty-dollar-a-month din-

ing salon. There was the Washington of the parvenu in his townhouse,

gulping oysters and washing them

Washington of the recently freed

And

down with champagne. There was

slave, living in a

the

shanty on a dirt path.

then there was the "old Washington," the quiet, refined society that

had existed in the

city's

somnolent antebellum

"Old Washington prewhere government service might

days.

ferred evenings spent in Professor Henry's parlor at the Smithsonian,

young also

scientists

and scholars recently arrived

in

be found." 3

Henry

also presided over the

biweekly meetings of the Washington

Philosophical Society, hardly the place one

of the Grant administration or Congress.

would expect

to find

members

MARK

130

now

Yet another Washington was

ment

4

emerging, the Washington of govern-

which was growing "bolder

science,

activism."

A F F E

J

The

year their annual reports were

filled

in the

new

with important

despite initial political opposition, the Smithsonian tory, created in

1842 to measure

of governmental

era

numbers of researchers, and each

surveys were hiring large

and longitude but

latitude

And

scientific papers.

and the Naval Observa-

of important works on astronomy, had both become

also the source

solid, established sci-

entific institutions.

Since the birth of the nation

— even

before that

Boston had been the paragons of American

now

Philadelphia had been preeminent. But

detic Survey), there

were reasons

Still, it

was

political mission.

met

fessor

The

come

Red Cloud Agency must

The one and

ruled.

On

Sat-

his

very

still

young and

have been particularly painful

only thing he had truly sought to do in

a

new and more humane tell

Indian policy.

him even

that wasn't

"is fast

"

and

a

He came for those

Grant had launched in

blessings

adminis-

And now

going

once powerful a

settlers,

tribe,"

here

well.

and

it

had

he wrote

in

of civilization 'whiskey and

away from the Northwest with

drinking problem of his own.

do something

ment

once powerful

a

wasting away before those

small pox.'

his

lonely captain posted to the Pacific Northwest in 1850s,

touched him. "This poor remnant of

vision

to Washington,

White House on

Grant had seen Indians sorely treated by the army and the

1853,

Geo-

meetings.

politics

to the

Henry,

like

samples of flour, sugar, and tobacco, the pro-

Yale professor coming to

this a

his

men

a time,

the president.

was to fashion

tration

As

Carrying

story of the

to Grant.

was

Washington, and

and for

the U.S. Coast and

for scientists to

Marsh accompanied by Jewell went

urday,

at

Academy of Sciences

politics that built

Philadelphia and

thanks to

Baird,Bache, and Pierce (who succeeded Bache

besides the biannual National

—

scientific society,

Now

he

felt

this

he had

melancholy a

chance to

tribes.

two-pronged policy of negotiation and appease-

an attempt to diffuse the massacres and skirmishes flaring up

across the West. First, the political

all

operators and spoilsmen were replaced

Indian agents with representatives of religious groups. "I have attempted

new

policy,"

Grant explained

in his first annual

"toward these wards of the nation.

known

as

.

.

The

.

.

.

[this]

induced

me

a

message to Congress,

Society of Friends

is

having succeeded in living in peace with the Indians in early

tlements of Pennsylvania a

.

as

to give the

well set-

management of

few reservations of Indians to them." was immediately dubbed the "Quaker Policy," politics being was even among the pious, Grant had to provide reservations for all

Although

what

it

it

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

denominations doing missionary work. Soon there were Dutch

the

Reform

and Episcopalian reserva-

reservations, Presbyterian reservations,

tions, like the

Red Cloud

Agency.

other part of Grant's plan was the "Peace Policy/' which sought to

The

treaty system that

end the

recognized each tribe's sovereignty and instead

emphasized the treatment of Indians not als

131

responsible for their

own

welfare.

It

members but

as tribal

as

individu-

sought the establishment of reserva-

where the Indians could receive economic, educational, and

tions

There was, of course, some confusion embedded

support.

which simultaneously saw Indians

them

required

to stay

on

independent individuals but

still

main idea was would make the

tribal reservations. Nevertheless, the

to replace military confrontation

"original occupants

as

cultural

in the policy,

of this land"

with

program

a

civilized

that

and Christian. 3

The men Grant picked to implement this plan were Jacob Cox, an Ohio legislator as secretary of the interior, and Ely

urbane, reform-minded S.

Parker

army

commissioner of Indian

as

days, but

William Welsh, rights, also

a

Parker was

affairs.

he was both educated and

a

a

Grant crony from

full-blooded Seneca.

Philadelphia businessman and crusader for Indian

persuaded Grant, within the

first

weeks of his administration, to

an independent board of Indian commissioners. Grant made Welsh chairman of the new watchdog agency. establish

But the policy sputtered from the saw Parker

as a

hack and

politico,

start. First,

humanitarians, like Welsh,

not their idea of a noble savage, and they

The much

heavily lobbied against him. This led to a political standoff. investigations at

Parker

as

by the board into the Indian Rang were done

the suppliers

who

He and

his entire

it

was, however, a Pyrrhic

board became so frustrated with the unremitting

corruption, they resigned en masse in 1874. Grant appointed a board.

to get

were bilking the government.

Parker finally gave up, resigned, but for Welsh victory.

as

initial

whole new

Welsh would ultimately give up the idea of civilian administration of and become an advocate of the army overseeing the Indians.

reservations,

Parker's boss

Cox

fared

no

better.

A

supporter of

Andrew Johnson's

moderate reconstruction policy toward the South, he already had many

Washington enemies, and age,

his unwillingness to

and insider deals made the

list

do business

even longer.

in spoils, patron-

When Cox

attempted to

on public lands, which he called a transparent fraud, him became strong enough to convince Grant that his

thwart mineral claims the chorus against

down. Cox resigned. Marsh had come to the White House to teD Grant that the probIndian territories were only getting worse. A front-page story in the

administration was being dragged

Now lems in

MARK

132

New

York Tribune, the

"The be

Monday

J

A F F E

following Marsh's meeting, reported

that,

President expressed very positively his desire that the Indians should with, and that promises to

fairly dealt

his advice to

Marsh was

them should be

that the Yale professor

directly kept."

But

go and see the secretary of

the interior.

By

this time, the Interior

Department was the domain of Columbus

Delano, an Ohio criminal lawyer and

political operator.

"A

dry, baldish, cler-

ical-looking man, with a sly contriving air," Delano had parlayed a seat in

Congress into the directorship of the already tainted Bureau of Internal

Revenue

1869 and then secretary of the interior

in

appointment marked

a sad step in

said Nevins, in his classic

Grant Administration.

Smith, tainly

who

was

no more

Unlike

his

work, Hamilton

The Bureau of Indian

Fish

—

"His

Tlie Inner History of the

was

Affairs

Congregational minister. Not

a

a year later.

the deliquescence of the Administration,"

now headed

a political

by E.

P.

hack, but cer-

capable.

Delano

predecessor,

about helping the railroads press

set

claims for large federal land grants, even

where

titles

were dubious.

Delano's son, John, was perpetually involved in land schemes and scams in the West, until his behavior

became

a

subject at cabinet meetings.

Treasury Secretary Benjamin Bristow, the most zealous reformer in the

Grant administration* had received

a letter

and canceled checks

that

showed

which the surveying companies could not have received without political help. But Grant was reluctant to confront Delano. Meanwhile, Delano and Orville

John Delano was obtaining partnerships

in surveying contracts,

Babcock, Grant's opportunistic and shady private

secretary,

were

actively

trying to oust Bristow from the cabinet. Assistant Secretary of the Interior

Cowan

explained that

Department, he'd find

if a it

reformer

like

Bristow looked into the Interior

"rotten from top to bottom." Failure to derail Bris-

tow would soon have dramatic

repercussions.

Before Marsh could see Delano, he was summoned, on April 28, to

York City

to

meet with the Board of Indian Commissioners

Avenue Hotel. Perhaps channels,

bune.

—

a

at

the evening meeting with his evidence and

newspaper reporter, Frank Wyckoff of the

New York Tri-

(t

The commissioners were dismayed meeting even that

the Fifth

already sensing the futility of going through official

Marsh appeared

something new

at

New

started, they

to see the reporter,

and before the

questioned Marsh's intentions. Marsh countered

he had no reason to believe the meeting was

private,

and

as

it

turned

WyckofFs story was the only record of the session, for the commission made no transcript or report available. Marsh was learning.

out,

THE ULDED DINOSAUR

133

Marsh once again displayed the evidence, and the board was more impressed with the problem than Smith had been. "Something must be

done

to

reform

even

this business,

if

it is

necessary to put

another, "that he

would

said that in his

experience the "Sioux were the

worst Indians." Marsh took exception and a

"higher order of

forget," replied

up the flour on the way."

eat

Another commissioner

agent on

a special

"You

every barrel of flour!" one commissioner exclaimed.

intellect.

.

.

.

Among

said

he had found in the Sioux

were many of marked

their chiefs

intelligence."

The commissioners and Marsh

discussed the problem of the

incompe-

tence of agents, particularly those appointed by the religious denominations.

"Do you mean "I

do not

they

become dishonest?" a commissioner asked. Marsh said, "but I do say that the kind of men

say that,"

can be hired to take their

life

hands ... for $1,500

in their

a year,

kind that should be trusted without watching them when,

Cloud Agency, they have

may not be

to distribute

more than $400,000

is

as at

that

not the

Red

the

annually.

They

dishonest, but they are likely to be lacking in business capacity

for such trust."

WyckofFs

story appeared in the Tribune

on April 30 under

the headline:

INDIAN MISMANAGEMENT PROF. MARSH BEFORE THE INDIAN COMMISSIONERS The paper had

already written front-page stories about Marsh's meetings

would continue to write vigorously Horace Greeley's old Grant administration, and several of the men on

with Smith and President Grant, and about the

issue. It

was an

it

ideal story for the Tribune.

paper was opposed to the

the paper's editorial board were Yale graduates. Republican newspapers like the Springfield Republican

York Times, did not

initially

and the Washington National,

pay

much

and Marsh, however, maintained

Then

a

well as the

New

steady drumbeat.

the counterattack against

Congressman W. R.

as

attention to Marsh's story. The Tribune

Marsh began.

On May

4,

Wyoming

meet with the Indian commissioners to rebut Marsh's charges, contending that the wide-eyed academic had been Steel asked to

taken in by wily savages.

months," Steel

said.

He

"Red Cloud

lied to

him every morning

for seven

explained that the helter-skelter distribution of

Marsh had witnessed was the result of the threats of Sioux violence. was done to "preserve order" and avoid riots. Steel also took offense at

supplies It

Marsh's charges about unscrupulous contractors, since constituents of the congressman's

Cheyenne

district.

many of them were

Marsh

sent off a letter

1

M

134

A R K

A F F E

J

to the editor of the Tribune rebutting Steel, ter to the editor

Back

who

replied in kind with a let-

of the Times.

Washington, Delano was grumbling that these charges were

in

being made to the president, the Board of Indian Commissioners and even the press, but that

no one had come

to see him.

Still,

on May

he got into

10,

the act by writing to Clinton Fiske, chairman of the Board of Indian missioners,

announcing

tigate "certain reports

his desire to

Com-

appoint a special commission to inves-

put in circulation by

a

Mr. Marsh,

recommend

Indian service." Delano asked Fiske to

relative to the

three candidates for this

commission. Delano's reference to "a Mr. Marsh" was certainly the distinguished Yale professor, and supporters.

The

But on May

sent

it

backhanded

a

slap at

up the hackles among Marsh

demanded the secretary's resignation. "Whiskey Ring" not the Indian Ring that was

Tribune immediately 10,

it

was the

worrying the Grant administration. kee, Peoria, Indianapolis,

and other

Distillers in St. Louis, cities

Chicago, Milwau-

had been systematically defrauding

the federal government of excise revenues that added up to millions of dollars.

Along the way, legions of bureaucrats and elected officials, leading right White House, had been bribed and bought. The ring had been bro-

to the

ken by an investigation spearheaded by Treasury Secretary Bristow.

As big

the

as

Whiskey Ring was,

it

marked only the

crest

corruption washing over the nation. Rings, kickback conspiracies

seemed

to

permeate the

life

of the wave of

plots,

and market

of the country. In the general

scheme of things, Marsh's concern for a bunch of Indians in the middle of nowhere hardly registered. The entire annual budget for Indian programs was about $1.5 million. In 1874, the

government of an estimated

The

Louis alone had defrauded

very day Delano was writing his letter to the Board of Indian

missioners,

whiskey said,

distillers in St.

SI. 2 million in revenue.

government agents were moving

stills

in to seize records, papers,

and

The Tribunes lead story on May 1 government today made battle upon dishonest and

in cities across the nation.

"Officers of the

cheating

Com-

distillers in St.

Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Evansville and several

other cities in the West and the South." The Whiskey Ring trail led right to

the

White House and Babcock.

Grant's brother Orvil and son Fred were also implicated, but

it

was the

handsome, ruddy-faced, Babcock, with his auburn mustache and shining smile, who was the ultimate intriguer and perhaps greatest symbol of venality in a

hopelessly venal age. Sitting in the anteroom just outside Grant's

opening the president's mail, screening the thirty-nine-year-old Babcock had become a power

office,

president's visitors, the in his

own

right.

THE GILDED DINOSAUR Whiskey Ring

Bristow's

nessmen, bureaucrats, and elected the

government and accepting

in St. Louis,

would

investigation

135

result in

dozens of busi-

being found guilty of defrauding

officials

Babcock went on trial he had actively helped managed the

bribes. In early 1876,

and testimony showed

that

ring and tried to thwart federal investigators. Grant's personal secretary,

however, was acquitted.

A key

element

in his defense

was

a

deposition from

To convict Babcock would have liar. Babcock went back to his job in the White House for a month and then was made inspector of lighthouses. A few weeks later, he was arrested on burglary charges. The Whiskey Ring was neither the first nor the last frisson of corruption the president in support of his secretary.

been much the same

to shake

government, and,

administration.

the president a

as calling

in

all

Government

—

fairness, city,

it

wasn't limited just to the Grant

and national

state,

— had

become

a

cash-and-carry business. Things got so bad up on Capitol Hill that to be

of buying

sure

a vote, the

bribe had to be the biggest and the

had to be redefined.

in politics simply

Pennsylvania senator

Simon Cameron

—

An

honest politician, explained

the

man who once

— was

Henry how tired he was of this "thing called science" who will stay bought when he is bought." And if the Grant administration didn't have enough more

press reports

traced to the still

would not consider

would be

retreating

"one

trouble; there

were

now

Delano. "If Delano were

and be accepted

fire

at last

been

announced. Grant

Secretary's family," the press

firing

under

told Joseph

basically

about Delano appearing. "Corruption has

bosom of the

"Honesty"

last.

to resign,

it

an admission of charges,"

as

Grant explained.

So

it is

clear that

Marsh and Red Cloud were not the only headaches

menting Delano and the Grant administration

as

spring

slid

Even

1875. Marsh, however, was not to be deterred.

if

into

tor-

summer

he was

a

in

minor

headache, he would be incessant.

Scandals or issues

of the

no

scandals, the

day,

and the

problem. Miners and istration

new

brought

proposition.

a

Grant administration

fate

settlers

of the Black

were

still

Hills

pressing in

delegation of Sioux chiefs to

The

federal

still

had to deal with the

was once again

a

growing

on the hills, so the adminWashington to consider a

government offered the

tribes twenty-five

thousand dollars for their hunting rights along the Platte River in the hopes that this

would

tlers apart.

relieve

some of the

tensions by keeping the Sioux and set-

MARK

136

On May

18, the

Sioux

chiefs,

with Commissioner Smith

including

the Patent Office.

The

Red Cloud

and Spotted

the Interior Department. Smith

at

them and then dispatched them at

A F F E

J

to see the marvels

Tail,

met

welcomed

of American ingenuity

next day, they would go to the White House and

see the Great Father.

Marsh

also

returned to Washington, and after the Sioux had been sent

and Smith had another meeting. Marsh then

sight-seeing, he

with

Red Cloud and

per accounts

said,

Spotted

Tail,

meet

because they had been told not to speak to anyone unless

Smith or Delano were present. Marsh, meeting was

tried to

but the two refused to see him, newspa-

actually blocked

by

in a letter to the Times, said that the

Saville,

who

was acting

as a

chaperon for

the chiefs.

The Grant

next afternoon, the Sioux, in

at

White House. The someone had stuck

the

bons, and

bowl of a peace

pipe.

chiefs' a

all

and feathers," paid

his travails,

&

Wilson" campaign

in the administration

might win

Cloud, speaking through an Indian bureau

president that he had been

told to

complaints to make, and he talk to his

Spotted

"two

Owl

made promises

come

now had

great chiefs,"

a third

him

that

Commissioner had interpreters

still

had

term.

interpreter,

reminded the

when he had

complaints. Grant urged the chief to

had not been talks

fulfilled.

with them.

They had

It

was

They had

lied to

him, and

a passionate

it

speech,

lost a great deal in

the interpreter gave Grant Spotted Tail's speech,"

the paper's story said, "he

The

who

to the Great Father

but according to the Washington Republican National,

"When

rib-

Smith and Delano.

he did not want to have more

the' translation.

on

flag in the

told Grant that he had talked with those chiefs.

to

a call

tomahawks were decorated with

"Grant

There were those

hopes that Grant, despite

Red

"full paint

left

out the charge that the Secretary and the

lied ... in deference to the President."

were not the only clamps

that the Indian

bureau placed

on the Sioux chiefs. Reds Cloud and company were being billeted at the Tremont House Hotel, a respectable hostelry, where neither whiskey nor

women capital

to get

were

available.

This was

a

disappointment, since earlier

visits

to the

had involved both. It took the chiefs several days to figure out how from the Tremont House to the bawdier Washington Hotel. But they

managed.

On May 28, the chiefs asked to see Grant about the Black Hills. The president sent

word

at three o'clock.

that

he would meet with the delegation

But when the Sioux

Delano's office

arrived, neither Grant nor

there. Instead they found Assistant Secretary

Red Cloud complained

at

Delano was

Cowan, Smith, and Marsh.

about the rations being issued to

his tribe,

but

THE ULDED DINOSAUR under questioning, the chief became equivocal statements by the confusion

The

on the

Red

New

May. The

in late

.

broken again and again and so

was to recount

me

it

and to aid

— of which — move me

left

"The

is

now

be until the end." officials,

including Delano.

He

especially interested in the

these wards of the nation; and he

in this enterprise.

Marsh paid another

What

and

national faith has been pledged and

Delano "was

much

so

deeply."

31,

will

him

West

On May

The

.

civilize

noble work

interview with Grant. a

.

sarcastically that

earnestly entreated

rights

York Times in an editorial titled

meet with government

to

to Christianize

in the

on hunting

"any question relating to the Indians

that

popularly regarded as a bore.

Marsh stayed on

later use these

Red Cloud blamed

interpreters.

Dying Race" concluded

his

Smith would

Cloud to counter Marsh.

chiefs refused to sign the concession

Washington

efforts

evasive.

137

is

His appeals in behalf of

said in the East

visit

and so

little is

White House

to the

done

for another

could anyone make of the president?

"He was

deeply affectionate man, and he was surrounded by low-hangers-on," said

General James Harrison Wilson,

a

former Grant cavalry commander and

brother of Grant's vice president, Bluford Wilson.

But

a

frustrated

confronted with

still

doubt whether to

"The

Congressman James Garfield, when watching Grant more scandal, said, "His imperturbability is amazing, I

call

it

greatness or stupidity." 7

progress of evolution from President

Washington

to President

Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin," bemoaned Henry Adams. "Darwinists ought to conclude that America was reverting to the Stone

Age." 8

Another stop Marsh made the Treasury Department.

in

Washington was

At the

Red Cloud

being driven in that Saville was recording head.

Marsh was convinced

pounds each. But

in

at

the auditor's office in

Agency, he had seen

cattle

as

"averaging" 850 pounds per

that the animals

weighed no more than 750

going through the invoices, he discovered that the gov-

ernment was being charged 1,040 pounds for each steer, and just that past March, Commissioner Smith had concluded still another new contract with Bosler! In early June,

commission

—

all

Delano announced the appointment of current or former elected

officials

chimed

—

his

three-man

to look into Marsh's

allegations. Later that

month,

offered his resignation

and demanded an investigation of the charges

Saville

in.

In a letter to Smith, he against

him.

Marsh once again

tried to strike

first.

On July

13,

he sent

a letter to

Grant

MARK

138

and

five

reform-minded cabinet

J

A F F E

officers,

accompanied by

pamphlet detailing the charges and evidence newspapers and

also sent copies to the

the

at

a thirty-six-page

Red Cloud

Agency.

He

hundred, prominent citizens

fifteen

across the country.

Marsh wrote,

In the cover letter to Grant, earnest desire to

was

that

to the Indians."

he had "no confidence

my

in

Affairs

.

.

.

have reason to

on both Secrealone have the

and the power to destroy

that

endeavor to bring to

said.

combination of bad men, known

are debasing this service,

The pamphlet, which

I

"You

will

who

because

possession reflects unfavorably

Delano and Commissioner Smith," Marsh

who

and thwarting the

consummation your noble peace

a full

ran eight

newspaper columns,

full

wagons. Marsh met with Grant, on July 14,

side vacation

home

Long Branch,

in

New Jersey.

at

as

efforts

the

of all

policy.'"'

set off

storm of public indignation, and Delano once again began political

explained,

of the Secretary of the Inte-

tary

Indian Ring,

was impressed with your

been aware of these abuses.

that they have long

"The evidence now

"I

The problem, Marsh

in the sincerity

Commissioner of Indian

rior or the

know

do justice

another

circling his

the president's sea-

But Grant

took no

still

action.

Marsh's pamphlet caused "a great fluttering"

ment, according to the

Tribune.

Smith issued

a

at

the Interior Depart-

statement

i

j.^phasizing that a

commission had already been established to look into Marsh's charges. On July 21, the commission heard testimony from Marsh in New

special

York before heading to Cheyenne to hold additional hearings. Later that summer, another pamphlet, titled "Documents Relating to the Charges of Prof. O. C. Marsh," surfaced in Washington, DC, and became part of the debate.

It

was

a diatribe against

the Sioux and Marsh.

It

was,

work of Delano and the Department of the Interior. The broadside charged that "Red Cloud exhibited the usual grumbling

Marsh

believed, the

and complaining propensity of

his

race in regard to the assistance he

received from the Great Father." Marsh, the

document argued, was merely

Red Cloud

to gain access to the badlands.

trying to ingratiate himself with

"A man of limited research

.

.

.

general business experience,

might be

easily misled,"

it

whose

speciality

is

scientific

said.

Marsh, the pamphlet insinuated, had gotten

his

appointment

at

Yale

George Peabody, had mainly due to the generous endowment made to the university and also noted that it had taken him five months to bring his charges. It discounted the critical testimony of several army offihis uncle,

cers. "It

is

well

known

that the

unfriendly to the civilian

younger

officers

management of the

of the

Army

are generally

Indians," the pamphlet said.

,

ULDLD DIKOSAUR

Til K

It

charged that the Tribune was simply using the accusations

also

throwing

As

139

mud

meeting between Marsh and Delano, the pamphlet's ver-

"How

sion was decidedly different from Marsh's caustic account. retary could have

proceeded with greater evidence of candor and

but in doing

difficult to see,

way of

President Grant.

at

for the June

Marsh and

as a

the Sec-

fairness

is

he seems to have given offense to Prof.

this

his friends."

Marsh received

reports from

Washington

Delano had sent

that

a "secret

agent" on to Cheyenne ahead of the commission to lay the groundwork for

H. Stanton,

the hearings, and, in late August, Colonel T. collect fossils in the badlands,

the commission

pany.

.

.

The

.

Look

to the

Saville

Red Cloud

investiga-

he "thought

said

it

a

for a first-class white- wash."

off another volley, but his friends

advice holds good. Keep

Still,

"

on August

Tribunes editorial board,

now

wrote 23. "It

left

Marsh chafing and ready

urged him to bide

is

his time.

to

"My

member of the no longer your fight. You can't

Isaac

by rushing into print to answer

it

The

Agency.

and Bosler. Stanton

personal attacks and the cover-up

improve

had helped

and the prisoners should be such good com-

singular that the court

little

first

way down

its

were being guided by

tors

fire

on

who

wrote to him saying that he had encountered

Bromley,

Saville,

a

Smith, Delano and that

crowd."

had drawn old warriors back

Besides, the fracas

Samuel Walker,

who

had been instrumental

to battle.

Both Welsh and

in the 1871 investigation

of the

Indian Ring, surfaced to write letters to the newspapers and lobby the

Board of Indian Commissioners.

While Marsh was doing

battle in

Mudge was Yale. Cope had

Washington, Benjamin

once again leading an expedition on the Kansas

plains for

him away, but Mudge told him that he was "engaged for" He would spend nearly six months in the field, at a cost to Marsh

tried to hire

Marsh. 10

of $1,793.17. But despite repeated requests for some opinion on the material

New

sent to

"I think

wro'e

you

in July,

Haven,

are

doing

"but hope

Along with the 590 pounds.

Mudge

letter,

it

a

could get no

good thing

will

reply.

to fight the Indian

Ring,"

Mudge

not interfere with the examination of fossils."

he sent two boxes of specimens weighing

a total

of

1

Mudge

also asked

Marsh

Samuel Williston. "He

Mudge

excells in

assured. Williston

ontologist in his

the payroll. 12

own

to hire

one of his

— who was

right,

students, twenty-four-year-old

Mathematics and the Natural Sciences," to

and one day

become a great

a

valued aide,

a

noted pale-

enemy of Marsh

—went on

M

140

A K K

A F

J

E

r

In Haddonfield, Cope, too, followed the Indian

Ring controversy with

on Marsh, undoubtedly with great relfor Delano and the Indian they were enemies of his enemy. "I do not admire Wm.

avid interest and read of the attacks ish.

Perhaps he showed too

Ring, even

if

much sympathy

Welsh's language to Pres. Grant," he wrote to

August, "and

his father in late

the Interocean [newspaper] gives

him

a severe

mixed between

false

charges on honest men, and true

Indian business

is

& the

charges against the speculators;

men &

malice of others.

But public opinion firmly behind Marsh.

them

.

.

back on

—

at

truth least

"When

is

it.

The

excessive zeal of some well intending

hard to get

at."

13

enlightened public opinion

—was

made

charges of fraud began to be

now

against

the Nation, noted that same month, "Commissioner Smith

,"

.

The

overhauling for

fell

Christian character, and Mr. Delano tried to discredit his

his

assailant."

On

September

and heard dealt

9, the investigating

commission was back

in

Washington

nineteen-page rebuttal statement from Marsh, in which he

a

with the "falsehoods" that had surfaced that summer. There had been,

Marsh

told the commission, a systematic "policy, long continued of meet-

14 ing evidence ... by misrepresentations."

The

following morning,

the dining

room

watering holes

—

Delano turned.

is

a pleasant

before eight o'clock, Marsh walked into

— one of Washington's foremost

for breakfast. Sitting reading a

was Columbus Delano and

Marsh got

a little

Wormley's

at

"Is this

newspaper

at

hotels

and

the next table

his son, John.

Mr. Marsh?" he asked.

up, offered his hand,

and

said,

"Good morning, Mr. Delano.

It

morning."

When

Marsh had again sat down at his table, Delano, with a smile, asked, "When are you going to stop investigating me?" "I really don't know," Marsh replied. "When," and now Delano's voice was louder, "are you going to stop assaulting

me?"

"Probably

when you

stop attacking

me," Marsh shot back.

His voice rising even louder now, Delano insisted that he had done

nothing of the kind and, Marsh came right back said that since the

word considering

commission

started

its

at

him.

investigation,

The

Yale professor

he had "not said

a

the case," but Delano's department continued to attack

him.

Delano jumped

to his feet

and called Marsh

repeating the insults several times,

Marsh's

table.

For

a

as

a "liar"

and

a

"poltroon,"

he stood "pale and quivering" over

moment, Marsh thought of getting up and

leaving, but

THE GILDED DINOSAUR then pulled ing

down

pencil and orange envelope from his jacket and starting writ-

a

the incident.

Delano things

141

down

sat

at his

own

muttering. In

table,

few minutes when

a

had cooled down, Marsh turned and told Delano

that

he had simply

been obliged to defend himself.

Delano exploded, again

calling

Marsh

a

and some other choice

liar

things.

"You have "I

Welsh, Walker, and the other hounds on me," he shouted.

set

do not intend

to be insulted at

interior or any other

my

breakfast by the secretary of the

man," Marsh responded.

"I

have treated you

as a

gen-

tleman should." "I don't

stalked out

know what of the

a

gentleman

is,"

Delano snapped, and he got up and

dining room. b Somehow,

the incident found

its

way

into

the September 16 edition of the Nation.

The

real

drama, however, had already been played out. Delano had ten-

dered his resignation to Grant two weeks official until

October

1

.

By

In early October, the peripatetic the

door of Marsh's

earlier,

although

year's end, Smith's resignation

it would not be would follow.

George Armstrong Custer knocked on

New Haven apartment. The professor wasn't in. "I

sim-

you by the hand and thank you for the considerable and service you have rendered the government and the coun-

ply desired to take disinterested

by your exposing the well

try ...

known

frauds

and

irregularities

of the

Indian Ring," he explained in a note. ," Custer assured Marsh, "is not an isolated The "Red Cloud Agency know that the Indians at other agencies are the victims of similar .

instance.

mistreatment."

On

.

.

I

16

October

18, the

commission issued

of our investigation," the report

Marsh

that the agent

is

929-page report. "The

stated, "fully sustain the allegations

removed without

The commission went on

of Prof.

delay."

to describe Saville as having "a nervous

and

temperament, inordinate loquacity, undignified bearing and man-

ners, a

want of coolness and collectedness of mind."

moved The

to

further

results

incompetent and unfit for the position which he

occupies; that he should be

irritable

a

Saville resigned

and

Omaha, where he died in 1922. report also recommended that some contractors be excluded from federal business and suggested a number of administrative changes in

the bureau.

It

was highly reminiscent of the recommendations proposed

four years earlier.

The commission found no evidence

that either

Delano or

Smith were implicated in the Indian Ring. It

was, for the most part, a victory for the forces of reform. "Professor

MARK JAFFE

142

Marsh

let

Boston

ment

daylight into a section of this department

was

Transcript. "It

his

wrote the

.

trenchant criticism which forced the Govern-

mood."

into an investigating

,"

.

.

Grant's Peace Policy, however, was in

shambles. During Grant's time in Washington, there

two hundred

with Indian

battles

tribes,

was once again pushing west across the

On November 23, Grant tary

War Robert

of

Zachariah Chandler.

would be more than and the Northern Pacific Railway

prairies.

met with Generals Sheridan and Crook, Secre-

new

Belknap, Smith, and the

It

was decided

that the

toward the miners burrowing into the Black

interior secretary,

army would turn Hills

and

that

it

a

blind eye

was time

for

army to chase those recalcitrant northern Sioux back to the reservations. Crook would lead an expeditionary force that spring to do just that. One of

the

his officers

would be

Custer.

Whatever progress had been made

in cleaning

up the Department of

Nevins called

Interior, the "frolic

of corruption,"

Whiskey Ring

were not even completed when

trials

as

it

of War Belknap, or more accurately

face that Secretary

continued.

it,

The

bubbled to the surhis wife,

had been

arranging for kickbacks from the awarding of western trading-post contracts.

Orvil Grant was also implicated.

"The continent share;

'I

spills its

—

must get mine'

Hamilton

there

no end?

so

men

is

grabbing

his

argued," lamented Secretary of State

most venerable member of Grant's

Fish, the

over-scrupulous in making itics

Was

riches for everybody; everybody

money when

it is

cabinet.

so plentiful?

be more honest than business, or business than

"Why

be

Why should pol-

politics,

or

Tom

than

Dick and Harry?"

And

speaking of riches,

at

money was suddenly no December of 1875, Alfred Cope died, at the

the close that that year,

longer an obstacle for Cope. In

age of sixty-nine, and Edward received an inheritance of nearly a million dollars.

17

was

It

a small

manipulation, but slowly and rigorously by the Protestant

Quaker

plumb

the depth of loss

had been the son's greatest confidant, but to have

been deeply saddened. And

financial constraints

father

the

Quaker Meeting

me

a

yet,

Cope must

work

ethic

and

also his greatest

now

The father nemesis. Cope had

have

felt.

he was released both from

his

he thought

his

and the personal constraints of acting

wanted him to

said, "cost

intact,

quarter of

thrift.

difficult to

It is

a

fortune gathered not from speculation and

as

Within little more than a year, Cope would leave good and become a Unitarian. The resignation, he

act.

for

pang." His "personal religion" was, he promised Annie,

but he had

come

brethren, and so he

to serious differences

went

his

own

way.

of doctrine with

his

still

Quaker

"

THE GILDED DINOSAUR Unburdened

at last,

and with

his inheritance

have had an ample annual income and

road that he had fought so long to attain. But

As

Marsh, he returned to

for

from the West and oversee the self

New

this

Haven

to pursue the scientific

was the Gilded Age.

to continue

opening

crates

new Peabody Museum. He concerned him-

no more with spoilsmen and

efforts

wisely invested, he should

hand

a free

143

had already been buried by

politicians.

Perhaps the impact of his

new waves of Washington

corruption,

but twelve hundred miles away in the Dakotas, what he had done was not forgotten.

Marsh received a box from Fort Robinson. In it were a peace pipe from Red Cloud and a letter from Lieutenant Carpenter, one of Marsh's fossil-hunting minions, which read: In January of 1877,

/

send by express,

Mr.

Red Cloud's

Red Cloud came

you, and wished

me

to,

to

my

at the

pipe and hope

quarters

same

promised get

to

do

me when

I asked so,

and

him I

to tell the

tell

remember the wise

thought he would do like

he went away. But he did not.

I ever saw. I like him. I

to

you something.

want you

He

and

to tell

all

I think

Tliis

it

to

is

his

He

He

white men, and for-

told the

him

give

chief.

Great Father something.

everything just as he promised he would,

man

will arrive all right.

and said he wanted

time, to

speech, as translated by an Interpreter. "I

came here and

it

he

this.

Great Father is

the best white

Chapter Ten

When news of the massacre at the Little Bighorn finally reached New Haven, Custer had been dead and buried in a shallow grave for eleven days. Sitting Bull and the Sioux had

done on the Montana

Army had

plains

not been able to do

what the

entire

in five years

Confederate

of war. The bold,

New Haven

black headline in the July 6, 1876, edition of the

Palladium

declared:

AN INDIAN MASSACRE GENERAL CUSTER & HIS

COMMAND ENTIRELY CUT TO PIECES They were it

stood

as

so entirely cut to pieces

— an

the single worst defeat the

estimated 265 soldiers dead

army had ever

Indians and raised the specter of worse things to come.

some of that luck and charm from

a lieutenant to a

that, at the

—

that

suffered at the hands of Still,

Custer retained

age of twenty-six, had vaulted him

brevet major general. For instead of being reviled as

commander of the most catastrophic episode in Indian fighting, he was wept over and mourned as a fallen hero. Walt Whitman was so moved, he dashed off a poem for the New York Tribune about the "dusky Sioux" and "a the

trumpet note

The tions

for heroes."

plan for the

army

to chase the uniuly

was quickly coming undone.

Custer's

massacre, General

repulsed by the Indians.

The

It

Sioux back to their reserva-

soon became

clear that in addition to

George Crook's command had fear rose that instead

also

been

of being shooed back onto

the reservations, the tribes might actually have the upper hand and that

the Indian nations were amassing for a grand and settlers

and the army.

It

looked

as if

Black Hills had been dead wrong

final assault against

all

white

Grant's negotiators for the rights to the

when

had neither the food nor ammunition to

they had assumed that the Sioux offer any "serious resistance."

the middle of July, the Palladium was ready to exclaim

144

"The

Sioux.

A

By

Gen-

THE GILDED DINOSAUR cral

Indian

War Threatened."

For Marsh, the news was of more than casual paths with both Custer and Sitting Bull.

had tried to pay Marsh out.

145

a visit in

New

Now, there would be no more

and the Indian

Only

having crossed

interest,

few months

a

earlier,

Custer

Haven, but the professor had been

pleasantries

between the paleontologist

fighter.

The western news Marsh was most from Montana, but Kansas,

as

interested in, however,

Williston were out scouring the Cretaceous beds for Yale.

Kansas was good. Soon box after box began to arrive in

with hard Kansas

Mudge and

clay.

came not

once again Benjamin Mudge and Samuel

The news from

New

Haven filled news of

Williston even telegraphed the

new Hesperornis specimens. Of course, Cope was always on the mind. "Cope's man Sternberg is in ," Mudge reported. "If he gets anything it will be by accithe vicinity 1

discovering

.

.

dent." 2 Since

joked

.

Marsh was mainly

that they

berg to spend

interested in reptiles

were taking "pains to leave

his

.

.

.

and

birds, Williston

plenty of fishes" for Stern-

time gathering.

Marsh also had another collector, David Baldwin from Canon City, Colorado, working in those Eocene beds of New Mexico discovered by Cope in 1874. "I heard that

he hasn't appeared." Yes,

it

Cope

is

coming," Baldwin wrote from Santa

promised to be an interesting and busy summer

tum of the Peabody Museum, provided a

Fe, "but

3

Indians didn't

problem. Marsh, however, briefly had put aside his

in the inner sanc-

become too much of

fossils

and any concerns

about the Sioux to receive the most important guest he had ever entertained.

As the steamer Germanic pulled into ing of August nose,

5,

New

York City

the distinguished, middle-age

man

harbor,

mutton-chop whiskers, and sharp black eyes stood

gazing

at

on the morn-

with the prominent at

the ship's

rail,

the city that rose up before him.

What, he asked, were the tall building with a cupola and the tower that loomed over the skyline? When told that he was looking at the New York Tribune and Western Union Telegraph buildings, Thomas Henry Huxley exclaimed, "Ah, that first

things

you

see as

is

interesting.

you approach

That

is

American. In the Old World, the

a great city are steeples;

here you see

first

centers of intelligence."

The

fifty-one-year-old

Huxley was primed

for

America, and America

M

146

K k

A

A F

J

K

r

was certainly ready for Huxley. The curator of paleontology collections the Royal School of Mines, the

and the author of Man's

famous

own

of the

scientist

A

A

which he delivered

to the

classic lectures,

his role as a great interpreter

such

as

"On

a

Piece of Chalk,**

as

common

as a

morsel of blackboard chalk and

explain the geological and biological forces that shaped the

as a foil to

"A

his

Workingman's Association of Norwich, Huxley

was able to take something it

came from

larger share

of science for the layman. In

world.

measure of Huxley's renown came from

work, which included writings on vertebrate paleontology

creative

and marine biology.

use

Huxley was arguably the most

Place in Nature,

day.

at

naturalist for the British Geological Survey,

great chapter of the world's history

is

written in chalk," he told

his audience.

Huxley had the could give ride across

describing

gift

of making even the remote and elusive

a listener the feel

as

wagon

a

valleys or make him see a microscopic fossil by grown raspberry." It was, however, as Charles Daran attack dog for the theory of evolution, that Huxley

and

slopes

its it

He

vivid.

of the ocean floor by conjuring up

"a badly

win's alter ego,

gained his greatest notoriety.

The nearly

shy, retiring

Darwin had avoided publishing

two decades because he knew how

was an

and such

ailing recluse

and politeness toward even a

his

a

gentleman

most

his Origin of Species for

controversial

it

would

good

fight. "I

am

Darwin

as to display differential respect

strident critics. Huxley, by contrast,

superb public speaker and relished the limelight, almost

savored a

be.

sharpening

my

as

much

was

as

he

beak and claws in readiness," he

assured Darwin.

Huxley's

scientific

public at large

knowledge and

made him

a

ability to craft presentations for the

formidable

ally.

Indeed, after reading

Huxley's general lectures on evolution, which had been form, Darwin

book,

when

said,

"What

everything

is

is

printed in

good of my writing

the

green

in this

little

a

a set

of

pamphlet

thundering big

book, so despicable

for

its

size?'*

Darwin was, of course, simply praising Huxley with faint damnation. Darwin knew that he was fortunate to have Huxley in his camp, for just as he had suspected, when, in the it

caused

1

of 1859 Origin of Species was published,

a furor.

Darwin had gotten served

fall

as a naturalist

his first inkling

on the HMS

of the process of evolution when he

Beagle's five-year voyage,

which ended

836. For the next twenty-three years, he diligently pursued the

extensive studies

The

on

species as disparate as pigeons

idea of evolution had

trail,

in

doing

and barnacles.

been kicking around since the ancient Greeks.

GILDED DINOSAUR

Til E

147

Even Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, had written tive

on

study

the subject titled

two important elements

theorists lacked a

Zoonomia. But

mechanism or reason

for the process.

to

a

highly specula-

until the nineteenth century,

make

the theory work: time and

These were provided

to

Darwin by

two of his century's most provocative minds. It

was

Sir Charles Lyell

who

the beginning of the century,

were the Earth

distinct,

it

was

generally accepted that

still

all

species

all-in-a-moment creations described in Genesis and that

by the generations of the Bible was only fifty-eight hun-

as calculated

dred years old.

gave Darwin enough time for evolution. At

To be

precise, Irish archbishop

James Ussher, working back

generation by generation, had calculated that Earth was created

October 23, 4004

B.C.

—

at

on Sunday,

enough time

8 A.M. That simply didn't leave

for

evolution to work.

But

looked

Lyell

at

Earth's geological processes

of weather, earthquakes, volcanoes,

—

rivers carrying

erosion from the forces

silt

— and he saw

a slow,

ongoing, perpetual-motion machine. If

mountains were slowly raised and then slowly worn away by natural

how

thought. If one calculated

modern world,

much

time had to be much,

forces, geological

slowly the forces of erosion

was clear that something

it

man had

longer than

worked

like a river cutting a

in the

canyon

through hard rock must have taken hundreds of thousands or even millions

of years. Earth had to be considerably older than the All well

mechanism

and good. But why does evolution take that drives

it?

The answer

biblical calculations.

place,

and what

the

is

came not from a scientist, but Reverend Thomas Malthus. In his

to that

the political philosopher and cleric, the

Essay on a Principle of Population, Malthus argued that population pressures increase geometrically, while food supplies increase only arithmetically. result

is

that there are always too

"struggle for existence" in

many mouths

which wars,

plagues,

to feed.

That

and famine

The

leads to a

cull the

popu-

lace.

Malthus wrote ics to

explain

his tract as a conservative

why

—

this vision,

legs,

econom-

Darwin found

his

mechanism

for

natural selection.

All organisms in the biological living space.

in political

trying to improve the lot of poor was pointless, perhaps

even counterproductive. But in evolution

argument

Those

sharper teeth

these attributes

that have

—

world

gain an edge, even

would be

are in a

some advantage if it

—

is

a

competition for food and longer beak, stronger hind

only

a slight

one.

Over

time,

reinforced. Similarly, those individuals with hand-

would be eliminated. Over much more time, this

icaps

process of natural selection

would

lead to the

M

14«

A R k

J

A F F E

evolution of new organs and organisms that heighten the advantages. Thus, the

lump

cal

organ of the

oflight-sensitive nerves in an eel

"Nothing ceded

is

refined into the

complex

opti-

eye.

can appear more

at first

in Origin of Species, "than that the

Darwin conmore complex organs and instincts

difficult to believe,"

have been perfected, not by means superior

human wisdom,

to,

though analogous with

but by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations,

each good for the individual possessor."

Darwin's theory was doubly damning to the conventional orthodoxy.

Not

only did

challenge the idea of the Bible's individual creation of each

it

plant and animal, but

substituted a chaotic, indifferent, amoral process for

it

any rational or guiding hand in the development of wasn't enough,

man

linked

it

life

into the chain of animal

on Earth. If that on the planet,

life

placing

him merely one

step above the ape rather than the divine creation

of God.

And that is why

Origin of Species was quickly

book

gerous

When

in the world."

Huxley read

reflection," he said,

'How

dubbed "the most dan-

however, he had quite

it,

"when

I

first

a different reaction.

made myself master of the

"My

central idea was,

extremely stupid not to have thought of that.'

So while not the author of the

theory,

Huxley launched himself into the

defense and dissemination of the concept, retired to his comfortable

In June of 1860, seven battle over

country

months

home

after the

Darwin's theory erupted

Advancement of

as

the shy and sickly

Darwin

in Kent.

at

book's publication, the

first

great

the British Association for the

Science's annual meeting in Oxford.

The Darwinian

were represented by Huxley and the noted botanist, Sir Joseph Hooker; the opposition was led by Sir Richard Owen and the bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce. While there were several skirmishes during the

forces

first

two

days, the

main event shaped up

as

the Saturday session.

Huxley had

planned to leave for London on Friday evening, having no desire he

be "episcopally pounded" by Wilberforce.

He

said to

was, however, persuaded to

stay.

The

Saturday session drew

the gathering to be in bright

summer

moved

to

crowd of more than seven hundred, forcing the library of the university's museum. Ladies a

crinolines lined the

windows, black-frocked clergymen

occupied the center of the room, and behind them

sat a small,

boisterous

group of undergraduates. All had been drawn by the debate over the "monkey theory," as it had come to be called. To this packed house, the purplevested Wilberforce,

"Soapy Sam,"

whose

fired away.

He

lush oratory had earned

spoke for more than

him

a half hour

the

nickname

attempting to

— THE GILDED DINOSAUR and dismiss Darwin rather than address

ridicule

149

his theory.

At one point, the bishop turned to Huxley and "begged to know was through

his

it

grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent

monkey?" As Wilberforce, quite content with his barb, returned to his audience, Huxley is supposed to have slapped his knee and softly exclaimed, "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands." In a dark coat and white collar, Huxley must have looked much the

from

a

himself as began his address. His words, however, were far from eccle-

cleric

He

siastical.

began by saying he had no shame

father. "If there it

would

I

should

feel

ashamed on

a

grand-

recalling,

man of restless and versatile intellect, who not content success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scien-

rather be a

with an equivocal tific

whom

were an ancestor

having an ape for

in

questions with

them by an

which he had no

aimless rhetoric

.

.

and

.

real acquaintance,

only to obscure

skilled appeals to religious prejudice."

This was merely the beginning of Huxley's attack. Lady Brewster fainted

and had to be carried from the room.

The

Darwin's theory, however, came not from the

real challenge to

Wilberforces, but from scientists such as

Owen, Germany's Andreas Wagner

and America's Louis Agassiz. Indeed, while Darwin

knew

that his theory

was unprepared for the criticism that

his

work

would be

—

controversial,

particularly his

he

methods

received from the most distinguished scientists and philosophers of the time.

4

The eminent

and philosopher John Herschel found the processes of natural selection too random, too hit or miss, too far from the physicist

elegance of Newtonian physics. gledly, piggedly." ities

that

might

called Darwin's theory "the law

Owen dispatched it

float

as "just

one of those obvious

of hig-

possibil-

through the imagination of any speculative naturalist."

Owen, however, was more Darwin's theory, and sor at the

He

than simply dismissive.

as director

He

could not abide

of the British Museum, Hunterian profes-

Royal College of Physicians,

protege of Prince Albert, the

a

country's most distinguished paleontologist, the "English Cuvier," he pre-

sented

new

a serious challenge.

order

Owen

— Dinosauria —

After

all, it

was

Owen who

in

1841 created the

to counter evolutionary ideas.

had created dinosaurs to rebut the theory of evolution proposed

by Jean Baptiste Lamarck, which had been popular before Darwin came on the scene with natural selection. Lamarckian evolution held that forms tended to move from the simple to the complex and that attributes gained along the way from use and environment leaves, as in the case

of the

giraffe

— could be

—

a

neck stretching to reach

passed from one generation to

MARK

150

the next.

There even seemed to be

A F F E

J

a bit

of that

Darwin's example of

in

light-sensitive nerves evolving into an eye.

But

organs

refined hearts

— and

Owen

tended to move from the basic to the sophisticated, then

if evolution

clearly dinosaurs

stood the theory on

— such

its

head.

The huge

reptiles

had more

four-chambered instead of three-chambered

as

greater size than the

modern-day crop of

reptiles. Clearly,

argued, this wasn't evolution!

Huxley and

Owen

had been acidly sparring over vertebrate paleontology,

man and

the relationship of

apes,

ence since 1856. So Origin of

and the general direction of English

Species just

added

Owen's

position as the most

country,

Huxley was unimpressed, declaring

fuel to their

honored and senior paleontologist that

Owen was

sci-

Despite

fire.

in the

"not so great

as

he thinks himself."

Owen

might be Huxley's

rival,

but that didn't necessarily make him the

enemy of all Darwinians. No, Owen scientific circles,

and Marsh,

still

the elder paleontologist. In addition to

Marsh made

sure he posted

had

prestige,

power, and respect in

for one, did his best to ingratiate himself with

all

his

naming

pterodactyl after

a

me congratulate you on returning from your last foray west scalp," Owen enthused in one letter, "and next thank you for "Let

.

Order of Ecocene Mammals.

ape's brain

is

the

.

with your .

Tlie

New

"3

There was, however, only one

Owen. At Oxford,

Owen,

important papers to the British Museum.

scalp

Huxley wanted and

two sharply squared off on the

human (Huxley)

closer to that of a

or

a

that

belonged to

topic of whether an

lemur (Owen). Amer-

Benjamin Pierce who was at the session was shocked at what a "very sharp pass" the two Englishmen had. And so across, Europe the Darwinian and anti-Darwinian camps drew their battle lines. ican mathematician

The America Huxley differently to

War

some It

It

that the nation's intellectual

scientific theories,

to

sailed to in the

Darwin's theory.

parts

and when

it

summer of 1876 had

really

had not been

did, there

was

much more

acceptance,

at least

of Darwinian evolution.

was, to be sure, anathema to the clergy.

the survival of the fittest

War had

Hodge,

much

and public discourse could turn to new

The Reverend Dewitt

madge of Brooklyn, aping Wilberforce, attempted Civil

reacted

until after the Civil

not been

a professor at

to disprove the notion of

by asking whether the generals as

good

as

those

who

Tal-

who

died in the

survived? In 1874, Charles

the Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote a small

THE ULDED DINOSAUR volume

entitled W)\al

Darwinism? His answer was that any theory that

Is

propounds "the denial of design

in nature

What is Darwinism? It is Atheism." The church, however, held less sway was no

151

in

of God.

virtually the denial

is

America than

in Europe.

.

.

.

There

and, even without "Darwinism," the old Protestant

state religion,

denominations were already having trouble responding to the changing

American

scene.

"Never before had the church been

erful or spiritually less effective,"

materially

more pow-

Commager

observed Henry Steel

in

Hie

American Mind* In

American

Upon

scientific circles,

member of and

few of his

a

own

Darwin

a let-

tended to support

articles that

show of solidarity, he also arranged to have Darwin voted a Academy of Natural Sciences. At Harvard and

the theory. In a

Yale,

a fair reception.

reading Origin of Species, Joseph Leidy immediately sent

of congratulations and

ter

Darwin's theory received

Philadelphia's

New

in the scientific societies in Philadelphia,

the theory received a generally

York, and Boston,

open hearing. Marsh immediately under-

stood the power of Darwinian evolution and adopted

it

as

the organizing

principle for his work.

When

Origin of Species was

published, Darwin's greatest

first

opponent had been Harvard's Louis

American

Agassiz. For the Swiss-born Agassiz, the

study of nature was an exploration of God's handiwork, and he considered

Darwin's theory "merely conjectural." In as

Cope, he dismissed

a letter to

it

"ingenious but fanciful." Agassiz, like Cuvier, believed that periodic cat-

wiped out

astrophes

Agassiz's

American

species,

which were then divinely

ally.

In fact,

dealing with plants.

Darwin had sought Gray's

When

expertise

Alfred Russell Wallace proposed

idea of evolution in 1858, a letter to Gray, dated 1857, ability to

As

was

a

on some

much

issues

the same

key to Darwin's

prove his priority in developing the theory.

in the case

and Agassiz. In translate

replaced.

Harvard colleague, botanist Asa Gray, was Darwin's chief

it

of Huxley and Owen, there was no love part,

it

came from

Agassiz's popularity

Museum

into big donations for his

lost

and

between Gray his ability to

of Comparative Zoology,

while Gray struggled to keep up his Harvard herbarium going. "Agassiz cannot abide

denounced to stick

up

it

as

for

atheism,

its

own

words, and

in an

etc., etc.,"

its

fairness.

show up

demagogue, and always

Darwin

[Darwin's theory]

philosophy, and

book and charmed by his

it

1860

Gray wrote

.

.

.

and so has publicly

in early 1860. "I

am bound

I

am

struck with the great ability of the

I

also

want to stop

his loose

ways of putting

Agassiz's things.

mouth with

He

is

a sort

of

talks to the rabble."

letter

wrote, "I

am amused

by Asa Gray's account of

MARK

152

my book

the excitement

denounced

A F F E

made amongst -naturalists.

newspaper, but yet in such terms that

in a

it

has

J

.

.

it is

.

Agassiz has

in fact a fine

advertisement!" 6

Two

of Agassiz's arguments were that some

ancient lobsterlike arthropod

— were

arthropods. Yet they appear early in the

Another was

that

be found today Agassiz

record, but

were

predicament

therefore,

sure.

like trilobites

— an

They could

record and then disappear. in the fossil record can

still

Many

other American

sci-

see hints of evolution in the fossil

reluctant to subscribe to Darwin's vision. This was the

still

Cope

forms

untouched by evolution.

denied the process of evolution.

were not so

entists

fossil

some marine organisms found

— unchanged and

flatly

life

more complex than some modern

faced.

He

simply could not accept natural selection

sole evolutionary force because

seemed

it

as

the

to harbor terrible religious,

moral, and social implications.

Embedded

like

a

black seed in the heart of Darwin's theory was

Malthus's bleak economic and political vision of society. force of nature to

it,

Darwin had amplified

its

power.

It

By adding

challenged the idea

of "free will" and seemingly sanctioned "the slaughter of innocents." 7 destined to be turned back

upon

to touch a myriad of social

and

would be used

lution

the

It

was

society and enlarged yet again, rippling out

political shores. Ultimately,

Darwinian evo-

to denigrate the poor, celebrate the rich, praise

nationalism, and extol war.

This road was too severe, too hopeless for some

scientists.

Natural selec-

Cope it simply didn't go far enough in explaining the reasons evolution. The key to evolution was in variation, but from where did that variation come? Any theory of evolution that didn't explain variation, Cope had once told his father, was "incomplete." The answer for Cope was that those variations were part of a design. In 1869, he made his first attempt at reworking the theory of evolution tion was useful as far as

in

it

went, but for

an eighty-page pamphlet

titled Origin of Genera. In

it

he argued that vari-

ation was created by the "acceleration or retardation" of characteristics, and this force

After

was internal and part of an

all,

Cope

asked,

overall design.

what were the odds of good things happening by

chance? "Since the number of variations possible to an organism great," he argued, "the probability of the

ture

.

.

.

Cope

having arisen by chance also resurrected the

is

one admirably adaptive

is

very

struc-

8 extremely small."

Lamarckian belief that environmental adapta-

be passed from generation to generation. All in all, it was a masterful, and heartfelt effort to imbue what was clearly a remarkable pattern of change in the fossil chronicle with spirituality and morality. Variation was tions could

THE ULDED DINOSAUR part

of a design,

a plan;

and hard work and achievement by the father could

be passed on to the son. This was

Cope was

that

creation."

153

a kinder, gentler

evolution.

of evolution

able to proclaim "the science

is

So much

so,

the science of

9

This became the foundation of the neo-Lamarckian school of evolution, a

uniquely American reaction to Darwin's theory and one that managed to

simultaneously deal with the emerging

record and

fossil

still

shelter

some of

Victorian society's most cherished tenets. Cope, A.

S.

Ryder were

held broader sway in

main

its

leaders.

For

a time, their ideas

Packard, and John

America than those of Darwin and Huxley.

The problem was them up force,

of forces that were

that this theory required a set

impossible to measure or demonstrate.

the neo-Lamarckian dressed

Still,

Greek. There was, for example, the so-called growth

in scholarly

"bathmism," and variation through

and the

stimuli, or "epigenesis,"

transmission of growth force from generation to the next, or "perigenesis."

For Cope,

with

a series

was

it

a life's

of essays

work. His Origin of Genera was followed in 1886 and ten years after that

titled T7ie Origin of the Fittest

by the voluminous Primary

Facts of Organic Evolution.

This effort would,

according to Harvard paleotologist and science historian Stephen

J.

Gould,

make Cope "America's first great evolutionary theoretician." Primary Facts was a monumental effort to take the known material ticularly in the fossil record

— and organize

work. "The present book,"

Cope

it

—

par-

into a neo-Lamarckian frame-

explained,

"is

an attempt to select from

the mass of facts accumulated by biologists, those which, in the author's

opinion throw In

some

light

five

upon the problem of organic evolution."

hundred pages, Cope

sifted

through

data, but his conclusion wasn't different than

years earlier. "It has

which

been proved,

as

it

has resulted in evolution has not

but in definite directions."

American and make

a

scientists

it

massive

a

appears to me, that the variation

been multifarious or promiscuous,

10

weren't the only ones trying to take the

sense out of it that was different from Darwin's.

intensely disliked both Darwin's theory and

working on the idea There was,

for

amount of

had been twenty-seven

that there

example,

a

its

fossil

record

Owen, who

so

champion, Huxley, had been

were developmental "archetypes." 11 vertebrate archetype of

which

with backbones were merely variations. There had been

Huxley ridiculed Owen's approach

all

creatures

a divine blueprint.

as

misguided romantic Platonism

as

the

— not

science.

What Cope's battles,

arguments,

as

well

Owen-Huxley and Agassiz-Gray

underscored was something that Darwin had been acutely aware

MARK

154

A F F E

J

— the proof or refutation of the theory

of

moved But

if

far too slowly to expect to see

it

the

Darwin

or verify

somehow

these transformations did occur,

among

lay in the fossil record.

in the

it

Evolution

modern

world.

they had to be preserved

fossils.

realized this but feared that the fossil record

and fragmented to be of much

use. In Origin of Species,

was too incomplete he devoted an entire

chapter to "the imperfection of the geological record.

"What an

number of generations, which

infinite

must have succeeded each other

the

mind cannot

grasp,

long rock of years!" Darwin wrote.

in the

"Now, turn to our richest geological museums, and what a paltry display we The fossil record was very weak. "This is perhaps the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory," Darwin

behold!"

conceded.

A year

after Origin of Species

been discovered with the bony clearly a link

of all

fossils,

and long claws of

between the two forms.

a reptile It

and

feathers

of

a bird

was

was, at the time, the most valuable

the single greatest piece of evidence for Darwin's theory.

collector,

"regardless

of Solnhofen, Bavaria. This creature

in the fine limestone

tail

When a German poor

was published, the bizarre Archaeopteryx had

specimen came on the market, Baird, the inveterate but

urged Marsh to buy

it.

of cost." 12 Marsh passed. The

Huxley was

also delighted

"Now fossil

is

your chance," he wrote,

sold for ten thousand dollars.

with Archaeopteryx. But opponents,

like the

University of Munich's Andreas Wagner, argued that the feathers were

He renamed his adherents "Darwin and will the fossil Griphosaurus, or griffin lizard. probably employ the new discovery as an exceedingly welcome occurrence coincidental and nothing

for the justification

mals,"

Wagner

diates

between

more than

of their strange views upon the transformation of ani-

said. In that case,

this link

The gap

The

he demanded, where were

again,

in the fossil record

Next/ York Times, in

stated the problem.

an 1876

"When

it is

enormous periods of time, we the limitless period beyond, it is

a

the interme-

and neither Darwin nor Huxley had

a full

was their missing

link, their Achilles' heel.

article discussing

Darwin's theory,

clearly

urged against the evolutionists that during

no development

see

but the slightest change, the reply

degrees,

all

and the true bird?

There was the challenge reply.

"peculiar adornments."

is

when

response ad ignitum.

made

there

is

that

in a given organism, or

we must go

further back to

time for any evolution. In some

We know

nothing of the

'past eternity'

and cannot answer."

So this was the dilemma as Huxley disembarked in August summer's day. The theory of evolution by

New York City on an natural selection

had

Tilt

come

GILDED

permeate every aspect of

to

1

K

155

life,

forcing responses from

s A

1\

intellectual

I

philosophers, scientists, politicians,

theologians,

debated, praised, and laissez-faire

l>

condemned.

economy,

and educators.

had been held up

It

and even war. But

social policy,

was

It

as justification for it

the

remained merely

a

theory.

"In spite of twenty years labor," noted historian David Hull,

had

failed to

Huxley had now been defending the theory

tion."

and he had only

years,

"Darwin

provide any proof of his theory of evolution by natural selec-

bits

of proof,

for another seventeen

like Archeaopteryx.

But Huxley had

heard that in America there might be proof, not buried in massive rock strata

but rather waiting in

Two

New

days after arriving in

accompanying her husband on

mer

Saratoga, with

resort at

boarded

a special, private

Haven, Connecticut.

New

tion. After settling

as

American

his

parlor car provided to

New

I

replied.

themselves in

that,

to the

sum-

him by

the

New

York

a carriage,

New York pulled into the stathe Yale professor proposed

"Show me what you

can see plenty of bricks and mortar in

And with

went north

was

Haven.

the 1:10 P.M. train from

short tour of the university buildings.

them.

tour,

who

mineral springs and racetrack. Huxley

its

Central Railroad and headed for

Marsh was waiting

York, Henrietta Huxley,

my own

a

have got inside

country," Huxley

they were off to that Victorian temple of bones

—

the

Peabody Museum. Like

a

rug merchant unfurling

and the

long-vanished species. Huxley was delighted. wife in a

"the most wonderful thing

letter,

Marsh placed before Huxley

his wares,

pterodactyls, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs,

I

fossil It

remains of

many

other

was, the Englishman told his

ever saw."

Bones were not, however, the only entertainment Marsh was to provide. Huxley was wined and dined and feted at a string of teas and dinners. One dinner was held with some key scientific men including Leidy and

—

The governor of Connecticut came

Clarence King.

reporter that he was delighted to find that

to visit

Huxley was not

and told

a

a "highfalutin"

philosopher, but rather had the sensibilities of a "commercial or mercantile"

man. Obviously, is

something

wife.

I

"We may

a

high Yankee compliment. Huxley took

did not

know and

I

am

rather

as such.

"That

proud of it," he wrote

to his

it

be rich yet."

Huxley and Marsh drove up and down the elm-canopied streets of New Haven, like scientific royalty. "I can assure you I am being 'made of as I

MARK

156

thought nobody but the

A F F E

J

wife was foolish enough to do," he wrote to

little

Henrietta.

The news from Huxley arrived

the

West continued

town, the

in

New Haven

On

be menacing.

to

the day before

Evening Register carried

this dispatch

"The steamer Carroll arrived this morning from General camp having brought General Forsythe and 20 sick and wounded soldiers. The Carroll was on her way up when near the mouth of the Powder River Indians on both sides of the river kept up a running fire upon the from

St. Paul:

Terry's

boat."

Washington was secretary of war,

still

obsessed with scandal,

scheme involving supply

this

time

was brought

it

was the courtly

down

On

contracts for western forts.

had narrowly escaped being

which had voted

who

Robert Belknap,

kickback

in a

August

Belknap

1,

on impeachment charges by the

tried

thirty-five to twenty-five for the trial to proceed.

Senate,

The

vote,

however, clearly showed there was not enough support to reach the required two-thirds for conviction. Belknap had already resigned, so the case was dropped.

How much and Marsh

these current events intruded into the daily

difficult to say,

is

although

progressed, the Englishman was

of Huxley

life

America

clear that as his visit to

it is

becoming

perceptive critic of American

a

foibles.

What

is

certain

the Peabody

is

Marsh and Huxley plumbed the depths of time

that

Museum. Each day from

drive around town, and tea at the

through Marsh's treasures fessor very

New

York

one

to see

Huxley was

tour,

City,

end of the

particularly

much wanted Huxley

At the end of his tion in

—

nine to

—

ogist Vladimir Kovalesky,

It

was

with

day, the set

his collection

that

at

break for lunch,

two worked

of fossils

their

a

way

that the Yale pro-

of fossil horses.

on evolu-

he intended to speak about

subject Huxley,

a

a

to give a series of lectures

and Marsh knew

the genealogy of the horse.

six,

and Russian paleontol-

had both written on based upon European spec-

imens.

"My own

explorations had led

me

to conclusions quite different

Marsh wrote, "and my specimens seemed

his,"

that the horse originated in the

New

genealogy had to be worked out here.

my

As

specimens with

early as

1

me

teeth, feet,

With some

conclusively

hesitation,

and testing each point that

870, Huxley had offered the horse

evolution and had focused on four

me

World, not the Old, and that

frankly before Huxley, and he spent nearly

whole matter over

to prove to

from

fossil

species

and ulna, or forelimb bone, over

I

I

its

laid the

two days going

made."

as a potential

example of

and the changes

in their

a thirty-million-year period.

GILDED DINOSAUR

Til K

"The

process by

which the Anchithcrium

has

157

been converted to Equus

of reduction and specialization," Huxley wrote

in his essay

is

one

"Paleontology

and Evolution."

Marsh had come that

stop

first

across

some horse

fossils,

by chance, back in 1868 on

Antelope Station, Nebraska. Since then,

at

methodical, acquisitive way, he had continued to collect

he could

as

sils

lay his

hands on.

Marsh had pieced together

a

It

had become

as

in his relentless,

many

horse fos-

unique collection.

a

sixty-million-year story of the horse and

its

transformation from the fox-sized, four-toed Hyracotherium vassaccus to the

donkey-sized Merychippa plicate. In

that lead

all,

sejuntus,

and

Marsh documented

modern

finally the

horse, Equus com-

thirty different species in three families

from Hyracothcrium to Equus.

This story was sketched in teeth and femurs and jawbones rescued from the

fossil

how

beds across the West, and through these fragments, one could see

the tooth of Hyracotherium, really

no bigger than

evolved to the tooth of Mcsohippus, which

human's molar, and

finally to the

This was not just

a tale

huge,

flat,

is

that

of a

child, slowly

comparable to an adult

three-inch long tooth of Equus.

of the evolution of anatomy but of the transfor-

itself. It told of how the West in Eocene times was a thick where the foxy Hyracotherium was well adapted and how it became

mation of Earth forest,

by the Pleistocene where the larger and swifter Equus, with

vast prairies

hooves made by the fusing of the toes and large teeth for grazing on tough grasses,

was better equipped.

was not simply

It

a

story of specialization as

Huxley had thought, but rather one of the complex between environment and *

species,

and

also a tale

interrelationship

of trial and

error.

Huxley, however, was reluctant to give up his notions and challenged

Marsh time and time tant to fetch the

believe

you

With each challenge, Marsh dispatched an assisappropriate box containing the appropriate evidence. "I again.

are a magician,"

Huxley

finally declared.

At the end of the two

"Whatever

I

want, you

Huxley had capitulated. "He then informed me," Marsh wrote, "that all this was new to him, and that my facts demonstrated the evolution of the horse beyond question, and

just conjure up."

that for the

first

days,

time indicated the direct line of descent of an existing ani-

mal."

The Darwinians had

steered clear of arguing too robustly that the

fossil

record could prove the theory of evolution because they had feared that

many

it

would be missing, and their absence would offer an easy target for the critics. But Marsh, with his uncompromising, obsessive attention to detail had missed no

would be impossible

links, left

no

holes.

to

Here

fill

in

all

for the

the gaps, that too

first

links

time was physical proof of evolution.

— MARK JAFFE

158

"No

collection

which

has hitherto been formed, approaches that

made

by Professor Marsh, in completeness of the chain of evidence by which certain existing

mammals

Huxley

wrote to

And

later

connected with

are

their older tertiary ancestry,"

a colleague.

was not enough, Marsh offered Huxley

if that

a peek at his work on Why, if Marsh could do with he would not only have shown the

the Kansas birds with teeth. Birds with teeth! birds

what he had done with

horses,

Who could

evolution of a species, but of one order of animals into another.

argue with Darwin's theory then?

Marsh assured Huxley fossil

among

the dinosaurs. In

impression of that very

West must be

there in the

the

toon,

still

August

16,

selves

a

Harvard

out and

I

car-

but he was

to Marsh,

rich

my

"My

a

store is."

stated,

his wife,

Darwinian.

A

"There

few days

no

is

Falls

the trip

—

and

there,

them-

later in a letter to fossil

ver-

it."

older

Huxley faced

the inaugural address for the

Baltimore, and his lectures

after his

and they then went on to the annual meeting

visited Huxley's

From

day

collection of

of American Association for the Advancement of Science Nashville, Tennessee.

The

recollections are sorting

existence, which can compare with

toured Niagara

five toes

New

naturalist,

how

find

Huxley rejoined

— with

Haven to join Alexander Agassiz, the tony Newport, Rhode Island. The great Agassiz's left

Clarence King, Huxley simply tebrate in

and so Huxley created Eohomo. The

simian jockey.

Huxley wrote

departure,

his

said

Eohippus.

papers, shows a smiling horse

Huxley

son of Louis Agassiz, in

son was also

which he dubbed

Marsh

horse,

a rider,

among Marsh's

a smiling, hairy,

On

giddy moment, Huxley doodled for Marsh

a

first

the horse ought to have

and

somewhere out

that

remains of an even older, five-toed horse, which might have trotted

on evolution

his

sister

They and nephew in in Buffalo.

two major speeches of

new Johns Hopkins University, in in New York City. The Baltimore

and Ohio Railroad provided another plush, private parlor car for the journey from Tennessee to Maryland.

One

the

morning of September

packed with ple as

a

12, the

Baltimore

Academy of Music was

standing-room-only crowd of more than two thousand peo-

Huxley took

to the stage.

By

that time,

he had seen

a

good

deal of

America and Americans, and while impressed, he was also troubled. Although his speech was titled "University Education," Huxley concluded by raising questions about where the nation was heading and challenging

its

values. "I

your bigness, or your does not make

cannot say that

I

am

the slightest degree impressed by

material resources. Size

a nation.

The

is

great issue, about

not grandeur, and territory

which hangs

a true

sublim-

THE GILDED DINOSAUR ity,

and the terror of overhanging

What

things?

is

to be the

America was young and risked

the political and

all

fate,

to

is

do with these

means?"

knew

that

it

were already wracking

that

told the audience, "will have to

better than

permanent bureaucracy;

the population thickens in your great cities and the pressure of want

as

the gaunt specter of pauperism will stalk you."

is felt,

Still,

he held out hope. "Truly America has

in toil, in care,

wisdom and

and

a great future

right; great in

shame

if

she

fact that

it is

"why

in

other nations should

of mankind

for the highest interest

you should succeed; but the one condition of is

be guided

fail.

cannot understand," Huxley continued,

guard,

before her; great

in responsibility; great in true glory if she

envy you or be blind to the that

you going

are the

economic problems

decide whether shifting corruption

"I

aTe

Huxley's eyes, but he

fresh, in

"You and your descendants," he

Europe.

and

what

is

end to which these

159

success,

your

sole safe-

moral worth and intellectual clearness."

Huxley did not know to what ends American wealth would be put nor

how to

would fashion the worth and clarity he believed the nation needed make its contribution to the world, yet even as he spoke, answers were it

being forged.

The

very university rising in Baltimore was part of that

answer. Unlike, previous

American

universities, Johns

the legacy of railroad and shipping

money

Hopkins

— was geared

—

built

with

to the sciences,

advanced graduate education, and research. Slowly,

America was committing

a larger

geoning wealth to science. At Harvard, Lowell Scientific School, and Sheffield Scientific School.

the Peabody tribute

at Yale, railroad

Museum. Why,

in the 1880s,

even

P.

T.

largess

burthe the

had created

Barnum would con-

dollars to Tufts University for

the foundation of its biological sciences

The emerging

its

money had financed and cotton money built

George Peabody's mercantile

one hundred thousand

become

and larger portion of

textile

what would

program

land-grant system of universities, while

at

offering a decidedly applied and agrarian bent, was also turning

the outset

American

land into American science.

The eight-year-old Cornell University was perhaps the best example of new American university. Started with a federal land grant, the fledgling institution also became the recipient of an endowment from Ezra Cornell, the founder of the Western Union Telegraph Company. Cornell would

the

teach agriculture, engineering, and science, and teach

women.

(In 1872,

it

had become the

first

American

it

to both

men and

university to

open

its

doors to female students.)

This was

a far

cry from the classical academy. This was not education for

MARK

160

the

was education

elite; it

J

A F F E

of democracy and

in the service

"The

industry.

emergence of science and the subsequent development of industry and vocation" were seen as ways of building the nation and fostering equality. 13 Within

few

a

German

years, the

Werner von Siemens, would warn

electrical

engineer and

industrialist,

the Prussian government, "Recently

England, France, and America, those countries which are our most danger-

ous enemies

have recognized the great meaning

in the struggle for survival,

of scientific superiority

.

[and] have zealously striven to

.

.

improve natural

scientific

education through improvements in teaching to create institu-

tions that

promote

scientific progress."

For

worried German to mention

a

the United States in the same breath with France and England was surely a

measure of progress. Siemens, of course, was right. America was beginning to erect structure of science that

could not foresee

ley

Europeans

And

— and

even

his lectures

if

on

would not be

how American

the world. Yet

he could not see

it it,

rivaled in the century to

science

super-

a

come. Hux-

would completely

eclipse the

was already happening. as

he went on to

evolution, he had already

felt

New York City

to give

the force of the change in the

basement laboratory of the Peabody Museum.

New

On

the

the

fossil treasures

way

to

York, the Huxleys stopped in Philadelphia to examine

of the Academy of Natural Sciences and to

visit

the

Centennial Exhibition. Although Leidy had always claimed that he was

"too busy to theorize," Darwin's Origin of Species had been for him "like a [that] flashed upon the skies." He offered the Huxleys an enthusias-

meteor tic

welcome and

a

moved into its new The academy's new home had reading and lec-

tour of the academy, which had just

building on Logan Circle. ture rooms, laboratories, objects.

The

library

collection was

Huxley had

now

and an "apartment"

had grown to

thirty

copying natural

thousand volumes, and the birds

the largest in the world.

to be impressed with the

for artists

14

huge Hadrosaurus

restoration

fellow countryman, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins. Surprisingly,

of his

when

the Huxleys went across the Schuylkill River to the Centennial Exhibition,

which sprawled

across the

flat fields

of Fairmount Park, they encountered

yet another Hadrosaurus.

This one was in front of the Smithsonian Institution's exhibit, that Spencer Baird had put tremendous

promise of finally obtaining

his

effort into

because in

long dreamed of museum.

it

a project

was the

THE GILDED DINOSAUR few years

Just a

would even have

much

that

earlier,

can world's

that

grander. Collectively,

and

city, state,

federal

Ameri-

first

estimated ten million people flowed through the exhi-

summer

— equal

one out every

to

Congress had advanced Philadelphia more than

five a

Americans.

million dollars in loans

Many doubted whether any of that money would

for the exhibition.

States

trauma made the celebration

raised nearly six million dollars to create this

An

fair.

and perhaps

much

sweeter, that

bition gates that

had been doubtful whether the United

it

a centennial,

governments had

161

paid back, but the Smithsonian was told the loan, a portion of the returned

Philadelphia did

if

money would go

ever be

make good on

to building a national

museum. 13

work

Baird mobilized his forces and even persuaded employees to

and on weekends exhibit.

—

no

for

He wanted a good

Hadrosaums was such

extra salary

show, but

good

a

idea.

—

he wasn't certain mounting the

at first

It

was, of course, an issue

Cope and Marsh would thoroughly disagree. Cope had been one of the original proponents of the the Exposition

a great feature for

impetus to

Cope added "science

this

rather

is

.

.

among

scientific study

.

,"

he told Baird.

the people

was especially important

on

the decline."

"ability

upon which

idea. "It

would be

would

give great

"It

— which

is

sadly wanted."

in Philadelphia

where he

and unsure of anyone's

He

with the materials on hand to make these restorations."

expend

"We

have had

said

16

Baird, however, was uncertain about the idea

Marsh's advice.

late

to put together the best possible

a great

sought

upon

preference brought to bear

us to

portion of our centennial appropriation in employing Water-

a

house Hawkins to make restorations of some prehistoric animals for the Philadelphia exhibition, the backers being LeConte, Cope, Guyot,

gentlemen. Prof. Henry

November of 1875. Marsh thought restorations that

it

bad

a

all

idea. "I

do not think

possible to

it

of any of the more important extinct animals of

thought that

its,

inclined to accede," Baird wrote

fossils

value to science,"

were

Marsh

told Baird.

were "especially appropriate

first

world's

prevailed,

centennial.

It

and

fair.

a

country

scientific

how

lim-

restorations

for a great popular exposition." Yes,

that they weren't "appropriate for a scientific

Cope

this

make

for scientists, not for the public.

but could they not see the public-relations value and

America's

in

Of course, Marsh

narrow view, Cope thought. Certainly there were

a

other

17

would be of real

Such

is

&

Marsh

to

it

museum," but

was true this

was

18

Hadrosaums was

turned out to be

a

built to celebrate the

worthy competitor

American

to Corliss's steam

MARK

162

A F F E

J

engine, Otis's elevator, and Bell's telephone, at

the

fair.

where

it

claimed

The

Hadrosaurus was such

all

a hit that

of which made

it

their debuts

was moved to Washington,

stood outside the Smithsonian until time and weather eventually it.

After a day of sight-seeing in Philadelphia, to abound,

headed to

Thomas and

New

On Monday

York

where Hardosauri just seemed

Henrietta Huxley got on the train once more and

City, the last leg

of their journey.

evening September 18, Huxley again faced

standing-room-

a

only audience. This time there were more than thirteen hundred people

packed into Chickering the

first

Hall, the Fifth

Avenue

recital

of Huxley's three lectures on evolution. At

"highly respectable crush"

filled

the

hall.

The

auditorium, to hear five dollars a seat, a

city's Social

Register was

well represented and so were the urban cognoscenti, like Peter Cooper, the elderly inventor, philanthropist,

and builder of the

Tom Thumb locomotive.

Huxley's talk dealt with geological and biological predicates to evolution. It left

the

New York

Hux-

Times correspondent disappointed, and he noted

had been "comparatively indifferent to the imaginative and poetic

ley

side

of his subject." In his second lecture, again given to an overflowing transitional

ended by

ley call

hall,

Huxley discussed

they tended to point to evolution.

next lecture,

I

will take

up what

I

Hux-

like to

the demonstrative evidence of evolution."

On hall

how announcing, "In my

forms of life and

Friday,

September 22, he delivered

was packed, and

when Huxley was

his final lecture.

finished, the

Once

again the

speech became the lead

story in the next morning's Times.

THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION PROF. HUXLEY'S FINAL LECTURE THE DEMONSTRATIVE EVIDENCE IN FAVOR OF THE EVOLUTIONARY THEORY— SIMILARITIES RETWEEN MAN AND THE HORSE THE CHAIN OF EQUINE EVIDENCE a most remarkable animal in as much as it one of the most perfect pieces of machinery of presents us with an example in the animal kingdom," Huxley told his audience. "And as a necessary con-

"The horse

is

in

many ways

THE GILDED DINOSAUR sequence of any sort of perfection

.

.

you

.

163

find that he

a

is

beautiful crea-

ture."

Huxley admired the animal's hooves and powerful built for speed

mouth and

its

mechanism with the

viding the

come

and

legs that

were

clearly

teeth, an exceptional "apparatus for pro-

fuel

which

it

requires."

How had the

horse

to this perfection?

Huxley then set about answering that question. He discussed his own work and that of other Europeans on the genealogy of the horse. And then he turned to America.

"You

are

all

aware that

no

there were found

American continent. sued in at

country,

this

when

.

.

.

Nevertheless,

was found

it

country was discovered by Europeans,

this

of the existence of horses

traces

as

soon

that remains

as

any part of the

in

geology began to be pur-

of horses,

like horses existing

the present day, are to be found in abundance in the

Then

deposits."

as

bone hunters probed deeper

last

superficial

in the tertiary deposits,

new

and curious animals were found.

"But

is

it

only recently that the very admirably continued and most

thoroughly and patiently worked out investigation of Prof. Marsh have given us a just idea of the enormous wealth and scientific importance of the

Huxley announced.

deposits," "I

have had the advantage of glancing over his collections

Haven, and is

I

can undertake to say that so

far as

my knowledge

at

New

extends, there

nothing in any way comparable to them for extent, and the care with

which the remains have been got together or their This drew a round of applause from the audience.

scientific

Using sketches provided by Marsh, Huxley walked the remarkable evolution of the horse.

his

The assembled

importance."

audience through

New

Yorkers again

responded with applause.

"That

what

is

I

mean,

ladies

of evolution," the English said to it.

be demonstrated

If this

is

which can

not

and gentlemen, by demonstrative evidence

scientist

when

concluded.

the facts

scientific proof, there

said to

be

scientifically

upon

the present time rests

as

"An

inductive hypothesis

is

are shown to be in accordance with

can be no inductive conclusions,

proved and the doctrine of evolution

secure a foundation

as

at

the Copernican the-

ory of the motion of the heavenly bodies." Again, the audience applauded.

Huxley received forty-eight hundred next day boarded

a ship to return to

very pleasant trip in Yankee-land."

wrote to Marsh,

"I

you anything new

am to

dollars for the three lectures

and the

England. "I had," he announced, "a

Upon

his return to

England, Huxley

thinking of discoursing on the birds with teeth. Have

tell

on

that subject?

I

have implicit faith in the inex-

M

164

J

A F F E

of the contents of those boxes."

haustibility

Huxley's

was not misplaced, for he had been

faith

when word

seven weeks

"but he was so

Orohippus.

back in London just

been hiding out west, but rather

has not

had him

"I

five-

in

an

'corralled' in the

Museum when you where there," Marsh wrote to Huxley, covered with Eocene mud that did not know him from I

promise you

I

It

Peabody Museum.

crate in the

basement of our

in

reached him that Marsh had indeed found the

toed dawn horse, Eohippus.

unopened

A R K

ture if you will give

Marsh himself

me

his

grandfather in time for your next Horse Lec-

proper notice."

became

also

a

great

champion of evolution, and

in a

keynote address before the American Association for the Advancement of

"To doubt evolution

Science's annual meeting in 1877, he proclaimed,

today

to

is

doubt science, and science

is

only another

name

for truth."

doubters remained. Princeton professor Arnold Guyot, an ardent

Still,

who never cared much for Marsh after the Yale professor had him out of a mastodon skeleton that had been bought and paid for by Princeton, wrote to Marsh after his speech. creationist,

finagled

"You

truly say that Science

"But was

it

After Huxley

Science?

Is

New

left

not

is

another

this

filled

New

Haven.

clay.

for Truth.

the same question as

Haven, Marsh returned to the

the steady stream of boxes from his

came hawk

name

fossil

what

is

truth?"

of dealing with

task

hunters in Kansas. Crate after crate

with specimens of mastodons, pterodactyls, dinosaurs, and Jayearly August, the party had sent more than twenty crates to

By

"We

up to our knees in Eocene mud," Marsh exclaimed. Mudge and WiUiston kept Marsh informed of the events in their day-today lives. "We bought a horse to replace the one that was drown," Mudge

"The thermometer seldom

wrote.

above

"A

a

morning

more than one or two degrees

&

desperadoes murdered

a

man

at

the station yes-

attempting to steal his horse," Williston wrote.

brought up

a sheriff

night with a large station.

gets

hundred," Williston noted.

party of teamsters

terday train

are

and

men from Hays who captured them are now on the way

amount of plunder and they

There were 14 of them, but with one for whom there was an exchange of 'compliments' with the

ing reward

"A

there was

—

special all last

to the

a stand-

sheriff.

His

funeral services will be very short!!"

But the most ter

interesting piece

from Mudge,

who

of gossip came

late in the

summer

in a let-

wrote, "I have just learned from Mr. Sternberg,

THE ULDED DINOSAUR brother to the Chas. Sternberg that

Cope and

his

who

has

been

in the

165

employ of Prof. Cope

brother Charles have gone to Dakota. So

I

think he will

not trouble us here."

Cope had gone

into Sioux

Country where

being chased by thousands of U.S. soldiers. Well, perhaps Sitting Bull

Cope's chestnut scalp from

would perform his skull.

Sitting Bull's

How a

band was now

foolhardy.

service for

How

typical.

Marsh and

lift

Chapter Eleven

The spring of 1876 had also been a busy time for Cope. He had be working fourteen-hour days to finish a volume on Cretaceous

life

Hayden

for the

Survey, and at the

same

found himself having to fend off charges of

time, he

improperly keeping

fossils

that

had been donated to the

Academy of Natural Sciences. The charge had been leveled by a Mr. Gaskill, of New Jersey, who had sent several fossils he found to Cope for the academy. Gaskill had been told by

a visitor that

the

that visitor? O. C. Still,

Gaskill's

fossils

had never reached Philadelphia.

complaint had to be addressed. Cope insisted that he had

handed over the specimens, and

him

right. "It

And who was

Marsh.

a

search of the

academy

collections proved

seems possible," the academy minutes concluded, "that

grave charge against the corresponding secretary might have

its

this

origins in

personal hostility secretly indulged rather than in facts." Marsh!

While Cope was work bound in Philadelphia, he had hired a lone fossil hunter, young and inexperienced, to try to match Mudge and Williston on the Kansas plains.

It

was

a

gamble. Ambitious, but green and untested, there

how this new man in him.

was no way of knowing a bit

of the gambling

agent would

Before long, the bet would more than pay off

as

Cope, however, had

Charles H. Sternberg

Cope

loyalist.

perhaps the best part of it was that Sternberg had been within

a hairs-

proved himself an extraordinarily adept

And

fare.

fossil

hunter and

a

breadth of working for Marsh. In the winter of 1875, Sternberg, the son of a Lutheran minister, was

studying

who

at the

Kansas State Agricultural College, in Manhattan. Mudge,

was once again

a

professor there, was putting together that summer's

expedition with Williston. a

The

twenty-six-year-old Sternberg tried to win

spot in their party, begged for one, but failed.

He turned to Cope. "I put my soul in the letter wrote him, for this was my last chance," Sternberg says in his memoir, 77ie Life of a Fossil Hunter. "I told him of my love for science, and my earnest longing to enter the chalk of western Kansas ... no matter what it might cost me in discomfort and I

166

THE GILDED DINOSAUR danger.

however, that

said,

I

Cope soon

When your

he did,

replied. a

I

was too poor to go

my own

expense."

1

Sternberg was too nervous to open the envelope.

three-hundred-dollar bank draft fluttered to his

Cope's note read.

style,"

at

16?

"Go

feet. "I like

to work." In June and July, Sternberg

without the success of Mudge man worked himself sick, and then Cope come from Wyoming to help. But at the end of

feverishly searched the Kansas deposits, but

and Williston. The young arranged for July,

J.

C. Isaac to

Cope decided

himself.

He

to put aside his manuscripts

informed Sternberg

that they

and specimens and go west

would abandon Kansas

altogether

and head for Montana.

Cope

arrived in

him on

Omaha on

August

the railway platform.

Sternberg was shocked

It

1

.

and Sternberg were waiting

Isaac

was the

when Cope emerged from

a

coach exhausted and

staggering, helped along by his wife, Annie.

How, he wondered, could

man ever survive the rigors of the frontier? Cope seeing that Sternberg nursed a limp

—

from asked

a hayloft

similar doubts.

him mount

herd of wild horses,"

Omaha left

this

the result of a childhood

"Can Mr. Sternberg

fall

ride a horse?" he

Issac.

"I've seen a

— had

for

time the three had ever met.

first

pony bareback and cut out one of his mares from Issac replied. Cope seemed satisfied. The trip from a

took them west past Montana to Ogden, Utah, where Annie Cope

the party to return to Philadelphia. At

Ogden, they took the narrow-

gauge Utah Northern Railroad north to Franklin, Idaho. This circuitous route was designed to ride

—

as

make

the final leg of the journey

short as possible, for there was

portation than the

—

the stagecoach

no more tortuous mode of trans-

Concord coach.

There was, however, hardly any other way to get to Montana, the most States. With no railroads and

remote and inaccessible corner of the United just a trickle

of river and stagecoach

get from Philadelphia to

Bozeman Times lamented from

civilization."

the white

man and

It

traffic

London or San that the region

into the territory,

it

was

easier to

Francisco than to Helena.

was

"dull,

monotonous

.

.

.

The

cutoff

wasn't surprising that the bloodiest of battles between

the Indians had been fought in this most isolated part of

the country.

Cope, Sternberg, and

camped on

Isaac

arrived at Franklin

on August

9.

They

the train platform that night, and the next morning, along with

the other passengers, they climbed aboard the

morning stage. With

a

snap of

— MARK

16K

J

A F F E

the reins and the swaying of the coach, they started the four-day trip to

Helena.

On the barren plains of eastern

Idaho, the six-horse team kicked up huge

clouds of fine dust that coated the coach and, in Sternberg's words, "pene-

our clothing and

trated

ration that

filled

our eyes and

ears, and, sticking to the perspi-

oozed from every pore, soon gave us the appearance of having

jaundice."

The

eight passengers

— seven men and one woman — were packed wooden gondola suspended on much absorb the shocks and jolts of the

into a

five-foot-wide by six-foot-long

thick

leather braces that did not so

steel-

rimmed, wooden wheels At

a

amplify and wildly distribute them.

as

twelve-mile-an-hour

clip,

the coach

moved along morning,

noon, and night. "If worn out from continued

of

loss

after-

sleep," Sternberg

"we dozed for a moment, a sudden lurch of the coach into a chuck hole would break out heads against a post or a neighbor's head." In an attempt to enable Cope to get some sleep, Sternberg cradled him

wrote,

in his

arms one night. Such

a

round-the-clock marathon was always vul-

nerable to sweltering days, chilly nights, bandits, and Indian attacks. (As

precaution against highwaymen,

Cope had sewn most of his money

pants legs. This was called "banking.")

When

they

came

to steep

a

into his

hills,

the

passengers had to get out and walk behind the coach.

The

only respite was the changing of horses and drivers

where one could buy

a

meal of hot

tard for

one

seemed

so very hard, but

all

dollar.

Perhaps there was

biscuits, black coffee, a

with the

a glass

stations,

railroads' sleeper cars

polished wood, art murals, fresh towels and pillows

teen cents,

way

time that such rigors might not have

when compared

which one could have "salmon

at

bacon, and mus-

— and dining

degrenoville a I'cspagnole"

of French wine, stagecoach

and

cars, in

for an extra

fif-

had become absolute

travel

torment. 2

The

their rules

— dictums

at

every Barstow and Helena Stage

•

Abstinence from liquor tle.

•

is

is

requested, but

is

if you

selfish

may be repugnant

permitted but

spit

ones nailed to the wall

station.

must drink share the bot-

and un-neighborly.

present gentlemen are urged to forgo

the odor of same

tobacco

like the

Company way

To do otherwise makes you appear

If a lady as

Why, they even expected

stagecoach companies were unapologetic.

the passengers to follow

smoking

cigars

to the gentler sex.

with the wind not against

and pipes

Chewing

it.

• Buffalo robes are provided for your comfort during the cold weather.

Hogging robes

will not

be tolerated and offenders

will

be made to ride

THE with the •

DINOSAUR

driver.

He

(or she)

may not understand and

arms may be kept on your person

Fire

friction

for emergencies.

sound

pleasure or shoot at wild animals as the

•

169

Don't snore loudly while sleeping or use your fellow passenger's shoulder for a pillow

•

KI>

riles

Do

may not

result.

for

fire

the horses.

In the event of runaway horses remain calm. Leaping from the coach will leave

you

mercy of the elements,

injured, at the

hostile Indians

&

hungry

coyotes.

•

Forbidden topics of discussion are stage coach robbers and Indian uprisings.

•

Gentlemen

be put off the

And

of unchivalrous behavior towards lady passengers will

guilty

stage. It

after three days

passengers faced one last

is

a

long walk back.

and two nights of

last

obstacle

Cope and

this ordeal,

— "Whiskey

his fellow

Jack." Jack was to drive the

leg of Cope's stagecoach journey, but he was loudly, aromatically, splen-

Cope was

didly drunk.

incensed, but the issue wasn't simply one of moral-

although doubtless the Quaker

ity,

rather

one of

whiskey U I

Riding

practicality.

With one

sober driver.

bottle,

him was deeply offended, but stagecoach was bad enough with a

still

in a

in

who knew what would

"We

like

man

.

.

.

Cope wrote

,"

refused to go without another man.

in a let-

So they gave

us a

messenger of the Express Co. to ride with him, although 'Whiskey Jack,' Issac

knew him

still

drove.

And

driving

a

happen?

strongly protested going with such a

ter to his wife.

and smelled

that staggered like a souse

it

as

was." 3

Jack was notorious for his drunken driving, having once actually fallen right off a coach. Fortunately, the horses

next

way

A

station.

knew

the route and ran past the

rider galloped after the coach

and brought

it

back.

company appointed a new superintendent, there was would be sacked, but he loudly and repeatedly swore to shoot dead any superintendent that tried to do it. It would take more than Cope's protests to get Jack out of the driver's seat. The express comEach time the

stage

speculation that Jack

pany's

man

rode up top with Jack to make sure that he

off the stage.

poring over

And

so,

fossils,

sylvan streets of

at least

did not

fall

while Marsh and Huxley were spending their time

having tea with the governor, and trotting around the

New

Haven, Cope was being tossed around by Whiskey

Jack.

"There was no

sleep that night,"

and jumped and bounded and

would have most

certainly

as

Cope

wrote.

the other

been wrecked had

".

man it

.

.

We

rushed and tore

afterwards told me,

not been for

we

his exertion."

MARK JAFFE

170

By

Whiskey Jack was dead tired and could hardly keep his eyes open. The express company employee was spelled from riding shotgun by one of the passengers, Judge H. W. Blake, who was on his

way

the following morning,

Helena to conduct the

to

been wrecked

broad daylight." Blake saw

in

judge

Jack. "His breath," the furious. "I

was and

the affair."

It

supreme court. Jack, however,

territory's

Without the judge, Cope

stayed behind the reins.

am

one

"would have

positive aspect in

Cope was

"scared the road agents ofT."

said,

very indignant," he wrote to Annie, "and will report

no good. Jack never missed

did

the stage

said,

at least

a

run

until the railroad finally

put the stagecoach out of business. 4

On

August 14, Cope arrived

Montana. Just

in Helena, the new, bustling capital

that winter, the territorial legislature

in a brick building next to the

Methodist minister,

Belmont Saloon, and

W C. Shippan, chopped down

Gulch, the scene of vigilante justice. Shippan saw

soon the sentiment around town was

pretty

tant part

had met for the

that

it

first

in the spring, a local

the hanging tree in as

of

time

Dry

an act of progress, but

Helena had

lost

an impor-

of its heritage.

arrival was front-page news in the Helena Daily Herald. "ProfesEdward D. Cope, eminent in the science world, is in the city with several aides, en route to the mouth of the Judith River, a section of the country

Cope's

sor

he seeks to explore in the

But

it

was

Indian situation street,

of Indians, not

talk is

of science," the paper announced. 3

interest

scientists, that

hummed

in

Helena. "The

the absorbing topic of conversation in every place

the saloon, the hotel, the family, church.

It is

upper most

—

the

in every-

body's thoughts," the Helena Independent had written toward the end of July.

6

But unlike Walt Whitman and

couldn't muster

tlers

much sympathy

military had simply bollixed

contended

that

if

up

most western

set-

for Custer, the army, or the Sioux.

The

his fellow easterners,

killing the

enemy.

The

Fort Benton Record

Custer had not died, he would have been court-

martialed, and the Helena Daily Herald agreed, noting, "It was Custer's rashness that precipitated the disaster."

7

Perhaps Elizabeth Chester Fiske, the wife of the Helena Daily Herald's editor,

captured the sentiments of westerners best

of those brave

men who was

sacrificed

.

.

.

when

she wrote:

"Any one

was worth more than

Indians in the country, and yet every year thousands of just such

all

men

the are

slain and our 'Indian Policy' remains not unchanged, but ever changing for

the worse. The only comfort and only safety, of the extreme total

extermination of the savage."

Cope was urged not gerous.

But

after a

to push

on

couple of days'

West

lies in

the

8

to the Judith River. rest,

It

remained too dan-

the stubborn Cope, with Sternberg

THE GILDED DINOSAUR and

Isaac in tow,

boarded

a

head north

stage to

171

for Fort

Benton.

* On

August 17, Cope and

his

men

arrived at Fort

buckboard wagon. They had been forced to hitch coach busted it

was

wheel on

a

its

way

to this

its

a

ride

their stage-

port civilization).

existence to the mountain snows that, with each

spring thaw, raised the level of the Missouri River just

enough

most western navigable point on the waterway. Thus, tana, for a

when

outpost of civilization (though

last

a stretch to call this bustling, surly, river

The town owed

Benton on the back of a

few months each

to

make

in railroadless

Benton became the

year, Fort

it

the

Mon-

territory's

biggest mercantile port.

Cope and company came down one

side

Front Street, the heart of the town.

of the broad, dusty thoroughfare were the docks, heaped with barof

rels, crates, piles

and general chaos. Tied up along the

logs, pipes, tarps,

riverbank were rear-paddle-wheel steamers Nellie Peck,

with

tall,

and

of the

Yellowstone.

These

—

fifty-foot

like the Rosebud,

Far West,

long boats, three decks high,

black smokestacks, were the town's lifeblood, bringing goods

upriver from

one-way

On

trip

river,

St.

Louis and carrying back

would

the

furs, hides,

timber, and gold.

take seven to fourteen weeks, depending

number of stops, and

A

on the height

the availability of wood for fuel along

the way.

On

the other side of the street was a line of stores built of rough timber,

their pitched roofs hiding

behind

false facades, their

gap-toothed and coming apart. At the

far

wood

end of Front

planked sidewalks

Street

was the

small,

wooden army compound, home to the one company of infantry that the town its name. The soldiers, however, were not there to guard the

gave citi-

zenry or fight Indians, but rather to protect the merchandise. 9

The avenue between estoga freight

the docks and the stores was crammed with Conwagons and coaches that created traffic jams and shouting

The

fifteen-foot-long Conestoga wagons, operated by hauling

matches.

companies,

like the

two tons of goods

Diamond

at

R Bull Train, would load up with as much as

the docks to be carted across the territory by teams of

sixteen to twenty oxen.

Dogs and

pigs ran through the traffic

picked through the trash and debris littering the dusty just a

touch of rain would turn to

The

a

muddy

street,

and happily

which with

soup.

sidewalks and saloons were inhabited by gamblers, prostitutes, out-

laws, trappers, hunters, bullwhackers, river

men, whiskey

and mule skinners. There were more than

dozen saloons

a

traders, miners,

—

a

robust

num-

MARKJAFFE

172

ber for a town of seven hundred hundred souls and just four

names

streets

— with

Board of Trade, Break of the Day, and the Medi-

like the Jungle, the

cine Lodge.

The Occidental Saloon was touted

"toughest joint in the West,"

as the

Nick Welch, came out one morning and much a corpse nor a drunk sprawled before his estabthe trail further west," Welch announced. "This

at least until its proprietor,

to his dismay

found neither

lishment. "I'm hitting

dump

getting civilized."

is

Power and

T. C.

10

G. Baker were the mercantile princes of the place,

I.

receiving and distributing dry goods across the territory.

Welch and

his fel-

—

low saloon keepers dispensed Fort Benton's bawdier products whiskey, women, and cards. Both endeavors were important to the economy. "The gambling business

is

openly conducted

as

as

the dry goods stores," an 1885

history of Montana said of Fort Benton. "In fact close

up once

which

in awhile,

more

so,

more than can be

is

since the stores

do

said for the 'tiger

"n

dens/

Faro, roulette,

and poker, were the preferred games of chance, with

ranging from the two

bits

down by

plunked

bets

twenty-

street urchins to the

of "strike-it-rich" miners. Upstairs, some of the saloons

dollar gold pieces

had "handsomely appointed apartments"

for high-stakes games.

Selling whiskey to the Indians was another lucrative, if illegal, part of Fort

Benton's economic Hill

who

life.

were trying

Those

in the

Grant administration and on Capitol

to fashion a conciliatory Indian policy

by the whiskey trade and sought to have

But

said,

were frustrated

off.

"The avenues through which whiskey can and

duced among the Indians

wide and so numerous

are so

the service could not prevent as a

"typical frontier

whiskey for

So

choked

in a report to Congress, D. D. Mitchell, the superintendent

Benton,

place

it

it

supplies

sale in

men

the troops

on

.

.

.

streets

paved with playing cards and

open saloons and groceries."

was here amid and

being intro-

is

all

introduction." Sternberg described the

its

town

that

of Fort

this

hurly-burly that

he needed to

set

Cope would

out for the wilderness.

an easy or inexpensive exercise. This was a long

way

—

have to find the It

would not be way from

—

in every

Philadelphia.

And now in Fort

Sitting Bull

Benton's business.

133 miles from the ble

had

really

Out

whipped up

the

town and put

there in northwestern Montana,

territorial capital

Helena, the community

all

felt

a

crimp

by

itself,

vulnera-

and was unnerved by the prospect of a couple of thousand Sioux war-

riors passing

Again,

through town.

Cope was

advised against going out into the Missouri River val-

THE ULDED DINOSAUR

173

There were more than two thousand Sioux braves out there some-

ley.

where, and thirty-six hundred soldiers chasing them. There were also an estimated fifteen thousand Crows, Blackfeet, and Assiniboines along the

summer,

Missouri. This

hunting could be an extremely dangerous

fossil

proposition.

Right

after the massacre, the great fear

—

Missouri and that other tribes

— would be inflamed by

But

as

Santees, Assiniboines, Cree, and Black-

The one

it

and

Sitting Bull's success

the weeks passed, alarm faded.

and Crazy Horse were, but safe.

by the

that the Sioux, chased

would move west and toward the populated settlements along the

army,

feet

was

seemed

rise up, too.

No one was sure where Sitting Bull

that

towns

like

Helena and Butte were

exception remained the area around Fort Benton, which

sat in

the most likely path for the Sioux to take if they tried to escape to Canada.

"The

Professor was strongly advised against the folly of going into the

ground between the Sioux and

neutral

Crows," Sternberg

"A member of either

said.

hereditary enemies, the

their tribe

might

kill us,

and

lay

our

death on the other tribe."

Cope

reasoned, however, that

Sitting Bull

pressured to

somewhere

The in

residents

would be

of Fort Benton were

from the north

safe.

month, of peace

a

making

massed with

He

dash to Canada,

a

bet that there were

at least

in the valley.

less

confident.

are sufficiently alarming," a Fort

"The rumors coming

Benton correspondent

the end of July. "1

wrote to the Helena Daily Herald

at

excite unnecessary alarm, but as

said before, the

I

now

Montana. Until the Sioux were

the army, perhaps

the river valley

weeks, perhaps

the Sioux braves were

in south-central

move north by

Cope guessed several

all

news

am is

not disposed to

sufficiently excit-

ing to keep our people wide awake to possible danger." 12

This was not simply tana,

a case

of hysteria or melodrama. In northern

animus and violence. Since 1870, killed

Paw Mountains fossils. They were

Bear

J. J.

at least thirty

by Indians. (The records of Indians

kept.) Just that April,

for

Mon-

whites and Indians had long been living in an atmosphere heavy with

Everson,

who

two whiskey

—

killed

traders

right in the vicinity

victims,

it

people in the area had been

were found murdered near the

where Cope planned

to search

was suspected, of Assiniboines.

carried the mail from Fort

would have been yet another band of Santee Sioux on July

were not so meticulously

casualty if 8.

Benton

to Cypress Hills,

he hadn't managed to outrun

The mailman "returned

condition to Brown's ranch, on the Marias River,

a

in an exhausted

Monday," the Fort Benton Record said. "He reported a war party of Santee Sioux, numbering about 100 warriors, chased him from Lonesome Prairie to within a few last

— M

174

A R k

miles of the Marias River. Everson offers to

resume

once

his route at

In late July, there

if

A F F E

J

is

from the

ill

of the chase, but

effects

furnished with a suitable escort.

was news that Indians has been spotted

" ,3

in the Missouri

River valley and that Unpacas were seen, several times, around Fort Peck another river port two hundred miles to the ing for an opportunity to attack.

Even the sons

its

down

and scalped

killed

Bighorn

— twenty-year-old

lucky.

When

Custer

They appeared

to be wait-

same time, been

had, at the

Fort Laramie. battle

had palpably touched the town,

Billy Jackson

Everyone must have figured

Custer.

been

Little

at

east.

Somebody

split

— had

signed on

as

one of

scout for

a

as

had

Billy a goner. Jackson, however,

his four

hundred men,

Billy

went with

Major Marcus Reno instead of Custer. Reno was supposed

to attack the

Sioux encampment of two thousand lodges from the

while Custer

looped around and attacked from the other

No

sooner had

matched.

The

Reno begun

east

side.

charge than he realized he was over-

his

on who

troops either withdrew or ran, depending

tells

the

Bighorn River, and scrambled up a hill from which 150 men held off the Sioux until a relief column arrived. Custer's

story, splashed across the Little

group, of course, was entirely cut to pieces. Billy

who stood their ground on

Jackson was one of a group of scouts

near bank of the river to give

fire

cover to the retreating soldiers

crossed the water and scrambled up the

"We

hill.

the Indians were on us," Jackson recounted

me

was

killed

my

body. This fact

beneath

and

is

in falling

it fell

what saved my

for a shot before

in an oral history.

in a

life

had time

manner

the

they

as

"My

horse

that partly covered

running Sioux never

for the

checked their charge but ran their horses right over us." 14

Crawling through the melee, cloaked by the clouds of dust and gun smoke, Jackson made

way

his

There

to the riverbank and hid in the bushes.

he found three of his comrades. But they were cut off from Reno's

hill

by

quick way to

die.

So

the river. Crossing

it

in the daylight

would have been

a

we lay in the heavy underbrush just men where they were entrenched behind their

the four scouts waited. "All day long

300 yards from

Reno and

dead horses and in

his

rifle pits,"

Jackson

At about midnight, Jackson kets

stole

said.

out of the brush, picked up some blan-

from dead Sioux warriors, and disguised

Sioux), they

For

a

made

their

way

across the river

and

as

Indians (Jackson spoke

to

Reno's camp.

while there was even talk in Fort Benton that

was coming back to town

The madame

— and she

Madame Moustache

to organize a citizen militia to

was,

among

defend the town.

other things, really

already a great legend across the West.

15

She

first

a

madam

— was

appeared in 1854

as a

THE ULDED DINOSAUR young,

petite,

called herself

and engaging dark-haired

Madame

Monsieur Dumont. She rented

opened those

a

vingt-et-un game.

who

girl in

Nevada

Dumont of San

Eleanor

a

175

City, California.

Francisco.

small storeroom in the

The madame

mining town and

gave her place an

had them would get out their stovepipe

hats

She

There was no

air

of style and

and fancy clothes to

money at Madame Dumont's game. The madame deftly rolled cigarettes, drank champagne, and

lose their

dealt cards.

Toward the end of 1855, mining waned in Nevada City, and the gaming competition was stiffer. So she broke camp and spent the next two decades wandering from mining town to mining town

Her

place was a big success.

trying to repeat her success.

By gle,

the time she turned up in Fort

madam, as of her lip

Benton

1870 to take over the Jun-

in

she had been through several fortunes. She had been a prostitute and a well as a gambler and saloon keeper. (Calamity Jane had been

girls.)

She was

also heavier, a bit coarser,

had thickened enough to give her the nickname

although no one ever used

Her

it

reputation preceded her, but

what

really a

ing from smallpox was approaching town.

down

to the landing.

and warned the captain not to dock civic responsibility that

But

after the

counted

moved on

sold the saloon and

"Madame Moustache,"

to her face.

of Fort Benton was the day she heard that shooters and went

one

and the down on her upper

lest

endeared her to the citizens

steamer with passengers suffer-

Madame

She

grabbed

a pair

of

six-

fired several shots at the boat

he lose

his

life. It

in a place like Fort

was the kind of

Benton. In 1875, she

to the Black Hills.

Custer massacre, the pistol-toting

madam seemed just what

Fort Benton needed to organize the town's defense. At the time, however,

Dumont was where Wild

in the Bill

brand-new and very raw mining town of Deadwood,

Hickock had

just

been shot

in the

back while playing

cards.

So instead of Madame Moustache, Fort Benton got Edward Cope. The

rough-hewn town did not know what bottle

of bugs"

as

to

make of "Professor Shoup and his But they knew what to do with

the Record described him.

him.

"The

professor had difficulty in securing an outfit without paying an

exorbitant price for

it.

in,' " Sternberg wrote.

for seven horses, a for three

"My

They knew him to be a stranger and they 'took him Cope had to spend nearly fourteen hundred dollars

wagon,

supplies,

and the services of a cook and

a

guide

months.

only trouble

are plenty, but

is

getting

good men

men," Cope wrote

are very dear asking

to his wife.

men

"Poor

$100 per month, which

I

will

a

MARK JAFFE

176

not give." Eventually he had to relent and pay the SI 00

months

in

advance

—

was more than three times Basin.)

and

to a cook, Austin Merrill,

much

as

as

a

month

a guide, Jim

—

all

three

Deer. (That

he had paid for help in the Bridger

16

Finally,

on August

19,

Cope and

his

River. Before leaving Fort Benton,

four-man party

Cope wrote

set

out for the Judith

Annie assuring

a letter to

her that only "cock and bull stories about the Sioux have been published in the Helena and other papers.

.

.

.

Everyone considers them

body including Captain Williams who is commandant is no danger in the region to which I am going."

They

traveled across the rolling,

This was truly tant,

a

indigo mountain peaks.

One

day,

it

.

.

.

Every-

at the fort says there

plains for nearly five days.

land of big skies and of a bareness only broken by the dis-

whiskey traders had been east.

wind-swept high

false.

The Bear Paw Mountains

killed that spring

poured, and the

wagon

— loomed up

stuck

fast in

— where

the

two

them

in the

the gray, prairie

mud.

before

Cope draped a pup tent over a carbine rifle and a pick handle and hunkered down for a wet and wind-lashed night. At last, the party dropped down into the deep Missouri River valley dazzling contrast to the dry, windy plains. The river snaked through a valley

—

of soaring limestone rose,

and ocher. The

and cottonwood

cliffs,

river

trees,

parapets,

was lined with groves of willows, box

of beige,

elder, ash,

red wildflowers. Higher up, the

of jack and ponderosa pines.

forests

Lewis and William Clark northwest passage to the

in varying hues

and spreading away from the banks were green

meadows studded with yellow and were fringed with

and columns

first

When

hills

Meriwether

paddled up the river in 1804, in search of

Pacific,

a

they thought the place "romantic."

The sediments that made up the rock strata had originally been laid down in broad layers as the prehistoric inland sea ebbed and flowed across the region. Sediments deposited

dominates the region today. At

on the ocean

floor

became

the edges, as the sea migrated

the shale that

due to climatic

conditions, the sandy coasts were turned into sandstone.

Then and

these deposits were subjected to faults, upheaval, volcanic activity

glaciers. Finally, the

layers, revealing millions

that

Cope wanted

Missouri River cut

a surgical incision

through the

was

this incision

of years of geological

to explore.

He

history. It

suspected that one stratum

—

the Hell

Creek formation, created seventy million years ago, when might be a fossil storehouse. in retreat near the end of Cretaceous

the inland sea was

—

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

177

Cope made his first camp on the northern side of the Missouri opposite the mouth of the Judith River. He was not far from a river trading post run by I. G. Baker three log cabins with the overly ambitious name of Fort

—

Here the

Claggett.

prices

were even higher than they were

Behind Fort Claggett, hard, white, was these

feet. It

being it

Cope

cliffs

first

a

good

deal of climbing,

pick in one hand, while holding

What

the

fossil

one thousand

began to explore. The stratum of interest,

relatively recent in geological time,

required

Benton.

in Fort

river bluffs rose almost

and

on

was high on the

slipping,

To

bluffs.

get to

and banging away with

a

to a rocky precipice with the other.

hunters gleaned from this hard and dangerous

work was

pri-

marily fossilized teeth.

Contrary to Sternberg's Philadelphia naturalist,

from Benton,

him from

"We

his daily devotions. a

his frontier

Cope wrote

&

Isaac

very satisfactory

a

Colorado party

my

last

in a let-

surroundings would keep

& prayer,"

took Ephesians IV and part V, which

having secured

my

and fieldwork agreed with the

17

reading of the bible

a very religious character

from

life

to get stronger each day. "Since

have got to working in regular style,"

have just had

letter. "I

I

camp

home. But neither the work nor

ter

is

I

fears,

who seemed

who

is

good

a

man

is

he noted

a practical

fellow and

for cook.

I

in the

same

kind. Sternberg

am

fortunate in

They behave

scraped their teeth and chopped

differently

wood when

read."

The filled

portion of the river valley

with game

—

buffalo, elk,

hunting ground for many

Cope was

exploring was so

and bighorn sheep

tribes,

—

that

it

fertile

was

and

a neutral

even the Sioux and their blood enemies,

the Crow.

There was ated

some

Crow camp on the among Cope's men,

saved his scalp by outriding set a

a

war party

particularly Isaac, in

Wyoming.

watch through the night. Sternberg took the

But when Cope was roused

announced

He

opposite bank of the

a large

anxiety

that his

watch

for his

at

river.

who

This cre-

had recently

Isaac insisted that they

first

turn, Isaac second.

four in the morning, he

Spencer carbine was packed in the bottom of his trunk.

then rolled over and went back to

sleep.

Crow

named Beaver Heart and his Cope and company were whiskey traders. After disabusing them of the notion, Cope suggested they sleep under the wagon and join him for breakfast in the In the middle of the night, a

squaw wandered

in,

giving Isaac

a scare.

chief

Beaver Heart had hoped

morning.

The water,

next morning, Cope was washing his when some of Beaver Heart's fellow

dental bridge in a basin of chiefs

—Wolf Bow,

Horse

M A

178

R

K

J

A F F E

—

Enemy Hunter, and Two Bellies came along to join the Cope quickly slipped his teeth back in. The Indians were

Guard, Spaniard, breakfast party.

amazed.

"Do Cope were

again.

it

Do

again," they

it

do the same with

tried to

for an encore. greatly

was

It

amused

to see

a trick

me

demanded. Cope obliged. The Indians

own

their

teeth, but naturally failed.

he would perform

take out

my

teeth

&

They asked "They

several times.

put them back

one

in;

18

man rode several miles to see it," he recounted to Annie. The breakfast was a big success. "They behaved with perfect food manners using the fork, spoons for everything," Cope told his wife. "I showed them your photo thee cried

Cope

when

at I

which Beaver Heart

said 'pretty

good'

& the squaw that

was away."

crossed the river and visited the village,

which he found

to

be

composed of about 110 lodges and more than one thousand Indians, mostly River Crows, with a few Piegans and Montana Crows. The Cope party had no other contact with the Indians, who broke camp the next day to follow the buffalo.

Using

a

equipment

flat-bottomed scow,

Cope and

his

men now

transported their

to the south side of the valley to explore the Judith River

neighboring

Dog

Creek.

The Judith was

a line

of demarcation in the

and

valley.

West of the Judith, the river plains were fecund, filled with groves and grassy meadows. But east of the Judith's picturesque and winding valley began the badlands,

maze of barren, black rock canyons, devoid of water

a

and vegetation. This harsh and unforgiving land ran along the

valley for the

Cow Island, where the river steamers stopped when no longer navigable to Fort Benton. Each morning, with the first hint of dawn Cope, Sternberg, and Isaac were up. They had breakfast, packed a lunch of cold bacon and hardtack in

next forty miles, until the Missouri was

their saddlebags, gathered their picks

and collecting bags, and rode out of

camp.

The work was

hard, the days hot, and the three were constantly plagued

by swarms of gnats that got under their hats and

shirt sleeves

and gave them

sores that ran pus and produced thick scabs. The gnats also got under saddles, causing the horses great irritation. The men tried to combat

the the

bugs by covering their faces and arms with bacon grease and rubbing the stuff

under the

collars

worked the badlands since,"

and saddles of their horses. Despite the

wrote western historian

close to

they

"Cope traveled the country as no man has Dan Cushman. "He crossed it from ridge to

tenaciously.

ridge, across the grain, as the

come

pests,

Western saying went. Even today no roads

Cope's course." 19

THE GILDED DINOSAUR One

Sternberg slipped from

day,

on

to crash to his death

179

high ledge and thought he was about

a

the boulders below. His

life

flashed before his eyes.

"My mother seemed to stand out more prominently than wrote. And then suddenly he found himself back on the know how escaped," Sternberg said.

anyone

else,"

ledge. "I

he

do not

1

Another

Cope

day, Isaac disappeared in the badlands canyons.

and so they entered

a

&

labyrinth of gorges

was out

One dark.

fossil

&

wrote.

The

I

found

was nearly

that

he had

injuries apparently

fallen

&

are

a

down and

were not serious for

evening, returning to camp, Cope's horse suddenly balked in the

Cope a

It

hunting again within days. 20

gave

him

the spurs, and the animal sprung into the

was following, did the same. The next

upon

Sternberg and

themselves while searching for him,

him. "The lands are very confused

precipices

Cope

injured himself,"

lost

ravine here and there yelling for him.

when Cope found

dark

Isaac

of getting

realized the risk

day, they

saw

air. Isaac,

that they

who

had come

ten-foot wide gorge and save for the strength and keen eyesight of

Cope might have ended up

their horses,

a

mangled mass,

hundred

a

feet

below.

At the end of each exhausted and

& salt

Deer did hens

.

.

the worst water

.

their part.

& our cook

And

day, the trio

is

"My a

dragged themselves back to camp,

In the badland canyons, there was only poisonous,

which Cope described

alkali water,

ganese

thirsty.

I

as

"mawkish of

ever saw." 21

hunter James Deer has brought in ducks,

good one

then bed. Cope's

to

life

fertile

him

at night, tossing

trampling upon him," Sternberg wrote.

would thank me they were up at

and

cordially

sage

imagination, however, seemed unable to

exhuming would

and torment him. "Every animal of which we found

ing the day played with

fish,

& makes us all sorts of dishes," Cope wrote.

stop working. In his dreams, the ancient beasts he was

come

of man-

color, bitter

Now Austin Merrill and Jim

lie

down

him

"When

into the I

air,

traces dur-

kicking him,

would awake him, he

for another attack."

The

next day,

sunrise and soon riding out into the badlands or

up the

steep slopes to the prairie.

As

Cope had been right in his suspicions about the Some areas were layered with bones, but often only

for the fossil hunting,

Hell Creek formation.

the teeth had been resistant Philadelphia,

Cope was

several dinosaurs,

Among

to withstand time.

able to identify

from just

this

twenty-one

Upon

his return to

fossil species,

including

cache of teeth.

the animals the team unearthed were the kangaroo-like Iguan-

odon, an Adocus, that as

enough

one

set

which had four hundred teeth arranged in magazines, so wore out, another replaced it, and the raylike Myledaphus

M

180

whose

bipartitus,

A R k

worked

teeth

like a

A F F E

J

whirring

mill.

Cope's greatest find of the expedition, however, was the

known horned

clonius crassus, the first

"We

dinosaur.

[many

skull

of Mono-

are succeeding very

shells and small fish] but some gigan"The climbing is perfectly hard work. The badlands are the steepest I have seen. The ravines and canyons are 1 ,000 feet deep near the Missouri River and down to 600 feet off from it. They are so steep that in many localities we cannot collect at all.

well in our enterprise

monsters,"

tic

"I feel as

Cope

though

.

.

.

.

.

.

wrote.

have been

I

a

long time from

& wish to

home

very much," he wrote to Annie in early September. "I look tographs

as

the best

can do. Tell Julia

I

Now

she will write to me.

Cope wrote no more of Sioux tinued to

anxious

analysis,

with each

Even

if

Cope had been

hope affect,

his

men

con-

It

was

now

only

a

correct in his

would move toward

day, the likelihood that the Indians

greater.

tinued searching for

matter of time.

Still,

Cope con-

fossils.

Tuesday afternoon toward the middle of September, Cope, true to

word,

Julia.

on the warpath, but

braves

the days passed.

as

Canada became a

&

you both. Thy

over the Indians' whereabouts. Merrill and Deer became par-

fret

ticularly

On

going to write to her

EDC."

husband,

his

am

I

close with the best love to

I

you

see

your pho-

at

down and penned

sat

a letter, gentle

and sweet, to ten-year-old

22

Dear Daughter, W]\en we first reached here

three

weeks ago or more, we found a great

camp of Indians of the tribe of River Crows. Tlie day after we came they packed up and went away. Tliey took down their tents, piled the furs & skins on their horses

and

set the children

so that they should not fall

off.

on the

Think of tying

piles

little

& strapped them on

2

or

3 year

how

of wild Indian ponies! But they are not afraid and learn

olds on top

to ride very

early.

I

have four ponies and one I ride

good pony but training

We

him

my camp

little

not four years old.

is

timid sometimes and jumps a

so that he behaves better

and

He

little;

common

in the

and

it

rough banks of the

was very good.

is

a very

but I

am

deer.

The

better.

rivers

and

the hunter for

We have boiled, roasted and fried We see them almost every day when we

brought one in the other day.

broiled

go out

a

have wild animals near the camp such as coyotes and

wild sheep are

and

is

it

to find fossils.

We find

in the high rocks there are

many

bones

& teeth

of huge fossil

THE GILDED DINOSAUR reptiles like

Ladafts and Hadrosaurus. I have found four

They were

mouth

is

below

since I wrote

bluffs

to boil

Dog Creek

we could drink

and

more useful thee

it.

& learn

Read will be.

We

moved

there

to stay in the

the water got so

muddy

that

Tlicn the high, bare badlands

we could hardly hunt for fossils,

muddy. But the creek

all

mouth.

and we had

rained two days ago

It

before

Now, farewell.

in

in use at once. Tlte rest

ten miles from the

got slippery as soap so that

about and got

kind had more than four hundred

Tlie creek rose very high

it

larger

take their place as soon as they were worn out.

to

Mamma.

and wagon.

we had

on

is

no

Cionodon.

called

My Camp

One

little finger.

of which one hundred were

at once,

in from

This kind

tent

kinds of

as large as elephants but their teeth are very small,

than the end of my

coming

new

which ate meat and several kinds that ate leaves and wood.

Laclafts,

his

181

down and

is

all thee can, for the

but slid

the bluffs are dry.

more thee know the

So say thy loving Papa

By the end of September, Cope had decided that it was time to break camp and move up the river toward Cow Island, where the last steamer of the season would soon depart. Cope and Jim Deer went down to the island to make arrangements, while Isaac, Sternberg, and Merrill were left to move the camp.

Now getting out ting into

it.

of river

Here the

bluffs

twelve hundred pounds of

Creek,

as

Facing

they

first

good

a

and

steeper,

fossils.

The

three

covered with loose

wagon up

urged the horses on. gravity got the better rolled over

were

was

deal

more

difficult

in addition, they

men

left

He

the slope.

shale, Merrill

rig

over,

and pulled

When

had collected

Dog

valley.

balked

at

even try-

impatient Isaac took the reins and

had gotten about

of the

and over and

An

than get-

their supplies at

attempted to get the wagon out of the

a steep ridge

ing to get the

valley

thirty feet it

up the

when

incline

over. Isaac, horses,

and wagon

they reached the sandstone ledge from

which they had started, the wagon landed upright, and the horses ended up on their feet, unharmed. Incredibly, Isaac was still in one piece.

The

three

men

windlass to drag the

goods, and supplies

a different approach. They constructed a wagon up the slope to the prairie. Then all the bones, followed. They were reassembling the gear when they

then tried

saw one horseman approaching from the south and another from the

The southern

rider turned out to be Jim Deer.

Cope. Deer announced

that Sitting Bull

The

eastern

east.

horseman was

was rumored to be within

a

hun-

dred miles and heading in their direction. The guide said he had already seen

MARKJAFFE

1K2

of Sioux scouting

signs

parties.

Deer

heard the news, he also grabbed

rill

"The scout and our

ing guide.

he was clearing out.

said

his bedroll

and headed

When Mer-

after the depart-

cook had concluded

valiant

that their

precious scalps were too valuable to risk," Sternberg said disparagingly.

now dictated that the Cope

Everything

party

move

quickly.

Not only was more boat

there a possibility of the Sioux appearing, but there was only one

heading downriver

Cow

reach

this

Island. If

be stranded

Cope

Montana

in

season

—

the Josephine.

They had only

a

few days to

would

failed to reach the boat, at best his fossils

for the entire winter, at worst they

would meet

Sit-

ting Bull.

Under ture,

the twin threats of the Sioux and the Josephine's pending depar-

Cope, Sternberg, and

bones across a

prairie

Isaac put in a

and badlands.

It

supper of bacon and hardtack and

was a

fourteen-hour day to haul the

late at

night before they stopped for

few hours of sleep. At daybreak, they

out again.

set

Late

on the second

souri River, twelve hundred feet below.

Cow

The

Island.

Mis-

night, they reached a ravine leading back to the

steamer could

come

They were

upriver this

above

just three miles

far,

load the bones, and

The wagon was unloaded and lowered down to the valley floor using an improvised block and tackle. Then the baggage was lowered. Again, it was after midnight when they sat down to supper. Cope and Sternberg now rode back to Cow Island to be sure the steamboat would come up river to fetch the precious crates. On the way, however, Cope could not resist stopping in the badlands for one last fossil hunt. The two men separated, agreeing to rendezvous at four that afternoon. The they

would be

off.

hours passed, and the sun was sinking. Sternberg could do no more than

watch the sun and

wait. Finally,

Cope

finally

came galloping out of a bad-

lands coulee. It

would now be impossible

Cope

pleaded with

to

He

attention.

learned

a lesson

mounted, cut to tap his

way

up whatever of sky.

sliver

a single

was determined to get to

from

his blind leap

a stout stick,

starlight

over

a

which he used

to the nverbank.

The

Cow

Island.

chasm like a

again, he

ing but thin

air.

Cope

paid

But perhaps having

earlier in the trip,

he

dis-

blindman's cane, and tried

black rock valleys had the power to soak

and moonlight was

In that blackness,

try to cross the

misstep could lead to death.

in the air

Cope tapped and

and Sternberg would follow a and along ledges only to reach a point where

and time tains

Cow Island before sunset. Sternberg

spend the night on the prairie and not

badlands in the dark, where

no

to reach

and

close out

all

but

a

Time moun-

tapped and tapped. trail

his

through the

cane tapped on noth-

THE GILDED DINOSAUR Once, they

Cow

Sternberg

their

felt

have never

known

Cow

another

was both foolhardy and

the badlands. Just before daybreak, they Island.

man who would

useless,"

ney.

It

that

we accomplished what no one

through the Bad Lands

across.

chilled,

fog

lifted.

had

this

we

in reaching

But

in the early this

billeted

on the

Cow

Island

morning

island to send a boat

fog, the

two men could not

might be some Indian

Cope and Sternberg paced back and capsized.

Cope and

jour-

could say

trick.

Exhausted

on the shore

forth

until the

Realizing his error, the sergeant hurriedly dispatched

which promptly retrieve

else ever

army squad

be seen, and the sergeant feared

and

have attempted

Sternberg wrote, "but

after dark."

called out for the

them

to ferry

off

downstream. All through the night, Cope and

Island

way through

stood on the bank opposite

Cope

them

actually reached the river, only to find a cliff walling

from reaching

"I

183

a boat,

A second boat was sent to rescue the first and then

Sternberg.

warm pot of beans and some hardtack with strawberry jam. Then a warm nest of blankets was made under a tarpaulin covering a shipment of gold. Cope and Sternberg At

last,

they reached the island and were given a

with the gold

slept

The fessor

that day

all

and through the

night.

am

following morning, they sought out the steamer captain. "I

Cope, of Philadelphia," the paleontologist told the

four-horse

wagon

at a

steamboat snubbing-post three miles below.

on your way down and

like

you

My

baggage and freight are

to stop there

also there,

and

carry I

my

want

Pro-

captain. "I have a

would

I

outfit to this side.

to take passage for

Omaha." "Well, to

sir, I

am

the captain of this boat," the skipper replied. "If you

go downriver, you must have your baggage,

ing before ten o'clock

freight,

tomorrow morning, when

I

and

want

self at this land-

downriver

leave for

points." So,

it

had come to

get the fossils to

this.

Cow

Cope had

Island.

through the badlands. Instead,

up the

river to Isaac

a little

more than twenty-four hours

There would be no time to

Cope purchased

and the bones. (He had

an old sand scow and tried to

owner, having heard the conversation with the captain,

to

retrace their steps

borrow

knew

it,

set off

but the

there was a

buck to be made.)

Cope and Sternberg rowed back time to

lose,

who had gone searching men swam the horses across

off, Isaac,

turned up. The three

Cow

With no

they started packing and loading the scow. Just before they were

ready to shove

for

to camp. Isaac wasn't there.

Island.

for

them

in the badlands,

the river and then started

— M

184

A

— and

A F F K

at

Cow

a

couple of mountain men, whom

Cope had

stood on either bank with long poles to keep the boat

Island,

from turning Isaac

— Old

the animal began the slow journey downstream, pulling the

scow. Sternberg rode the horse,

in to shore.

and Cope had the toughest duty

ing the towline

when

offa spring or

more

—

got snagged on

it

would immediately build tension line,

J

towline was attached to the most dependable of the horses

Major

met

K k

\

a

sitting in the

rock or

in the line

accurately, a catapult.

scow and unravel-

branch. Such a hitch

a

and releasing

was

it

Each time Cope or

they were pitched into the cold, shallow

like setting

Isaac freed the

river.

The sun was setting when the scow came in under the hull of the big steamer. The deck was filled with curious passengers watching the progress of the little boat. Cope was covered with mud from head to foot. His clothes were in tatters. His

fossils,

however, were

next

intact. In his

letter to

Annie, he proudly announced that he had collected twelve hundred pounds

of fossils and added,

The October were wearing

"We

had

a lively

time getting them to the boat." 23

nights were already getting chilly, so the lady passengers

furs

and the

men were

sporting ulsters. Cope, however, had

forgotten to bring any winter clothes, so after removing his

muddy

rags

and

washing up, he emerged from the sergeant's tent with hair combed, mustache trimmed, dressed in a

The next morning,

summer

suit

with

a

linen duster.

weighed

true to the captain's word, the Josephine

anchor and headed downriver. The steamboat did not get very

far

before

its

voyage was checked. At Fort Buford, on the North Dakota border, General

Hazen commandeered and cargo, and

fill it

The Sioux had river not at soldiers

the steamer, prepared to unload

all

the passengers

with soldiers to head back up the Missouri.

finally

made

their dash

toward Canada and crossed the

Fort Benton, but at Cow Island. A brief battle occurred, and five

were

killed. After a day's consideration,

use another boat, and

let

however, Hazen decided to

the Josephine go. But further

down

the river, at Fort

Lincoln, the boat was stopped again and used this time to ferry soldiers fresh recruits for Custer's 7th Cavalry,

with their

new

saddles

and horses

wives watched from our steamer, none

"The would see their husbands again," Cope wrote in a letter, "but were cheerful, some too much so, but some showed their feelings." So

to join the chase.

knew as

officers'

that they

Cope moved

tologist's

east, a

small

army was rushing

time had been impeccable."

into the valley.

The

paleon-

Chapter Twelve

ON

A SUNDAY AFTERNOON

and

his friend, retired

out for

Denver,

a

among

ramble,

when

March 1877, Arthur Lakes

in

navy captain, Henry Beckwith, were

humpbacked

the

hills

just west

of

they stumbled across something quite unex-

pected. Lakes, an Oxford-educated Episcopalian minister, schoolteacher, and

amateur geologist, was hunting for strata

along Bear Creek,

when he and Beckwith came upon what looked

like a fossilized tree trunk.

he realized that

it

and measuring geological

fossil leaves

But

as

the Englishman examined the specimen,

was too smooth to be

a tree,

and then he noticed

patches of purplish hue," which he recognized

as

bone.

It

was

immense bone of some unbelievably gigantic animal. They started searching for the rest of the beast and came upon strous vertebra" etched in the sandstone.

was so

ference. "It

possible that

I

in the air

huge bone,

a

with

was almost three

beyond anything

utterly

could hardly believe

The two men stood up

It

my

I

a

truly

"mon-

circum-

had ever read or conceived

eyes," Lakes

would

recall.

1

there in silent astonishment and then threw their hats

a cheer.

A

few minutes

later,

"Herculean warclub" ten inches

long. Lakes suspected

feet in

a

"little

it

was

a leg

bone.

Beckwith found another in

"Why

diameter and two feet

this beats all!"

Beckwith

exclaimed.

The two men (it

took

all

collected the bones

three of

them

to

lift

and with the help of a

the vertebra), carted

local blacksmith

them

to the nearby

town of Morrison. Then Lakes left for Golden, about ten miles to the north, where he taught at Jarvis Hall College, a small, private school. But the next weekend, he was back searching for and finding more bones, including

one

that

looked

like

"the stump of a large tree."

What

sort

of titanic animal

possessed such bones?

On

April 2, Lakes wrote a letter to Marsh.

company with a mous bones apparently ered in

friend, a

"A few

days ago ...

I

discov-

Mr. Beckwith of Connecticut, some enor-

vertebra

&

a

humerus bone of some

gigantic

saurian in the upper Jurassic or lower Cretaceous."

Lakes included sketches of the bones and 185

a geological cross section

of the

M

186

with the

hills

letter

and

A R K

A F F E

J

said, "I anticipate that a

good many more bones

be added to those already found." The schoolteacher said

if

the

of "sufficient interest" to Marsh, he would be "glad to communicate receive any instructions or directions from

And what was

you

will

were

fossils .

.

.

&

in regard to the bones." 2

Marsh's reply to such provocative news and such

a

promising offer? Silence.

He

But Lakes was undaunted.

set

up

a little tent

camp on

the banks of

Bear Creek and with the help of a couple of former students, continued to

comb

the

hills,

and he continued

the talk of Morrison.

When

cession of the curious

around

to find

huge bones. Lakes's bones became

he came riding into town with

would follow

the

wagon down

his cargo, a

pro-

the street and gather

it.

Everybody wanted to help unload the bones and carry them

empty

office

young

fellow grabbed hold of the beautiful

being used

storeroom. But Lakes was mortified

as a

smooth polished

into the

when

"a

shaft" only to

The bones were set out on the floor of the office, and the townspeople crammed the room, debating the nature of the animal that would leave such remains. Some still doubted have

"crumbled

it

like a biscuit in his hands."

whether they were bones

at

all.

Lakes wrote to Marsh again, on April 20, informing him that he had collected

more bones, including

a

femur fourteen inches across

Lakes to calculate that the animal was "not in length.

By

Marsh's response to

this

its

base.

This led

than sixty to seventy feet"

less

news? Silence.

end of April, Lakes had ten crates of bones, each averaging nearly two hundred pounds sitting in the office. By the middle of May, the cache had grown to more than a ton. the

Lakes, spurred by the excitement of his find, was not put off by Marsh's

On May

apathy.

19, although

schoolteacher shipped

a

unencouraged and unbidden, the Colorado

ton of bones to

for remuneration, pointing out that

and

a

wagon, and he was doing

it

all

New

Haven.

He

also asked

had been necessary to hire this

on

a

Marsh

a laborer

teaching salary that was

"extremely small."

At about the same time, doubtless prompted by Marsh's apparent ference, Lakes also sent

some

vertebrae to

Cope

indif-

in Philadelphia. Lakes

had

what he had done. Dr. Carter up at Fort Bridger could have told him what was afoot. Spencer Baird might have warned him. Hayden would have known that "some mischief was brewing. But Lakes innocendy made

no

idea

the offer to both

men

to collect

and

sell

the bones to

whomever was

inter-

ested in them. His offer was about to set off the largest scramble for

dinosaur bones in history, the paleontological equivalent of the California

THE ULDED DINOSAUR

187

gold rush of 1849.

took almost

It

Marsh's intentions

upped the

that

month

a

for the

weren't

still

clear,

bones to make

and on June

He

all

have already got out

When

&

I

hope you

I

should

soon about

will write

feel inclined to part

the bones arrived in Philadelphia,

He

as well as

those that

as offers

have been

it

with them to the highest bidder." 3

Cope took

wrote almost immediately, asking Lakes to send the

went with the vertebrae.

a letter

the material he had

closed the letter saying, "If you

wish to secure the further remains of these specimens

made me

Haven. But

wrote

15, Lakes

ante. His eight-page dispatch detailed

found and included numerous sketches.

New

it

also offered

quick look and

a

and teeth

skull

that

"pecuniary aid in continuing the

work."

But Cope

he couldn't make "an intelligent offer" on the skele-

said that

more of it,

ton unless he could see

particularly the skull. Lakes readied the

skull for a trip to Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, Marsh had check to Lakes on June

and

finally sent a letter

a

one-hundred-dollar

but they didn't reach him until the June 20.

9,

"Despairing of hearing from you," Lakes explained, "I was on the look out

anyone

for

who would

me

help

or

the specimens. Prof.

Cope having

point, offering to aid

me

sent

two

skulls

The imminent prod Marsh into

It

research." Just a

to leave for

who

He

earlier,

fossil

He

Cope was

my

But Lakes added

that

Cope

also sent

5

even

Cope was

or six other creatures, of which

the boxes sent to

New

on

had been

that

it

was

but assured Marsh that his

that "the final disposition

order." if

(It

informed the Yale professor

stop the skulls from going to

Lakes went

Lakes had

Colorado without delay

understanding with

five

this

hunting for Yale in Kansas, directing

wasn't until June 27 that Lakes received Marsh's telegram.

late to

on

myself for having been

immediately telegraphed Lakes.

was

should be subject to

had

few days

"I reproach

letters

of Cope getting the Morrison bones was enough to

threat

real action.

sent to Golden, not Morrison.) Lakes

too

offer to purchase

or three

said.

telegram to Mudge,

him

my

of an

sort

me two

4

and some teeth to Cope.

too hasty," Lakes

a

in

make some written

of the creature

to get this particular skeleton, he

at least

some

parts

were already

in

Haven.

to say that

Cope had

offered

him

"further inducement"

by indicating that there might be two or three months' work for $150 to

$175

a

month.

"I

have not concluded any arrangement with him until

I

should hear from you," Lakes assured him.

Marsh wanted

it all.

All the bones,

all

the skulls.

He would

hire Lakes.

He

M A K K

188

A F F E

J

would have Mudge supervise the quarrying. He wanted those bones that were sent to Philadelphia as well. He also wanted Lakes to keep the whereabouts of the quarry secret. But Lakes replied that

There had already been

newspaper

a

article,

was too

it

late for that.

"The Bones of Monsters,"

in

the Colorado Springs Gazette, announcing the discovery. 6

Two to

nis

fate. It

was

Mudge had been

years earlier,

Cope, when like

he was going to do

it

letters

again.

the greatest surge and the most productive years in

Cope would

still

of dinosaur hunting.

all

have his chances.

might seem surprising

It

Icthyor-

had enabled Marsh to bend But what he could not know Lakes's discovery was merely the first call in what would become

looked

that

ready to send the remains of

couple of well-timed

a

Marsh was

that

so deeply indifferent to the big

bones, until one remembers that dinosaurs,

at that

moment, weren't

the hot

battleground of paleontology and evolutionary theory. Marsh's greatest successes had

were the

come from

his

Eocene horses and Cretaceous

things, not Jurassic dinosaur bones, that

Dinosaurs had been fodder for Huxley and

Owen

of birds. But by and

large,

fascinating oddities.

Marsh

pursuit of fossil

most

mammals and

ideas,

naturalists felt his

still

and Huxley had

were

thesis that dinosaurs

possibly

Those

Owen in their tit-for-tat war.

had created dinosaurs to debunk evolutionary

turned them around, offering the

birds.

had dazzled Huxley.

ancestral forms

considered dinosaurs merely

time would be better spent in the

birds.

Indeed, of the nineteen papers Marsh published between 1874 and 1876,

twelve dealt with prehistoric mammals, such

and horses.

Two were on

birds

prehistoric reptiles, including dinosaurs, vision.

The

fact

as uintatheres,

brontotheres,

with teeth, and two on pterodactyls. Other

was that material was

still

were barely

in Marsh's field

so rare and fragmentary

on

of

these

odd beasts that it was difficult to say much about them. But the merest hint of Cope arriving on the scene was enough to change that, and although neither man intended it, they were on the threshold of propelling dinosaurs to a

more

central role in the analysis

of the evolution

of life on the planet.

Many all

dinosaurs were big. Hadrosaums, Agathaumas

Colorado sandstone dwarfed them even imagined. At

be

sylvestris,

Laelaps

were

large animals. But the beasts Lakes was beginning to dig out of the hard

called.

Some

first, it

all.

Animals that large had never been

wasn't clear what such animals were or ought to

paleontologists didn't think they were dinosaurs* at

all.

— THE GILDED DINOSAUR

189

Indeed, there was only one animal they could be compared

Owen's

Owen

In 1841, so

to,

Richard

Cetiosaurus.

huge

that the

had looked over the

most

but rather the whale.

he thought that

remains of an animal that was

fossil

model was neither the elephant nor kangaroo, dubbed it Cetiosaurus, or "whale lizard." At first,

likely

Owen

like the

whale

it

had to be

a strictly aquatic creature.

made its way on land? later, when a more complete

How

could anything that large have

But some spent

at least

had got

thirty

Owen

unearthed,

years

conceded

that

some time on dry

of course, argued

land. Huxley,

wrong. Cetiosaurus wasn't some aquatic

it

skeleton

was

appeared the Cetiosaurus might have

it

lizard,

that

but rather

Owen a

huge

dinosaur, the biggest dinosaur ever. That's about as far as the argument had

gone.

Now Marsh

and Cope were going to

Their answers were to be found in the

settle

it.

pastel gray,

green and mauve rock

of what would soon be dubbed the Morrison formation. The Morrison three hundred feet thick in

backed stood

hills

that Lakes

as a series

some

places

— was

was exploring. The

easily visible in those

hills,

of parallel ridges and shallow

known

as

hump-

Dakota hogbacks,

valleys along the eastern front

of the Rocky Mountains. The Morrison sediments had been there even before the Cretaceous sea flooded the middle of North America.

The Morrison, embedded Jurassic,

weathered

was

a

in the hillsides, dated

back to the middle of the

140 to 200 million years ago. The rock formation was shale, limestone,

and sandstone

that collected

broad plain covered by small lakes and

Just as

a

sequence of

when

the region

rivers.

Cope and Marsh had journeyed back

in time to the shores

of

Kansas's balmy, Cretaceous sea and then into the lush, subtropical forests of

Eocene Wyoming, now they were on

their

way back

to the African-like

savanna of Jurassic Colorado.

On June 29, Lakes was at his Bear Creek camp when 7

rode up on horseback." Benjamin Lakes for the

month, and That

summer

a "strong,

past winter

at

$125

a

good man"

Mudge had

month, for

$2

Marsh, Mudge, and

telegrams to guard against the

Cope

"a

arrived.

little

He

old gentleman

promptly hired

Lakes's student helper for

a day.

Williston had

worked up

forces learning their plans:

a

code

sent

Marsh

a wire:

"Have made

months. Jones cannot interfere."

a

satisfactory

for

"Ammuni-

tion" was money, "health" was luck, and "B. Jones" was Cope.

Mudge

$10

8

Now

arrangements for two

— MARKJAFFE

190

Mudge

had Lakes write to Cope, and

also

to send another telegram to

New

Haven.

a

few weeks

Cope

Lakes sends order for them." Marsh didn't wait for

patched

his

are

now

Thomas Attwater Bostwick, to August. "Please say to Prof. Cope

bones

in early

the property of Yale College,"

Marsh

instructed.

Bostwick telegraphed the next day from Philadelphia to bones were packed. Everything had worked out admirably. to report that he

had struck

a

In the July

one-page

He

dis-

Philadelphia that the fos-

9

assure

Marsh the

Mudge was

able all

10

round.

this

Marsh published a Dinosaur." He said, "The

edition of the American Journal of Science,

1

article,

Museum

are yours.

deal with Lakes that "cuts otTProf. C. and

others from obtaining his aid in any way."

Marsh had won

he was able

to comply.

most-trusted aide,

to collect the sil

later,

Cope

"Fossils sent

"Notice of a

New and Gigantic

of Yale College has recently received from the Cretaceous

deposits of

Colorado

Among these

of

a collection

reptilian

remains of

much

interest.

specimens are portions of an enormous Dinosaur, which sur-

magnitude any land animal hitherto discovered." Marsh estimated

passes in

He named it Titanosaums montanus. u A week later, Mudge wrote to Marsh, "the more see of the vertebrates the more am impressed with the value of the 'find,' and equally impressed

it

was

long.

fifty feet

I

I

with bad condition of the bones." 12 They were massive, but they tended to

"crumble

like biscuits."

By July

14,

Mudge and

Lakes had gathered another twenty-five hundred

pounds of bones and shipped them

boxes to

in ten

New Haven. The size of

Mudge, for example, had worked sandstone a humerus that was fifty-five

the finds continued to be extraordinary. for a day

and half to

free

from the

inches long, twenty-five inches wide

at its

widest part, and ten inches thick.

In early August, they unearthed the remains of a dinosaur that was even big-

ger than Titanosaums.

Mudge and more

like

I

Mudge to

Marsh named

it

"deceptive lizard"

Lakes quickly became friends. "The more

him.

I

am

see of Prof.

L

the

our party," Lakes wrote

in

Mudge we found to be quite an acquisition his journal. "He appeared to be about sixty

years of age but was lithe and active as a a

boy and

full

of interesting infor-

perfect gentleman."

Wyoming's Black Buttes, Cope had found AgathAt about six tons, it had been the most massive animal have lived in North America. Marsh's Apatosaurus, when alive,

Three years aumas

I

confident he will be straight forward and honorable,"

told Marsh. "Professor

mation besides being

Apatosaurus.

earlier at

sylvestris.

known

to

weighed more than

Summer came

thirty tons

to the

and was better than

mountains. The

sun's heat

fifty feet

bounced

long.

off the metal-

— THE GILDED DINOSAUR lie

191

sandstone, and so did the men's picks and hammers. Despite misgivings,

Mudge

agreed to use gunpowder to

blast loose the

sandstone caps and

split

the rock walls.

As the work proceeded the quarry trenches got deeper and deeper. Lakes's

first

quarry

—

thirty feet long, fifteen feet deep,

had been buried one rainy night by along the side of the

hill

and

a

and ten

feet

massive sandstone boulder.

started again, but slides

wide

He moved

and cave-ins became

a

One rock slide buried a spot under a ton of sandstone after men stopped work. One day, a clay wall gave way

recurring problem. just a

few hours

knocking down one of the

Those weren't the only

risks the fossil

hunters faced. Lakes and

got in

a

and knocked him over with an exclamation of Oh! on

ear

apologies

on mine," Lakes

said.

men go

was struck between the eyes by

him stunned. Lakes

left

at

week

the quarry each

the hard rock with a heavy

a flying

of back

However

a

unique array of fossils

came some troubling news. evening that the

Cope had

Canon City

for them:

his

sermon from behind

eyes.

great the risks, the prize

were finding

rock fragment, leaving

to preach at the Episcopal

church in Idaho Springs. That Sunday, he delivered a pair

and

his part

13

Another time while watching two sledge, Lakes

Mudge

smooth bone from an overhanging ledge, one day, when the way of Lakes's hammer. "I hit him a gentle tap behind the

were chiseling

Mudge

laborers.

and to

fossils,

a

was even

greater. Lakes

— and they were

all

Mudge

Marsh's. But then

Mudge wrote, "I learned last Denver, who was making inquiries about

In early August,

friend in

apparently with the idea of sending

collect

and

some one

there

more." 14

Canon City was about one hundred

miles to the south of Morrison,

on

where the Arkansas River flowed out of the mountains and onto the plains. What was Cope doing down there? What had he found? Marsh was a

spot

going to have to find out.

Marsh wired Mudge and

told

him

to

go to Canon

City.

Mudge

left

the

very evening the telegram arrived. 15

Upon

receiving Lakes's

fossils,

Cope had

quickly set out to write a paper

about them and delivered remarks before the American Philosophical Society

on July

20.

Cope withdrew

the paper

when

Lakes directed him to send

fossils on to New Haven. It must have been galling. But soon Cope was able to soothe his wounds with

the

a

balm of

his

very

— MARKJAFFE

192

own Colorado

bones. Back in March,

fossil

wrote to Marsh, Cope received

first

Canon City and amateur

teacher in

on Oil Creek,

plants

some

fossil

Up layer

a

sent

them

to

Cope

City,

was out collecting

when he stumbled on

for identification,

struck a deal for the purchase of

fossil

slides

Canon City

in

and eventu-

bones

easier,

a

hard sandstone

This had led to

and the bones were

in better condition.

Lucas started shipping bones to Philadelphia, and in August,

own

lished his

at a rate

much banging and blasting, the and crumbling bones. The same geological horizon was nearly horizontal and had huge soft areas. The

a steep hillside.

digging was

school-

a

pound.

menace of rock

down

botanist. Lucas

Morrison, the fossil-bearing rock stratum was

in

on

He

fragments.

often cents

from O. W. Lucas,

few miles north of Canon

a

Cope and Lucas

ally

about the same time Lakes

at

a letter

paper, with his

own new

Cope pub-

great dinosaur, the Camarasaurus,

which he proclaimed "the largest or most bulky animal capable of progression on land, of which we have any account." In his paper, Cope noted that the

Canon City

vertebrae were larger than the one he had seen from

Mor-

rison (and then had to send to Yale) and so concluded "this remarkable creature

.

.

.

exceeds in

proportions any other land animal hitherto dis-

its

covered, including the one found near Golden City by Professor Lakes."

Cope, however, wasn't

satisfied

with merely having

a

16

bigger dinosaur

than Marsh. In his paper, he argued that Marsh's brief July paper had failed to give an adequate description of his animal.

Owen's

Cope

Cetiosaurus?

One

archly noted, the

months

later,

couldn't

name

Marsh was forced

was able to take Cope's famous,

a

first

rename the dinosaur

dinosaur find

Atlatttosaurus.

A

few

But he

Laelaps

— had

also

been used

before.

Dryptosaurus.

fascinated by the construction of his great beast, particularly by

which helped lighten the load of the interlocked with one another to strengthen the

chambered also

vertebrae,

was — "chambered animal

trunk portion of the backbone. for the

whale, like

It

from these vertebrae Cope got the

lizard."

But when Cope looked

at

the overall

Owen, who

was

marily an aquatic creature. No, with it

report. Besides,

measure of revenge by pointing out that the name of

immense frame and

a

different from, say,

Cope was concerned, he had won. He had found and most gigantic animal ever known to man.

the hollowed or

not see

it

far as

named the Cope was

name

How was

from the Marsh

Titatwsaums had already been used. to

Marsh renamed Cope's dinosaur Still, as

tell

"suggests a resemblance in

makeup of his new

still

its

form and

dinosaur, he did

insisting the Cetiosaurus

long forelimbs and neck, habits

was pri-

Cope

between those huge

said,

reptiles

THE GILDED DINOSAUR and the

giraffe."

Cope

193

envisioned his Camarasaurns grazing the treetops.

Another animal model had been added

imagine the

in the effort to

life

of

dinosaurs.

Cope

Lucas's next shipment brought

which he named

perched on

that the animal

an even more towering beast,

its fossil

vertebrae,

Cope

calculated

hind legs would have reached more than 130 would be the tallest dinosaur ever found. Now

its

feet into the air. Amphicoelias it

Based on

Amphicoelias.

was Marsh's turn to squirm.

Mudge

arrived in

Canon

One

scouting out the scene.

City on August night, he

room where Lucas was preparing light

examined the

1 1

managed

to ship

and immediately started

to gain entry to the store-

bones to Cope and by dim lamp-

treasures.

"Very few of the bones have any familiar shape Marsh. "All are

30 percent."

a larger scale

fossils

for

him

had hired

were sold

in curio

.

a

Canon

Mudge

,"

told

City man, David Bald-

southern Colorado and

in

Baldwin apparently had mentioned the that they

.

than T.m. [Titanosaurus montanus] from 10 to

A year earlier, Marsh

win, to collect

.

shops

local

New

Mexico.

bones to Marsh,

telling

him

wood. But no

interest

had

as petrified

been expressed. After seeing the

fossils,

Mudge

said, "I

exceedingly regret that Baldwin

them for you, as he might when they were first discovered." Mudge tried to get back into the storeroom to see more of the bones, but "the man in charge did not appear willing." 17 Marsh wrote and scolded Baldwin, who was becoming increasingly irridid not secure

tated with Marsh's imperious behavior

and tardy payments.

"I

had found

bones in the Jurassic in several places before Lucas," Baldwin replied in

own

defense, "but did not dig

his

them up on account of not hearing from

you." 18

Canon City was another of

those

beginning of the 1870s barely had

a

booming western towns

main

street,

that at the

but by 1877 had dozens of

more being added each year. The town sat at the Royal Gorge, imposing chasm where the Arkansas River emerged from the Rockies.

blocks, with

the It

was

a transportation

home of the But

it

bountiful

center for

traffic

Bull-Domingo

to Santa Fe, Kansas City,

silver

and the

mine.

was the decision the town fathers made

in

1868 that

set the

tone

Canon City the The town leaders

for the place. In that year, the territorial legislature gave

choice of becoming the

site for a

university or a prison.

would be more "permanent." 19 Mudge hired a wagon and began exploring Garden Park, the area north of town where the bones were being found. Mudge also worked his charm

chose the prison, believing that

it

MARKJAFFE

194

on young Oramel Lucas, who was having second thoughts about ment with Cope.

"He

he has sold

feels that

reported, "and

we

his

big bones too cheap to Cope,"

can secure his good will in the future by

and good treatment.

He

is

a

young man

Lucas, however, believed he and

he was determined to hold up while

.

.

this bit

like birds."

.

a little

Mudge

kindness

trying to obtain an education.*' 20

Cope had made an

Mudge

his end. Still,

honest bargain, and

persuaded him that

big bones had to go to Cope, anything else might be sold to

his

Marsh. Through look

his agree-

of sophistry,

Mudge

These bones came from

a

obtained "some bones which sandstone layer about ten feet

above where the big dinosaur bones were being excavated. "Whatever

he will

me

when you have new and valuable."

sell it

be

to

decided what

it is.

.

.

.

At any

Marsh immediately wired Mudge: "Purchase specimen has violated

Mudge

all

rate

it is

looks to

it

if possible.

Jones

agreements. Answer." 21

procured the skeleton, and three days

later

Marsh

sent another

urgent telegram: "Lucas specimen received. Important pieces missing. Send every fragment." 22

Mudge

provided

details

on how the bones had been arranged when they

were found and sent along some fragments

that

he had not considered

"worth sending by express." Mudge and Lucas returned to the

site

where

the skeleton was discovered, but they could find nothing more.

The

reason for Marsh's excitement was that Lucas had provided the

Marsh named it Nanosaurus agilis. among Cope's behemoths, Marsh had been able pluck another of

bones of not

And

so,

a bird,

but

a

small dinosaur.

the provocative and diminutive birdlike dinosaurs. Meanwhile, reported, "Lucas

600

is still

lbs for express

&

at

work on

3,000

Lucas continued to send

Cope,"

Mudge

early

by freight."

"all

but

sent

Mudge

last

week

23

important bones of

added

He

that

the

his large

Dinosaurs to

young schoolteacher

new which he may find." 24 That good enough. Marsh needed more manpower in Canon City. In

"promised wasn't

reported,

lbs

the skeleton for Cope.

me

the refusal of anything

September, he sent another telegram,

this

one to Samuel Williston

in

Kansas.

of the big dinosaurs was being fought along the front range of the Rocky Mountains, both Cope and Marsh still had parties pushing the competition on the Kansas and Nebraska plains.

While the

battle

— THE ULDKI) DINOSAUR Mudge had

After tions,

—

and Sternberg

Cope's man on If Sternberg

he was

left,

195

Williston was in charge of Marsh's Kansas opera-

recently returned

from

a

winter in Philadelphia

— was

the prairie.

had not been bound to Cope before

a total loyalist after

had been turned into

a

the

The barn

visit.

at

time in Philadelphia,

his

Cope's Haddonfield

home

workshop, and Sternberg roomed there with young

Jacob Geismar, Cope's preparer and sole employee. Sternberg had

standing invitation for Sunday dinner with Cope, Annie,

a

and Julia. "The food was plain but daintily cooked, and the Professor's conversation was a feast in itself. Hunter.

"He

laughed

sit

.

,"

Sternberg wrote in Hie

with sparkling eyes, telling story

at his sallies until

He was in

used to

.

we

could laugh no more."

invited to dinner parties the

men

luncheons she held for the young

At one Philadelphia

By

lecture,

work

given credit for his

for the

Cope

that

and

we

and Annie included him

came

to hear

Cope

lecture.

asked Sternberg to stand up so that he be

River badlands.

in the Judith

a pair

family,

Cope had moved

of townhouses on Philadelphia's Pine Street

one

for the

Cope

worked the Smoky

season, Sternberg shells

gave,

while

23

the early spring, Sternberg was back in Kansas, and

from Haddonfield to

one

Cope

Copes

Life of a Fossil

after story,

Hill

fossils.

For the

first

part of the

River region collecting

fossil

fishes.

Also out on the plains was Professor Snow, the Kansas State University chancellor and entomologist, and one day Sternberg had the chance to see the

Wild West and science

cross paths.

A group of cowboys driving a herd of cattle north on the Chisholm Trail Snow and his students running across the air "like men possessed."

passed Professor

mesh

nets in

the prairie waving big

At the nearby town of Buffalo, the owner of the Texas herd asked storekeeper,

"What

are those

men

doing?"

"Catching bugs," was the clipped "I don't believe it," said the

"All right,

you can

a

reply.

cowboy. "They are grown men."

find out for yourself, if you

want

to," the

shop owner

said.

The cowboy went out and spoke visitor to his tent

"Well, did

I

tell

said, "is

the smartest

names and surnames of all the bugs

Sternberg and litany

who

happily took his

insects.

the truth?" the storekeeper asked.

"That man," the cowboy the

to the professor,

and showed him hundreds of mounted

his

man

I

ever saw.

He knows

in this country."

four-man party had to deal with the seemingly endless

of western woes, including rescuing the team and wagon from quick-

.

MARK

196

J

A F F E

sand, outrunning a tornado, and fighting a squall to keep their tents from

being blown away. In July,

Nebraska. sil

Cope It

directed Sternberg to head north to the Niobrara region in

was there along the Loup River

of a great land

to call

turtle

—

Testudo orthopygia.

it

They

also

rhino, Aphelops megalodus, and the

new

species,

that Sternberg

nearly three feet long and

two

found the

feet wide.

fos-

Cope was

found the remains of the ancient

mastodon Triloplwdon

Both

campester.

both named by Cope.

Williston was also scouring the plains for

and trying to keep

fossils

his eye

on Sternberg and Company. "Send hundred ammunition. Health poor. Jones nothing going south," Williston had wired

Three months that

later,

Williston sent

he was sending on

a

Marsh

a letter

pterodactyl skull. "I

New

Haven

B.

in April.

26

from Buffalo, announcing

know just what

Sternberg has

shipped," he also reported, "1 bird, 19 pterodactyls, 38 saunans, 5 turtles and

210

fishes, in all

27 15 boxes."

But on September to

head for Canon

also sent

13, Williston received Marsh's telegram directing

City.

The foDowing day, he was

Marsh an itemized

When

the train to

climbed aboard.

He

bill

for expenses in Kansas,

entered a coach and

own

sat

down.

It

him

a train.

which came

Denver pulled into Monument

to realize that sitting there in the

received his

ready to catch

He

to S781

Station, Williston

took him

a little

while

same coach was Sternberg. Sternberg had

telegram from Cope.

"Where was Sternberg going?" he wonThey rode over the prairie together, amiable enough. "He was greatly astonished, thinking I was on his trail," Sternberg recounted. "He tried to find out my destination, but failed." Sternberg was curious too and asked the conductor if he knew Williston

went over

to chat.

dered. Sternberg was thinking the same about Williston.

where Williston was headed.

The two young men spent the evening together in Denver and then went their separate ways. The following day, Williston wrote Marsh from the Grand Hotel region

...

I

in

South Pueblo, Colorado.

"I

met Sternberg

Denver and was preparing for a long journey so going up into the Dakota region where he was last year.

that

train at

.

self left

going

could not find out where he was going, but he took

.

.

I

a

to

a

new

northern

think he

is

Has Cope him-

Philadelphia?"

Sternberg was not going back to the Dakotas.

—

Cope had

directed

him

to

Day River Basin in Oregon and, coincidentally, into the middle of the Bannock Indian War. As for Cope, he had left Philadelphia himself, but not for Colorado, not for the Dakotas, or for Oregon. Cope was head

for the John

in Texas.

— THE GILDED DINOSAUR The same day being given

a

197

Williston was fretting about his whereabouts,

Cope was

tour of San Antonio by General Ord. "I find the place worth

staying in," he wrote to Annie, "with

churches, and

its winding river, its piazzas, catholic mixed population of Americans, Mexicans, Germans and

Poles, together

20,000 people." 28

When

Williston arrived in

went

Williston eagerly

Canon

Mudge was

City,

yielded bones comparable to those of Lucas. "I

Cope

is

out of town. So

no location

right to work, but could find

getting by far the best lot of fossils. ...

ber of new species of those dinosaurs

if

we

I

am

that

very sorry to find that

num-

think there must be a

only get good bones," Williston

lamented. 29 Five days

later,

some hope

Williston expressed

were beginning to get "some things

.

.

that

.

I

to

Marsh saying

think you will like."

Williston was particularly proud of was the hind leg, pelvis, and

monumental dinosaur

all

that they

One tail

find

of

a

neatly arranged in hard sandstone.

The problem, Williston

said,

was

that the

bones were "broken into innu-

merable pieces." Most of the material couldn't be saved, but Williston saw that the vertebrae

had peculiar chevrons unlike any

that

he had ever seen.

So he salvaged what he could by protecting them with dipped in flour

The

bones, however, were few and far between and not in

dition as those going to Philadelphia.

Haven

strips

of paper

paste.

On

saying, "Unless luck better ...

I

October

am

as

Mudge

8,

good con-

wired

New

sending Williston to Morri-

son." 30

Marsh finally had to concede that Cope had won the second round. Mudge went home to Kansas, and Williston left Canon City for Morrison.

In early September, after spending August exploring middle

some

eastern entomologists, Lakes started

again and uncovered

some

Colorado with

working the Morrison quarries

unusual, large, pointed, dorsal spines. Lakes said

they looked like "the ends of spearheads or long spikes." finally

pieced together the animal that

owned

mously by some better specimens Williston had culled

would had

find an animal about twenty feet in length

a series

of armor

plates

along

its

When

Marsh

those spines (helped enorat

Canon

City),

and weighing two

backbone and

spikes

on

its tail.

he

tons.

It

Marsh

Stegosaurus. call it the "armed roof reptile" autumn was coming to the mountains, and Lakes wrote, "It was not long before our camp was invaded by ladies on horseback from the hotel at Morrison who came up to gather the leaves to paste up in graceful

decided to Blazing

— M

19K

festoons around their

rooms

A R k

in

A F F E

J

Denver. Sometimes these

and partake of a cup of coffee or

a glass

of lemonade

at

ladies

our

would

stop

31

tent.*'

Lakes also spent part of his time painting watercolors of the bluffs and

quarry sil

sites.

Perhaps Lakes had

collector, but

photographs were hard to Lakes's

flat,

painting,

a

future as a schoolteacher, preacher, or fos-

he certainly didn't have one

come

Mudge,

in a jacket

an

artist. Still,

and were only

by,

primitive portrayals of the

vertebra examining

as

fossil

and bowler

A

in a day

in black

where

and white,

expedition were unique. In one

hat,

is

sitting

on an

Atlantosaurns

a

huge

at

Morrison and was pronounced "a very pleasant

leg bone.

field

hand

swinging an ax just

is

behind him. Williston arrived

low" by Lakes. They

started

working some of the old quarry

wanted more Apatosaurus bones. The quarries the

hill,

areas, as

after

Marsh

had to be dug deep into

still

and the sandstone overhangs were pronounced. Soon the

were gone, and the snows had come. The day

fel-

leaf ladies

one snowstorm, the tem-

perature rose, and everything began to thaw. At the end of the workday, Lakes, Williston, and the rest of the crew laid their tools in the quarry hole

and

left.

"About midnight one of our men was walking through the village when he heard a roar like thunder from the cliffs above as if the whole hogback was coming down. Next morning we came

whole ledge

there lay the

and

fallen in

weight of rocks of over 100 tons.

.

Had

.

.

as

usual to our hole

filling

when

lo

the excavation with the

this fallen

when we were

there

our entire party would have been crushed to atoms," Lakes wrote.

The snowstorms became more frequent. Williston, weary and ill, left his home in Kansas. By the end of the year, Marsh decided to close down the quarry. He asked Lakes to come and spend the winter at the Peabody Museum, but Lakes declined and returned Colorado and returned to

to Jarvis Hall in Golden.

•

This fossil-hunting season also brought another big change in the battle

between Cope and Marsh.

A new

Princeton University. Well, perhaps versity

had

entered

the

fray.

competitor had entered the

it

More

was overly grand to

William Berryman Scott and Henry they'd have

a

western adventure and go

fossil

say that the uni-

two nineteen-year-old

accurately,

undergraduates had boldly marched into the

field

war.

Fairfield

Osborn decided that They innocently

collect fossils.

sought Marsh's advice on where to hunt, but he wouldn't even see them.

"

THE ULDED DINOSAUR Then they went What about

to see

who

Cope,

199

received them, but was both wary and

the Bridger Basin, they asked, were there

cagey.

"Well, there were before

got there,"

I

Cope

fossils

replied. Frustrated

there?

by

their

Osborn and Scott set West on their own. When news came to Marsh from both Sam Smith and James Van Allen Carter that Scott and Osborn were hunting around in the Bridger Basin, it

reception from the nation's eminent paleontologists, off for the

had to have been

a

source of irritation. Carter was trying to keep an eye on

the boys, but had to report to

given us the

slip."

New

Haven

that "the Princeton party has

32

more concerned by

Carter was probably

the

news

that the

army had

decided to decommission Fort Bridger. Judge Carter was thinking of buying up the buildings. Everyone else was thinking of moving on. 33 Scott and

and

Osborn returned from

totally enthralled

their western expedition completely

with paleontology, and

when Cope

weren't Marsh agents, his entire demeanor changed.

of

realized that they

He gave them

a full

run

The young men started making frequent trips consult with both Cope and Leidy. Cope even went up

to

collections.

his

Philadelphia to

Princeton to help them

classify

and arrange

But when the two young men made

their Bridger Basin finds.

formal request to see Marsh's

a

Bridger Basin material, the Yale professor only grudgingly agreed. ordered his

when

the

make

a

cover

arrived,

He

other material in the Peabody workshops, and

all

Marsh put on

of carpet

a pair

slippers, so as

not to

sound, and lurked in the corners, keeping an eye on the Princeton

students.

The

staff to

two

to

34

Osborn and Scott became deeply committed to paleontology and to Cope. Scott would go on to become a professor at Princeton. Osborn would hold a professorship at Columbia University and head the American Museum of Natural History. Both men would adore Cope and see Marsh as their archenemy. This would not be good news for Marsh. It already wasn't. Within a few months, Lakes was to tell Marsh that Princeton had also offered to hire him •

result

of all

and to purchase secrets

this

was

his fossils,

that

and added,

"It

is

hopeless to attempt to keep the

of the bones from general information.

In 1877, Leidy was also back in the Bridger Basin. In a

the Uinta Mountains,

high elevations. Philadelphian.

No

move

that

3:>

Wyoming, but now he had abandoned

was almost symbolic, he had gone up into

where he was studying microscopic organisms

more bone

battles

at

with Cope or Marsh for the gentle

MARK

200

While Lakes, Mudge,

and Sternberg dashed

Williston, Lucas,

West digging up

fossils

Marsh were busy

in their

analyzing,

A F F E

J

across the

from Kansas to Colorado to Oregon, Cope and

workshops separating bone from rock,

In the basement

rooms of the Peabody Museum, Marsh had most able staff in the country. The highly

started to assemble the

Thomas Bostwick, who had come mar

into Marsh's

employ

illustrations

turned them into engraving

and Tobias Kappeler made

plates.

his first

College,

who

scholarly

and

permanent

museum on

Hopson

was Marsh's

restorer,

a

part-time

Oscar Harger was Marsh's

Marsh was happy

vertebrate paleontology.

own

credit in his

F.

assistant in paleontology.

basis,

Marsh was

own

while

intellectual

A graduate of Yale Harger was

to have his ability at the

but absolutely forbade Harger to publish any of his

on

Frederick

artist

and William

also studied at the Sheffield Scientific School, creative.

trusted

of important and interesting bones.

also at the

his doctoral dissertation.

ego and

fossils,

Adam Herrman

plaster casts

George Bird Grinnell was working on

of bones and

already

of gram-

right out

The

school, kept the records and did the packing.

Berger sketched

alter

sorting,

and naming.

museum,

papers or analyses

also very stingy in giving

anyone

work. The poor and sickly Harger needed the Peabody

position, but his brilliance

and Marsh's hard-fisted ways would eventually

clash.

Against this small army,

townhouse

that

Cope and Geismar worked

had been turned into

a

in the Philadelphia

paleontological studio. Geismar did

the unpacking, the preparing, and the recording keeping. detail

work, the drawing, and the

The townhouse had

quickly

Cope

did the

analysis.

became

cluttered with crates, bones, books,

and workbenches. But the elegant dwelling had not been designed to be an atelier.

When Cope

and Geismar wanted to reconstruct the leg of the

Camarasaurus, they had to hang floor

bedrooms and the

Now, from Pine

it

down

the stairway between the second-

first-floor parlor.

Street

and the Peabody came

a

parade of dinosaurs

Marsh was to announce the discovery of six new genera of dinosaurs, and what an incredible range of creatures he had found in the Colorado hills. There was the huge

unlike anything the world had ever seen.

Apatosaurus,

fifty feet

long and thirty tons; the giant carnivorous Allosaurus;

the cat-sized Nanosaurus; and the spiked and armor-plated Stegosaurus.

Cope would

piece together five different dinosaurs including the towering

Amphicoelias, bulky Camarasaurus,

36 and slender Dystrophaeusr

THE GILDED DINOSAUR Cope was

201

of the huge

fascinated with the architecture

beasts.

"The

and Amphhicoelias, which attained to the most

species of Camarasaurus

gigantic proportions are remarkable for the light construction of the verte-

brae

.

.

he observed. "They are

,"

.

tion of the superior arches

unusually elevated basis.

.

.

.

.

On

.

also

remarkable for the enormous eleva-

which

the result of

.

limbs are solid or nearly so, in great contrast with

At the end of the

fortune.

hundred

Marsh was

that

protest. ...

Cope

this I

is

think

on

New

in

and saw

giants

necks and eaters.

tails,

all

is

a

—

was

It

his first

the Amer-

major gambit using

bought the copyright," he

has

strong feeling

He

was too busy

him by Sternberg and

at

Cambridge and

a

else-

He

amphibians,

as

well

on

as

sifting

his

own

wrote

through the fossils

fossil fishes

gleaned from

later

of thirty-three papers

a total

reptiles,

it."

mastodons, crocodiles, ore-

his colossal dinosaurs.

number of shared

characteristics:

They had

Jurassic

four-feet, long

small heads, five-toed "hands and feet," and they were plant

they formed

that

and proposed

calling

a

distinct

group among the

them sauropods, or

"lizard-footed,"

The

dinosaurs because of their five toes (bipedal dinosaurs had three toes).

name

stuck.

All in

39

all, it

had been an extraordinary

year.

But

as incredible as

1878 held even more promise. Marsh had been contacted by two sil

collectors

who

had

also

collectors, ascertain the value

and had quickly made

of their

site,

This he had managed to do, and the

and above

first

reports

efforts to lock

science. Joseph

fos-

all,

keep

it

up the

secret.

coming back from

new site were that it was much better than Morrison, even better Canon City. Things looked very promising for the coming season. But then came the news

was,

it

new

found big bones. By now, he was no longer

casual about such information

American

that

this

than

was surely going to change the landscape of

Henry

—

the president of the National

Academy

of Sciences, the secretary of the Smithsonian, the nation's preeminent entist

— was

a

38

Haven, Marsh was pondering the nature of the

Marsh decided

dinosaurs

He bought

the prominent naturalists will sign

fossil fishes,

odonts, and rhinos

Up

Dinosauria of

bold move to help counter Marsh's

Cope

Pliocene beds in Clarendon, Texas. that winter

and the

swindle and Alexander Agassiz has drawn up

a

wasn't worried.

turtles sent to

a

dollars.

"There

in a letter to Leidy.

where

tail

furious.

suppose you have heard that

wrote

and

Cope made

year,

ican Naturalist for fifteen

"I

some of the

with Benjamin Silliman's Journal.

special relationship

new

to give the ribs an

periods." 37

later geological

his

is

the other hand the bones of the

dead.

sci-

Chapter Thirteen

On may

13, 1878, after a sterling career

spanning nearly half

Henry died from a liver infection at the age death would so profoundly touch America's

a century, Joseph

of

No

eighty.

community as this one, for, as his obituHenry had been the one person

fledgling scientific

ary in the Nation noted,

"who during

the present generation has exerted the most enduring and

widespread influence upon the progress of American science."

Henry's "departure,"

Academy of Washington a

moment

another.

The

It

1

H. Coffin, the home secretary of the National

J.

Sciences, wrote in a letter to Marsh, "creates a void in our circle

in

all

the scientific associations in the land." 2

marked the passage from one

that

was

and

a

era

of American science to

Cope was packing

Washington and calculating on the

to attend the funeral in

hand. "His death will

possibilities at

leave a vacancy in the Smithsonian," he said in a note to his wife. that

most

likely

Spencer Baird replacement

years ago Prof. B. told

me

— Henry's deputy

at

for eighteen years

the Smithsonian.

that

Still,

he would rather that

tion than any other person and

I

may

get

it,"

Cope

very uncertain.

is

Henry had done an piloting initial

it

through

It is

best to be on the spot.

Cope

—was

the

he could hope. "Some I

should have that posiwrote. "But the events

of the Marshian controversy may have weakened me, thing

was

time of change.

day after Henry's death,

knew

It

there, so that every-

"3

extraordinary job in creating the Smithsonian and

and

scientific shoals

political rapids.

Despite Congress's

reluctance, he had created an important scientific institution out of a

piece of serendipity that American leaders hadn't wanted

When

the U.S. government was

ited the equivalent

named James Smithson,

chemist

first

informed

of five hundred thousand

was

it

in

dollars

totally

1836

at all.

that

it

had inher-

from an obscure British

unenthusiastic about the

bequest.

Smithson, the bastard son of a British noble, had spent most of his France.

When

he died

living relative, a third

a

bachelor in

nephew,

1

829, his will directed that

also died, the

in

his last

whole of his property should be

given "to the United States of America, to found 202

when

life

at

Washington, under the

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

203

name Smithsonian

Institution, an Establishment for the increase

sion of knowledge

among men."

The

prospect of this huge legacy set off

States' rights advocates,

such

as

a

howling debate

and

diffu-

in Congress.

Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina,

questioned whether the government even had the power to accept

from foreign individuals.

United

was,

It

Calhoun argued, "beneath the dignity of the of

States to receive presents

greatest fear

university

was

— an

this

kind from anyone." Calhoun's

money would be used

that the

gifts

to create a central national

idea that had faced consistent states' rights opposition since

the time of George Washington.

Congress eventually voted to accept the with the money.

Finally, in

gift,

but vacillated on what do to

1844, with criticism rising and the value of the

legacy falling, the Smithsonian was created although Congress sure

what the

library,

new

museum,

institution

When selection

ought

to be.

in late

The

a

1846 to

creating

bill

rooms, and

art gallery, lecture

would be overseen by

board met

that

decisively,

it

institution

a

it

wasn't

still

provided for

chemical laboratory.

a

The

board of regents. select the institution's first secretary,

though not unanimously, chose Henry. Instrumental

was Alexander Dallas Bache,

a

regent and the

new

in the

superintendent

of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.

Henry quickly saw

that the

Smithsonian could not be

avoid running afoul of Congress,

it

all

things,

and to

would have to live largely within the endowment. He decided that in its first

on its three years, the Smithsonian would "ask nothing from Congress except the safe-keeping of its own funds." He would steer clear of controversy and monies created by the

interest

appropriation hearings.

down

new institution's goals to "facilitating and promoting the discovery of new truths" and the publishing of those results. Thus, its aim was research and publication. The Smithsonian, To do

he

said,

this,

he quickly pared

would only do those

institutions in

things

the

"which cannot be produced by

existing

our country."

The Smithsonian had nurtured

scientific research

and become

ington beacon for scientists across the nation. But now,

have to take over

its

The names most

someone

a

else

Washwould

leadership.

often mentioned for the job were

J.

E. Hilgard, the

director of the Naval Observatory, Clarence King, and, of course, Baird.

Cope was not

tion, or title that

had

on would

really

the

list,

give

but he increasingly craved some post, posi-

him

greater standing.

tried for election to the vice presidency at the

ences in Philadelphia, but

lost.

"He

A

few months

earlier,

Academy of Natural

wants badly to be Prest. of the

he

Sci-

Am.

M

204

Assoc. Adv. of Sc," Joseph acter

J

19, the day after

day

at

would

hope

his char-

Cope.

On May

I

4

also elude

Henry's funeral, the Smithsonian regents unanimously worker,

Finally, Baird, the ferocious a

to Marsh, "but

to prevent such a disgrace."

secretaryship of the Smithsonian

chose Baird for the post. Here was the

hours

A F F E

LeConte reported

known

sufficiently

is

The

A R K

first

small shift in the constellation.

who would

spend

as

much

as fifteen

the institution, could bring his specimens up from the base-

ment and make them the Smithsonian's centerpiece. His ambition, which historian Robert V. Bruce described as "imperial," was to make those natural history collections preeminent. The Smithsonian would become more of a museum. The promotion of research would increasingly pass to universities and other

Within tion

a

year of taking over, Baird

government science

would obtain

a

agencies.

$250,000 appropria-

to erect the museum building that Henry had always To fill it, Baird would be far more involved in politickmaking with his fellow scientists than Henry would ever have

from Congress

balked

at

pursuing.

ing and deal entertained.

Cope

After Henry's funeral,

returned to Philadelphia, recording no note

of disappointment and began preparations

been invited

to attend the annual

for a trip to Europe.

He

meeting of the British Association

had

for the

Advancement of Science to be held in Dublin. With the situation so fluid at home, it was not the best time for a trip, but Marsh was on the continent but I at that very moment. "On some accounts it is not convenient to go must counteract the Marsh mud, which appears to have stuck over there in

—

several places," he told Annie.

Marsh's continental result

visit,

of Henry's death.

3

however, was about to be cut short

One

been president of the National Academy of Sciences, and April,

Henry had gotten

a

had only been an academy

—

as a direct

of Henry's other important positions had just that past

—

new vice president Marsh. The Yale professor member for only four years, but he had a knack

for getting elected to things. Suddenly,

he was the academy's "interim"

president.

With Marsh's

possession of the

government and science was at

also

academy

gavel, the relationship

about to change, much

would change that institution. Even though Henry had rescued the academy from

as Baird's

between ascension

the Smithsonian

the

government

austere

still

had not sought

Henry himself and

impartial,

and

apolitical.

his

If

moribund

state,

advice. Part of the reason was the

determination to keep the academy scholarly,

This made

deal-making Washington.

its

its

it

an oddity in backslapping, logrolling,

Congress asked

a question,

Henry was

pre-

— THE GILDED DINOSAUR why

pared to give an honest answer. That's probably

But the interim president was a

man

man

a

205

legislators

never asked.

not cowed by Washington

politics,

fray, a man comfortable wielding power man who congressional reformers believed

capable of wading into the

and making

deals.

He

was

also a

they could count on. After eight years of Grant and his venal entourage, the idea of reform was

much

in vogue.

B. Hayes, that

There were those

had stolen

he was

in

that said the

his election, stuffing ballot

new

president,

Rutherford

boxes in the South. But

Washington, Hayes was committed to reform, and

interior secretary, Carl Schurz,

his

now new

was one of the most ardent members of the

movement.

Soon

after getting into office,

overlapping surveys, hearings.

The

shores, but

Schurz focused on the problem of the

a situation that

had not gotten any better since the 1874

Treasury Department's survey was

was nearing the end of its

it

six

task,

still

mapping American

quickly running out of coast to

survey.

The War Department itary

still

maps, although he was

ing so

had Lieutenant George Wheeler making mil-

now doing

many problems down

invited back by the

army

and

retired to

it

without Cope's help. After creat-

Mexico

in 1874,

Cope was

never

survey.

Clarence King had completed parallel

New

in

New

fieldwork for the survey of the fortieth

his

Haven, where he was turning out volumes of

impressive reports.

own

In Schurz's

Interior Department, the General

surveying and distributing land to

ued

to

mount

large geological

settlers,

and

Land Office was

still

while Ferdinand Hayden contin-

scientific expeditions to the

John Wesley Powell explored the mountains and

rivers

West, and

of the central

Rocky Mountains. So much uncoordinated work. Something really had to be done, and done now. The economy had not recovered from the crash of 1873, with 1877 and 1878

particularly

bad

years.

Congress was desperately searching for

ways to cut the budget.

There was

still

another impetus for streamlining the surveys.

of the West was no longer the nation's America's present.

The

The

future.

Indian wars were over.

The

as fast as

railroads

By

It

settling

moment,

were running.

was already hap-

locomotive and wagon would allow. At the end of the Civil

War, there had been 3.6 million people living Mississippi.

The

was, at that

land had to be settled, plowed, timbered, and mined.

pening,

a

It

the spring of 1878, there were

fourfold increase in

a little

more than

in the territory

more than

west of the

thirteen million

ten years. But the assessing, parcel-

MARK JAFFE

206

ing,

and

settling

of the land was

a

haphazard, often chaotic, exercise. The car-

tographers and surveyors had barely been able to keep up. In such a confused atmosphere, flourish,

and increasingly

large

it

was easy

and corruption to

for graft

chunks of the American West were

into the hands of banks, corporations, and large landholders.

falling

There was

a

more efficient method of surveying and distributing land was needed. The surveys had to be merged and reformed. The question was how it would be done? The nation's scientific community was not an impartial bystander in this debate. Dozens of prominent naturalists, botanists, geologists, and paleontolfeeling that a better understanding

of the nation's resources and

and specimens from the surveys and

ogists received grants

a

government

at

And no two scientists were than Cope and Marsh. In fact,

expense, had their reports and papers published.

more

intimately involved with the surveys

war was

their "paleontological

chaotic state of the geological

and abetted by the

indirectly sustained

work done by

the agencies of the U.S. gov-

ernment," according to Princeton paleontologist and Cope protege,

William Berryman Scott. 6

Cope had

received support from both Lieutenant Wheeler's survey of the

hundredth meridian and Hayden's survey of the Rocky Mountains.

It

was

Hayden's survey that published the bulk of Cope's work. King's survey published Marsh's key paleontological works on the evolution of horses, and birds with teeth, while Powell's

If the surveys

Haven.

were to be merged, there would

clearly

sent

losers in the nation's scientific

the only politics

at play,

and

all its fossils

to

use the National

be winners and

community. So congressional

politics wasn't

why

more remark-

perhaps that

is

Republican reformers and the

able that the

Second Division of the

New

Rocky Mountain Survey

Academy of Sciences

as

it

was

all

the

scientific politicos

decided to

the agent to decide the fate of the

surveys.

This was what sent Marsh scurrying It

was to be the

major

first

battle

home from Europe. among scientists over government

funding in America, and they would reveal themselves to be petty as any

machine

middle of the It officially

than

a

month

Hewitt of

fray

politician or lobbyist.

And once

as

would be Cope and Marsh.

began on the afternoon of June 20, 1878, just after

New

vicious and

again, right in the

Marsh assumed presidency of the

York

—

a friend

House of Representatives

and club mate of Marsh's

to:

more

academy. Rep. Abram

and proposed an amendment

Expense Act, asking the academy

a little

—

to the

rose in the

Sundry Civil

THE ULDED DINOSAUR take into consideration the

20?

method and expenses of conducting

surveys of a scientific character under the

War or

Interior Department,

and the survey of the Land Office, and to report to Congress thereafter as

may be

Territories of the

practicable a plan for surveying

United

States

judgment, secure the best

The the

scientific

soon

as will, in their

results at the least possible cost.

community through

its

hands of O. C. Marsh. Clearly,

in the

as

and mapping the

on such general system

organization

would have

of the surveys was

in large part

most

chance to propose reforms. The

first

all

fate

this

elite

was not

good thing

a

for either

Hayden or Cope.

From

the nation's birth, the vastness of the continent inspired dreams,

demanded exploration and settlement. Who knew what was out there? When, in 1803, Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to find a Pacific northwest passage, he also hoped that they would discover dinosaurs, mammoths, and other strange beasts still living in the interior of the great continent. "There is surely space enough ... for mammoths and megalonyxs who may exist there," he said. 7 It would turn out

schemes, and hopes.

that

all

that

Many Trail,

retary

was

mammoth

of the woolly

left

were the

animals,

also

It

fossils

waiting for

and the other exotic, ancient

Cope and Marsh.

followed Lewis and Clark. John Fremont

mapped

and Charles Wilkes surveyed the Columbia River of War Jefferson Davis commissioned

best transcontinental

rail

route,

a series

and numerous in the

Oregon

of surveys to find the

land surveys cut up the

west, like a large a birthday cake, so pieces could

That parceling of homesteads was

the

basin. In 1850, Sec-

be handed out to

Mid-

settlers.

8

hands of the Interior Depart-

ment's General Land Office, which in turn relied upon eighteen regional surveyors-general.

The

on conwith which Columbus

surveyors-general themselves depended

tracts let to private surveyors. It

was these contracts

Delano's son, John, was so deeply and questionably involved.

Under sections

the 1862

— 160

acres

Homestead Act, the land was

—

free to those

who

to be divided into quarter

could hold the land and improve

it.

But the surveying and quartering often could not move as quickly as the squatters spilling into the West. By 1878, there had been 2.5 million entries under the Homestead Act

—

a total

from public to private hands passed the

Homestead Act,

it

of four hundred million acres transferred

in sixteen years. also

The same

year that Congress

approved the Pacific Railroad Act, which

MARK

208

J

A F F E

gave the railroads alternate sections of lands on each side of their tracks,

which they could There was

lem was

sell

to offset their capital expenses in building the railway.

tremendous amount of land being doled out, and the prob-

a

that this

was being done

in an

ruption. Fraudulent land claims were

who

the "homesteader"

atmosphere of confusion and cor-

common. One popular scam

involved

carried a moveable shanty and barrel of water

on

a

wagon. Plunking down the shanty and pouring water on the ground was close

enough

Then

section.

to building a this

home and

homesteader would turn around and

speculator or a corporation and

But even those quarter end up

irrigating the land to claim a quarter

move on

sell his

claim to

a

to his next homestead.

sections taken by hardworking farmers

seemed

to

hands of the banks and syndicates. Two-thirds of the home-

in the

steaders failed,

with banks seizing

their land for

banks then put the land on the market where

it

unpaid mortgages. The

would be snapped up by

speculators and ranching consortiums. "In the end," said Wallace Stegner,

"the Homestead Act stimulated the monopolizing of land that

had intended

And

if that

to prevent."

its

advocates

9

wasn't bad enough, Congress was

still

devising ways to turn

Home-

over public lands to private individuals and enterprises. Since the stead Act, Congress

had passed the Timber Culture Act

Land Act of 1877, and

in 1878,

it

in 1873, the Desert

was already debating the Timber and

Stone Act.

From

the point of view of the Republican reformers, something had to

be done, not only to improve the disbursement of land, but to enhance the government's understanding of the resources that were actually out

The

how

question was

that each

could the surveys do the job?

there.

The problem was

of the four main surveys exploring western lands had looked

different things,

from

and natures of the that financed

different vantage points. This

men who

them.

George Wheeler,

The

was due to the

led the surveys and the

result

was

a

at

interests

government agencies

very imperfect picture of the West.

a thirty-six-year-old,

ramrod, serious army career

offi-

cer, focused on the military goal of describing terrain and making maps. The War Department wasn't interested in farming or mining. While Wheeler

did produce

some good

dinate to the soldiers.

science reports, the scientists were definitely subor-

10

For Clarence King, mining was the single the most important thing. The Sheffield Scientific School graduate, who was the same age as Wheeler, was simply engaged in the Gilded

Age hunt

for riches. King's survey paid close

attention to the mineral resources in the one-hundred-mile

along the fortieth parallel

— and

band

that ran

the transcontinental railroad tracks.

Farm-

THE GILDED DINOSAUR ing, timbering,

and settlement, however, didn't

John Wesley Powell's

Grand Canyon had been

much

an adventure

Since then, Powell, forty-five, had done

But

his survey's

much

him

either.

expedition.

as a scientific

some good geology and mapping.

most singular contribution remained

and the study of the ethnology of Indian

rivers

interest

exploration of the Colorado River and

initial

as

209

in the exploration

tribes

of

of the Colorado

River basin.

At the age of

fifty,

Hayden was

the dean of the survey leaders, having

started his explorations in the 1850s. His survey

was the most wide ranging,

dealing with everything from prehistoric animals to the assessment of coal

The Hayden Survey

deposits.

did far

more

natural history research than any

on locusts in Colorado, snakes in Montana, butterflies in Utah, fish in the Rio Grande, as well as minerals in Nevada. Hayden also had scientists look at two of the great myths powering west-

other, publishing papers

ern development.

making

The

first

was the tenet

that settlement

changed climate,

was commonly known as the The second notion was that a vast coal

arid regions wetter. This

"rain follows the plow."

theory that deposit, the

"Great Lignite," underlay the West.

Even

Hayden's survey didn't prove these

if

ing western development, just having imacy.

also

It

made Hayden

passing out copies of

them examined

a favorite in

W H.Jackson's

ing legislators' kith and kin for

beliefs, so

dear to those tout-

seriously

added

legit-

Congress. (Hayden's strategy of

beautiful western photographs

summer work

also bolstered this

and

hir-

congres-

sional goodwill.)

There was much good work in

some

places,

vision and determination to ness.

as

big

as

the

in others,

mount

Such men weren't going

But

West was,

and always

conflicts. It

took

a survey and struggle with the wilder-

one another

to yield to it

were holes

in the surveys, but clearly there

and redundancies

couldn't

easily.

accommodate

so

many

individual

look at the mapping mess creBetween 1867 and 1877, the government $1.9 million mapping the West, with Hayden getting a little third of the money, Wheeler about a quarter, King a fifth, and

visions. Well, at least, the nation couldn't. Just

ated by the independent surveys.

spent nearly

more than Powell scales

a

a

seventh. All the surveys produced maps, but they used different

and techniques.

Wheeler and Hayden were mapping at eight miles to the inch, while King was using four miles to the inch. Wheeler used crosshatches to show mountains. King used contour

lines.

inch, but eventually switched to the

King

lent

Powell had started

more

at eight

detailed technique.

him some of his maps might have been

miles to the

(The

fact that

the reason for the switch.)

M

210

The

A R K

A F F E

J

was there were no comprehensive maps. Confusion continued to reign west of the hundredth meridian. result

Something had

to

be done. The

new

secretary of the interior was going

to see to that.

Carl Shurz had arrived in the United States in the early 1850s, escaping the Prussian

crackdown

ful

revolutionary

tics

to America.

that followed the democratic, romantic,

movement of 1848. He

He

quickly applied his idealistic poli-

fought in the Civil War,

from Missouri, opposed Grant, supported

member of

a central

Nation editor

Not long at

Edwin

L.

won

reform, and became movement, which included

New

York's

— were

Abram Hewitt, and

Godkin.

after arriving at the Interior

Department, Schurz began to look

the survey question. Since three of the surveys

the coastal

election to the Senate

civil service

the Republican reform

Congressman James Garfield of Ohio,

and unsuccess-

in other departments,

—

King's, Wheeler's, and

Schurz focused on Powell, Hayden,

and the General Land Office. The new secretary asked Powell and Hayden for their thoughts.

Powell began 1877 feeling extremely vulnerable. His survey was the runt

of the

litter,

having received annual appropriations ranging between ten

thousand and forty-live thousand

dollars, a half to a fifth

of what Hayden

received. It

was

also the survey that

made by

far

volumes of the studies ever

had produced the fewest works. Wheeler had

the most maps. King was

range of scientists surveying parties. all

in

and paleontology

America. prolific.

Hayden

cultivated a broad

who analyzed specimens and sometimes traveled with his He provided an umbrella and a press for their work.

his survey's

umes of annual

of turning out seven

finest geology, cartography, mineralogy,

produced

Hayden's survey had been the most

When

in the process

works were

reports, six

finally published, there

were twelve vol-

volumes of bulletins, twelve volumes of miscel-

laneous publications, thirteen volumes of monographs, and seventeen

volumes of unclassified publications. There were seven volumes on paleontology

—

five

written by Cope.

In the budget-cutting atmosphere of 1877, Powell was worried that

Congress might not give him any appropriation at all. He begged for help from John Strong Newberry, who had left Cleveland and medicine and was teaching geology

at

the

Columbia University School of Mines,

in

New

1

York

II

K

ULDED DINOSAUR

City.

Newberry wrote

and Hewitt

to Garfield

Appropriations Committee. In those

he has

— both members of

the House Newberry not only praised come to be so much of a fraud

letters,

"Hayden

Powell, but also blasted Hayden. that

211

has

the sympathy and respect of the country,"

lost

"The most important contributions

made

lately

Newberry

said.

to science through his

agency are papers on Paleontology prepared by experts from materials obtained through

seem hardly

to

These, however interesting to

his collectors.

belong

in the category

of necessities

of government should be chiefly made

tures

for

in these

scientists,

which the expendi-

hard times."

Here was the blueprint for the coming fight. Attack Hayden's character and discredit the work of his survey. Still, Congress gave Hayden seventy-five thousand

dollars,

while cutting Powell's appropriation from forty-five

thousand to thirty thousand In May, Powell

dollars.

At

Powell's survey was

least

and Hayden exchanged heated words

still

alive.

in Schurz's office

with charges of duplication, backbiting, and waste being hurled around the

room. Schurz had to be chagrined.

Three days

Powell wrote

after that scene,

Schurz proposing

a

a

long, reasoned letter to

compromise. Hayden would report on natural history

(which Newberry was already arguing the federal government shouldn't fund), and Powell

way

would

to institutionalize his

Hayden

replied that

weaker

was

fine

survey.

with him,

as

the geology and geography. That, of course,

any survey better

—

if

at all.

not

eddies at the

Hayden could

all

—

some

take ethnography. Powell was searching for

act that

long

would

as his

survey also did

all

leave Powell with hardly

way because

at

the

moment

he held

the cards. But the forces to overturn him, though just

moment, were

already at work.

made himself a fair number of enemies, Newberry and Albany's James Hall. Second, being a politician-scientist, Hayden had cultivated the corrupt Delano when he headed Interior. This was a strike against him with First,

over the years, Hayden had

including highly influential

men

like

Schurz. Third, his enemies had found a useful line of attack in dismissing

much of the

work as impractical and not worthy of federal funding. was Hayden himself with his temper, insecurities, and as one

survey's

Finally, there

employee put

it,

"those old

fires

of jealousy and suspicious that ever smol-

der.'"

This was the stage that had already been

set

when Joseph Henry

passed

away.

But the decision

to use the National

Academy of

Sciences was a

wrinkle and one that depended exclusively on O. C. Marsh being

new

at

the

M

212

A R K

A F F E

J

academy helm. Congressman Hewitt may have been the author of the

res-

olution asking the academy's advice, but the forces behind the resolution

were none other than Powell and Clarence King.

"The four [survey] King wrote in

chiefs

gress,"

and Powell

felt

most strongly the

was mainly through veys

[again]

National this

became

evils

.

.

.

and

it

conduct of the sur-

that the

matter of Congressional investigation, and the

a

Academy of Sciences was drawn

in as

an advisors.

.

.

.

Powell led

12

movement." liaisons.

"Amongst them King

of the want of correlation

combined influence

their

The Marsh academy was and

maintained their rivalry in camp and in Con-

third-person autobiography.

a

perfect vehicle with

a

King and Marsh were

friends,

Sheffield Scientific School, and collaborators

Marsh were kindred

spirits.

its

intersecting interests

former classmates

on King's

Both had campaigned

by sending any

fossils

Yale's

and

for Indian rights,

and

both had been enemies of Delano. Since 1872, Powell had ingratiate himself

at

survey. Powell

his survey

also tried to

happened

to find to

Marsh.

But perhaps most important, King and Powell were well aware of Marsh's intense dislike for Hayden and Hayden's top collaborator Cope.

Hewitt was

a

reform-minded Republican from

was in the iron business. This gave him an

ily

western mining resources. western

cattle venture.

He

was

New

York, whose fam-

interest in the

also, incidentally,

development of

partners with

King, Marsh, and Hewitt were

all

King

members of

in a

the

New York City. Marsh was an ocean away when Henry died and the reformers made their opening gambit to use the National Academy of Sciences. But as soon tony Century Club in

as

he heard what was afoot, Marsh immediately made plans to leave Europe

for

home. His departure had

Darwin

at his

began sending into the

to wait, however, until he paid visit to Charles

country home. letters to

merger of the

Twenty-six years

key

Still,

even before leaving England, Marsh

surveys. Powell

earlier,

and preparing

scientists

a

committee

to look

was already mailing Marsh material.

when Marsh was

a

student

at Phillips

Exeter Acad-

emy, one of the school's greatest honors was the presidency of the debating club, the

Philomathean Society.

It

was

a

plum

traditionally reserved for a

senior.

But seizing on the unpopularity of an upperclassman's candidacy, Marsh was able to inveigle his way toward the prize. "Marsh organized the middlers

THE with great friend,

skill,

held the

DINOSAUR

(;ILDKI)

class

firmly together,"

W.

213

E. Park, a classmate and

remembered, "picked up loose votes lying around the school, and

defeated the senior candidate by a majority of one.

The excitement

in the

became a great hero." 13 win elections, but Marsh

school was tremendous, and Marsh

Cope might not know how to certainly did. The Yale professor was in his element, and Hewitt, Garfield, and Schurz doubtless knew that they could count on the academy and Marsh for the right kind of solution to the survey problem. Now it was Hayden who was worried. "I do not feel assured of prolonged existence," Hayden confided to a friend.

1878 appropriations

In the

Academy of Sciences' grant ever

—

fifty

rider was attached, Congress gave Powell his largest

thousand

enty-five thousand dollars.

had more

at stake

vision, a daring

coming

Hayden's appropriation was held

dollars.

The

had turned. But

tide

at

sev-

summer, Powell

that

than money, for he alone of the survey chiefs had

and

struggle

which Hewitt's National

the same to

bill,

radical vision

were nothing

of America. For Powell, the

a

stakes in the

than the very future of the American

less

West. His enemies called him

what an odd

— among other

revolutionist he was.

He

things

—

a "revolutionist,"

and

had neither the training of university-

He

bred Marsh and King nor the eastern affluence and propriety of Cope.

was not

a

medical

man

Hayden, and Newberry. Powell was

like Leidy,

unique.

The son of Wesleyan farms dotting Ohio, cation,

Illinois,

which included

Colleges.

He

abolitionist preacher, Powell

a

and Wisconsin.

He

Then came

Powell entered

in another five, a captain.

and

a "home-made" eduWheaton and Oberlin however, to become a high at

the Civil War.

as a private.

ball shattered his right

in villages

had

few sporadic semesters

had gathered enough learning,

school teacher.

grew up

On

arm.

Within three months, he was April

Army

elbow. Powell returned to duty,

5,

1862,

at

a

lieutenant and

the Battle of Shiloh, a minie

surgeons had to amputate

became an

artillery officer,

it

above the

and rose to the

rank of major. After the war, he landed a position

as

professor of geology at Illinois

Wesleyan University, and then he moved to sity.

Like Hall in Albany and

islature for

Mudge

Illinois State

Normal Univer-

in Kansas, Powell lobbied the state leg-

funds to support scientific

activities.

Then he

tried

doing the

same with Congress. In 1868, Powell led his

and family members

—

first

expedition

to the West.

The

— composed

largely

following year, he

made

of students a

name

for

MARK

214

J

A F F E

himself with his descent of the Colorado River, and from that point on, he

had been squeezing small appropriations from Congress to keep ration going.

Among

Henry and James

his earliest

explo-

Garfield.

But unlike any of the other survey plete vision

his

supporters in the capital were Joseph

of the West and

leaders, Powell

how

theory on

a

it

had fashioned

a

com-

should be developed. Just

twelve weeks before Hewitt had offered his resolution asking the academy's advice on the surveys, Powell delivered

Powell sent the secretary

of the United

States,

with

a

a

bureaucratic

bomb

to Schurz.

And Region

"Report on the Lands of the

his

More

Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah."

Powell's bold study began:

The

which

Physical Conditions

and which

exist in the arid lands,

inexorably control the operations of men, are such that the industries

of the West are necessarily unlike those of the tions

must be adapted

phase of Aryan civilization

is

being developed

and

East,

to their industrial wants.

their institu-

thus that a

It is

in the

new

western half of

America. In this report, Powell offered a revolutionary view of the future settlement

of the West. In essence, he

said that the land west

meridian simply received too ter sections, as

had the

little rainfall

fertile

to be cut

of the one-hundredth

up

and moist Midwest.

in rectangular quarSimilarly, traditional

approaches to water rights, timbering and grazing also could not be used.

Everything about the West, the report argued, was different and needed different

development approach, one more attuned

What would be needed were homesteads of up acres, village cooperatives, large-scale

areas simply It

government

to the hot, dry land.

to twenty-five

hundred

irrigation projects,

more rigorous and comprehensive

surveys and assess-

ments of natural resources before development could take

place.

wanted to abolish the surveyors-general and the surveying

contracts.

wanted the government do

all

interests.

They saw

a

a threat to private

western newspapers excoriated Powell for trying to

Thomas

affairs

affairs.

development Editorials in

halt progress.

Patterson of Colorado called

science and intermeddler in

He

pariah with western political and

the report as

and the heavy hand of the federal government in local Representative

Powell

the measuring and mapping.

"Arid Region" instantly made Powell

ell,

and

blocked off from development.

also called for

economic

a

him

a "charlatan

of

of which he has

no conception." Pow-

on bad

science and faulty rea-

the critics argued, had based his report

Til K

GILDED DINOSAUR

215

soning. In August,

Marsh handpicked

make

surveys and

pure craftiness,

committee

recommendation

a

enemy, and William

problem of the

to the academy. His selection

Among the members were Trowbridge,

Petit

league of Newberry's

at

was

a

Newberry, a true Hayden

former Yale

now

professor,

a

col-

Columbia.

Alexander Agassiz was

also asked to serve.

and Agassiz had invested

after Agassiz,

to review the

majority of the group was either opponents of Hayden

as a

or supporters of King.

Newcomb,

a

King had named

mountain

a

in King's cattle venture.

Simon

the mathematician, astronomer, and director of the Nautical

Almanac, was

also a

member.

Newcomb

Washington gossip and had been

a

was one of Marsh's key sources for

supporter of King to

fill

Henry's post

at

names

in

the Smithsonian.

The group was rounded out by two of the most American

science: James

distinguished

Dwight Dana from Yale and William

B. Rogers, a

geologist and founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

served

as

member

ex

officio, a practice started

by Henry.

Marsh

14

Hayden could not have been happy with the composition, but General Andrew A. Humphreys, chief of the Army Corps of Engineers, was furious. The committee was a bunch of academics, there were no representatives from the government services chafed

were

when working under

over,

it

was

—

especially the military. Scientists

military surveys.

clear that the intention

Now

had always

that the Indian wars

was to place the future survey in

civilian hands.

As soon to

as

the Hewitt rider passed, Powell sent copies of "Arid

Region"

among

the gen-

Marsh with the

request, "I

beg you

to distribute [them]

tlemen who may be appointed members of the committee of the National Academy of Sciences." By September, Marsh had a draft report he was circulating among the

committee members, and

in early

October, he wrote to Schurz outlining the

committee's tentative findings. Schurz passed the secretary also asked Powell

letter

on

to Powell.

13

The

and Hayden to submit formal statements to the

committee. Powell,

who

had stayed

in

Washington

that

summer, engaging

round of correspondence and lobbying, provided

a

in a lively

sixteen-page response

"Report on the Methods of Surveying the Public Domain." In it he strongly criticized the General Land Office, Wheeler, and Hayden, and titled

once again brought up the argument

that

zoology and botany

as

branches

of general science are "poor subjects of government patronage." Unless, like locust

and cotton worms they "may suddenly

affect the national welfare."

— M

216

"I

A K K

J

A F F K

Hayden was indecisive. "I am asked to make a reply," he wrote to Leidy, do not know what to say. Think something up for me." Finally, he

offered a hopelessly lame statement. "In reply,

which rally

I

any plans

say that

could offer for the survey of the Western Territories would natu-

be based upon the organization

Hayden was playing

charge."

displayed extraordinarily bad timing. Just as the

intrigue was afoot,

Cope

Wyoming. Hayden's

decision was

He might

now under my

right into Marsh's hands.

Both Hayden and Cope had

health.

beg to

I

left

for Europe, at least in

and Hayden went west part

prompted by

to

his failing

even have been suffering from the onset of the

syphilis,

which would eventually claim his life. (In May, Hayden's wife, Emma, wrote to a friend, somewhat cryptically, that "all disappointments seem trivial compared to the great one I could not trust myself to allude to it

—

when

I

wrote you, for

it

was the one of the hardest

trials

I

have ever

known.")

One

of Hayden's Washington employees, E

posted on developments back in

town," he reported in

down

A

Pearson, did keep his boss

where the news was ominous. "Powell

late July. "I see

him

is

frequently driving up and

the street industriously."

few weeks

later

came

office quite frequently,

work. ... ing."

east,

W

He may be

the report, "I have been up and around Powell's

and he appears to have

doing something on the

But Hayden lingered out west, and

force of men at

a pretty

good

quiet.

can see or hear noth-

I

his letters to friends

back

east

seem

noncommittal and unenthusiastic.

And what of Cope? At about the same time Hayden went to Cheyenne, Cope boarded the SS Elysia headed for England. His ultimate destination, however, was Trinity College in Dublin and the annual meeting of the British Association for the

Advancement of Science.

—

From London, Cope took the mail train "The Wild Irishman" which barreled through Rugby and Chester at speeds of up to sixty miles an hour. He found Dublin "generally good looking" and reported to Annie that "the ladies and girls are often very good looking, handsomer than the English

as

one would expect."

Cope brought with him drawings of dinosaurs,

done

Hayden

Survey.

They

"attracted great

on the new dinosaurs, and plates and charts from "The Hayden Survey I find to be very popular, and

attention" as did his paper the

Camarasaurus and his other

by fellow Philadelphian John Ryder.

GILDED DINOSAUR

Tilt

many persons exceedingly he reported.

regret that there should be any opposition to

Cope had

a fine time.

me

took no pains to see

would not have shown

"The only

of Marsh's handiwork

traces

I

or hear any of my papers

to friend Marsh.

think we should have had some

Cope was

on Paleozoic

Cope

sensible

band

.

dis-

—

a

coolness

He

suspect he

I

however introduced myself and

I

I

pleasant conversation." 17

best entertainment was a party given by the College of Surgeons,

soiree that

was,

could

I

ascribe to that source.

which was attended by the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. expert

it,"

16

cover was in the indifference of Huxley's which

The

217

fish.

Cope and Mrs.

lady.

She has

a

was rather jealous and

.

wide

rather I

finally

at this

Scottish

a

Traquair danced and danced. She

told his wife, "rather petite (for Ireland)

young

.

was

It

smitten by the wife of one Dr. Traquair,

face,

and

very pleasant and

a

but good red

lips.

Her hus-

had to exchange her for someone

else."

Then

it

was on to

Paris

and the meeting of the French Association for the

Advancement of Science, and another round of dinners, banquets, and par," Cope wrote home, "at the ties. "There was a grand entertainment Department of Arts and Measures (Patent Office) where everything was .

gorgeous with illumination, music,

etc.

.

.

with

new North American Cope was nom-

Again Cope displayed Ryder's drawings of the dinosaurs and again "they excited inated to

Marsh

membership

criticism, but

criticism

place. "I I

a

good

would," he told Annie.

bottom of my trunk.

tie fait

I

ugly."

many of money

deal

a

which

very plain one, but (a

new

beautiful things in silk and others so

that the

.

it

an expensive

is

if

reposing in the

this

is

not extrav-

business for me!)

ornamented

as

I

to

saw be

20

Cope made another purchase while

— worth

Exposition.

means was

Cope ley,

.

here and could not stay longer

"I got thee a silk dress

could not get

found

a tourist

in Paris,

an extensive and expensive

collection of Pleistocene fossils from the Argentine pampas. tion

.

rien."

agantly gay. In looking over the ladies dresses

some very

worried about

]i)

France, but like

have spent

He

was told by "one person of importance

of a certain person

Cope enjoyed

great deal of interest."

a

French Geological Society.

in the

18

free refreshments."

who

It all

tens

was

of thousands of

— had been shown

but after

all,

at

collec-

the Paris

wasn't this what having

about?

returned to

London and met with Richard Owen and Harry See-

was one of the most

ontologists,

dollars

a costly acquisition,

The

something of

a

and cantankerous of the English paleBritish Cope. (By 1878, Seeley himself had prolific

— MARK JAFFE

218

more than

already identified

always been

my

wife too

a delightful

is

"Seeley has to

fast

dozen new dinosaurs. 2 ') "Mr. Seeley has

a

good

friend thro' evil as well as

work

woman

report and

is

so

still.

His

about thy age ...," he wrote to Annie.

hard; delivers 1000! lectures in a year for

which he

is

poorly paid." 22

Cope

closed that letter to his wife, "I

does not

this life

are the point

By

early

suit

me

very well.

I

of attraction wherever

November,

I

am wanting

cannot

live

to get

without

a

back to you

as

family and you

go."

after nearly three

months abroad, Cope returned

to

Philadelphia.

But while Cope had been dancing, partying, and shopping, Marsh had crafting. At about the same time Cope was arriving in Marsh was putting the finishing touches on a plan that would sat-

been calculating and the States, isfy

own

the reformers and his

On November 6, the City, at

Columbia

prepared by

its

National

special

in

New York

on merging

the surveys

Academy of Sciences gathered

University, to consider the report

committee.

The meeting began for the

interests as well.

at

merging of the

1 1

A.M. with Marsh presenting the report calling

existing surveys into a single U.S. Geological

Geographic Survey. The report suggested

done by the General Land

Office, but that

that

and

disbursement of land be

mapping and surveying be under

the supervision of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. All three agencies, the report said, should be placed under the Interior Department.

It

sug-

gested the creation of a public lands commission to codify public-land laws. All these ideas "I see the

wrote to

were

in Powell's original

Academy

his boss,

perhaps written

"and

—

has it

made

national

report," Powell's secretary James Pilling

sounds wondei fully

like

something

I

have read

before."

But Marsh made some requirement that

its

"Arid Region" document. 23

all

additions. For example, the report proposed a

collections

made by

the surveys be deposited in the

museum. This was aimed directly at Hayden and Cope. Hayden made by his survey and allowed researchers to

often circulated collections retain part

would

of the material

in

exchange for

also apply to scientists, like

work. The requirement

who accompanied surveys and their own expense.

Cope,

lected material, even if they traveled at

their

col-

The report was discussed for three and one-half hours and then voted on. Hayden found himself in an awkward position of not liking the document,

THE ULDED DINOSAUR

sion.

Cope, however, launched an

one.

Cope was once

sion, that

in

him

losing his entire operation,

He

said

nothing during the discus-

merger of the surveys could end

for the

but being unable to strongly oppose

it.

attack.

The

final

again the lone dissenter.

vote was thirty-seven to

When

Army Corps

General Humphreys of the

219

informed of the deci-

of Engineers was so angry

The general, mused matheSimon Newcomb, "opens the fight by a sort

he resigned from the academy in protest.

matician and Marsh confidant

of hara-kiri."

The

report

went

to Congress,

and

now

the reformers did their part.

Committee on Public Lands,

Instead of being referred to the

the report

became the property of the more sympathetic Appropriations Committee, where Hewitt, Garfield, and committee chairman John D. C. Atkins, of Tennessee, could keep an eye on it.

Ten

days after the

academy

session at

Columbia, another notable meet-

ing took place, this one in the parlor of Powell's ington. For a

M Street home in Wash-

good many months, Powell had entertained

men

gathering of scientists, politicians, and

few of Powell's intimates having

of letters.

It

a

Saturday-night

had started out

couple of drinks together. But

a

as a

the

as

intrigues of Washington multiplied, so did the attendees.

This night, the gathering included Harvard historian Henry Adams,

mining engineer Fred Endlich, and cavalry issue before the

group was forming

a

new

officer

club.

Clarence Dutton.

They decided

to call

The

it

the

Cosmos Club and to rent rooms in the Corcoran Building. The Cosmos Club would become one of the most prestigious and elite clubs in the capital, and Powell that night was elected its first president. The rough-hewn, midwestern outsider, the

little

man with

cross-eyed gaze, and just one arm, had

a straggly

become

steel-wool beard, slightly

the

consummate Washing-

ton insider.

Now

the real political battle was under way. Western interests were

opposed to the academy proposal

opment of

undue

federal influence in the devel-

the states and territories. Colorado's Patterson ridiculed the

report and called tical

as

its

authors "theorists

who knew

nothing about the prac-

problems or the public lands." 24

Cope argued

in the American Naturalist that

while he supported the uni-

of all the mapping and geodetic work, and the reform of the GenLand Office, he believed that when it came to the geological work,

fication eral

"there ter

not

is

no such reason

how many

for consolidation. If the

organizations

it

be confided

work be

in,

well done,

provided

it

it

mat-

not be dupli-

cated." 25 "It

seems the

fight

has begun," wrote

Wolcott Gibbs, the Harvard

MARK

220

chemist and Marsh

Hewitt out.

Now to

.

.

.

"You might

ally.

Why

office

a

with

if possible

... be in

Washington

Humphrey's resigned from

has Gen.

Powell was truly

newspaper

A F F E

J

man

in

the

to help

Academy?" 26

motion, hustling from newspaper

office

"propaganda," then hiking up Capitol

his

Hill,

buttonholing congressmen and senators in the hallways and lobbying hard in the

He

committee rooms. had good reason to expend such energy. His "Arid Region" report

had been transformed into the tht

aonal

Academy of Sciences' recom-

mendation, and the entire academy plan had pretty

much been

House Resolution 6140. He was that close to victory. the finy' *ring on the legislation the heads of all t

!

auKed to

testify,

Powell's

turned into

the surveys were

in an account of the hearing, Joseph Stanley-Brown,

secretaries,

said,

Wheeler was

"Lt.

dignified

and

one of

indifferent.

Clarence King being friendly did not put in an appearance. Dr. Hayden

spoke impassioned and

words."

bitter

All this time, Powell paced the back

hand grasping the stump of his ell's

turn.

He

arm behind

of his scheme.

details

been won." Perhaps the

day,

but not the

Representatives took up H.R. 6140 bill

—

for almost nine days.

It

Then came Pow-

was plain to see the day had

for

members of the U.S. House of the final time. They had been

27

At the outset of the debate, Hewitt had couched the fellow

good

battle.

the evening of February 18, 1879, the

debating the

his back.

his

spoke, laying before the committee "in an impersonal calm

and lucid manner the

On

right

of the committee chamber,

issue

by asking

his

members:

endowed land of ours which may be dug made part of the wealth of America and the world, and how and where does it lie? These are the questions which the enterprise, the capital, and the labor of the United States are

What

is

there in this richly

or gathered, or harvested, and

engaged in working out. tions, the greatest

the public

of all

.

.

.

it is

to the solution of these ques-

national problems, that the scientific surveys of

domain should be

Representative Atkins

And

moved

direct.

that the legislation

be approved. But Cali-

Horace Page, while supporting the survey consolidation, made a motion that would have removed the General Land Office and the surveyfornia's

THE GILDED DINOSAUR ors-general from the

bill.

Dudley Haskell from Kansas contending that while the ences' report, not

all

even more sweeping objection,

my hand

a letter

from one of the in the

opening to the

letter to

whole scheme of consolidation."

Dudley went on the National it

"Now sir," prominent mem-

agreed with that document.

Academy of Sciences. He goes on

criticize the

sition to

raised an

was based on the National Academy of Sci-

bill

scientists

Haskell said, "I hold in bers of the

221

"As

to read the letter's concluding passage.

Academy,

among

I

take the liberty of stating that there

is

member of much oppo-

a

members. The names of Baird (Secretary of the

its

Smithsonian Institution), of Leidy (University of Pennsylvania), of Lesley (head of geological survey of Pennsylvania),

Guyot

(professor of geology

Princeton) shows that opposition springs from the strongest men."

Of course, none report.

Still,

"Who

is

have read

"Let us "I

am

men had

actually voted against the academy's

all

know

on the House

letter

be read," said another.

that

think

the

I

is

floor.

demanded one congressman.

the author of that letter?"

"Let the whole "I

of those

the letter touched off a tempest

necessary," Haskell replied.

name of the

author," a lawmaker insisted.

not to receive instruction

.

.

.

,"

Haskell said, refusing to divulge

the name. "I will say that the letter was sent to a

member of this House, the

gentleman from Pennsylvania [Representative Freeman] and that ten by a

Who

member of the board could

it

writ-

be but Cope?

That night, however, the

came down

real battle

veyors-general and control of the land. a single,

it is

in Pennsylvania."

big survey, but they were

The

to the issue

of the sur-

politicians didn't like the idea

more concerned with who would

of

control

the distribution of land to settlers and businesses.

Disbursement of land simply could not go to

a single federal survey.

"Centralization of all the machinery here in Washington

would

necessarily

and increased expense," one

subject the actual settler to vexatious delays

Ohio congressman warned. "The greater facilities you furnish the settler the way of perfecting his title, the more rapidly you settle our domain." Another opponent argued ration

that,

"This vast scheme of

conducted by the government

is

in little

scientific

harmony with

in

explo-

the character

of our institutions or the genius of people." Finally Colorado's Patterson rose bill "is

and

and charged

not the recommendation of practical

men who

Page's

are blinded

by

men

that the

proposed reform

but of visionary scientists

political prejudices."

amendment removing

the General

Land Office from

the survey

MARK

222

merger

bill

J

A F F E

passed ninety-eight to seventy-nine. But Atkins was able to pre-

serve most of the other elements of the academy's recommendations.

A few days later the appropriation bills were approved with the rider consolidating vey,

the scientific surveys, except the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Sur-

all

under the Department of the

Interior.

It

also established the Public

Lands Commission to review federal land laws. The Hayden, Powell,

Wheeler, and King Surveys would be

and

officially abolished,

in their place

would stand the U.S. Geological Survey. But the surveyors-general and the General Land Office and their way of doing business remained intact. Powell's

vision of a

thwarted, but It

was half a

The

more

at least

orderly

method of western development had been work would be integrated and organized.

the scientific

victory.

then went to the Senate, where Hayden's longtime lobbying

bill

had earned him stronger support.

strategy

Now

the battle was truly joined.

commence in the Senate," Newcomb wrote to Marsh. "There is where we will want King." King, who had left most of the battle to Powell, now hurried to Wash-

"The

fight will

ington, carrying letters of introduction to the president from novelist and Atlantic editor,

William Dean Howells, and from Mrs. Howells to her "Dear

Cousin Lucy," the president,

president's wife. King's only fault, Howells

was "that

a

man who

informed the

can give us such literature should be con-

tent to be merely a great scientist."

Mrs. Howells told dear Lucy that King was simply "the most accomplished

man of his

age in the country."

Wormley's Hotel became headquarters burned the allies tried

bent

gaslight in late-night strategy sessions. Initially,

compromise But

The for

as

they

Hayden's Senate

House bill, virtually undoing the merger. Now King charm toward wooing senators, and Hewitt managed a

in the joint

surveys

conference committee that basically saved the half

would be merged.

Marsh and Powell,

control of the a

King and Hewitt,

to gut the

his inimitable

victory.

for

new

figure to ever

survey.

It

that

was

still

wasn't enough.

clear that Powell

win Senate confirmation

as

the

was

They

far

new

also

needed

too controversial

agency's director.

Indeed, the reform forces had foreseen this and included

a

twenty-

thousand-dollar appropriation for the preparation of studies on North

American ethnology under the Smithsonian his little sinecure.

ural

and

As

for the director

logical alternative

If Powell

began

had gone to Yale.

as

Institution.

Powell would have

of the U.S. Geological Survey, the nat-

was Marsh's good friend, King.

an outsider, Clarence King was the ultimate

He

was

a

member of the Century Club

in

insider.

New

He

York

TIIK

Union

City and the intellectuals

Pacific

GILDED DINOSAUR Club

and opinion makers

in

like

223

He

San Francisco.

was

Henry Adams and

confidant to

a

the author, diplo-

mat, and secretary of state, John Hay. His book, Mountaineering

in the Sierra

him with serious western writers like Bret Harte. Hay simply called King "the best and brightest man of his generation," and Adams's praise was even more enthusiastic. "He knew America," Nevada, classed

Adams

wrote, "especially west of the hundredth meridian, better than any-

one; he

knew

the professor by heart, and he

than he did the professor.

woman; even

the

When

able to

.

win over even the most hard-bitten

King began

his

.

.

politician.

survey in 1869, he was just twenty-seven.

The

sur-

through the Rocky Mountains from Califor-

nia to Colorado, following the route

surface of the region

had pretty

of the Central Pacific Railroad.

much been mapped by

The

the railroad, so King

out to determine what natural resources along the route could be

set

exploited.

The War Department him

gress asked

initially

financed the work, but then

outset, the university-trained

surveys

standard,

as his

survey focused

The

King used the

surface geology,

had taken from 1869

to 1872.

New Haven working on the survey

Con-

as far east as

European

finest

and he produced high-quality maps and

on topology, geography,

actual surveying

the decade in

Utah and

to continue his survey through

Wyoming. From the

in

knew the Congressman better women; even the American

One York woman, which is saying much. 28 Handsome, charming, witty, only in the world."

of the fortieth parallel cut

vey

even

New

Clarence King existed

King was

He knew

analyses.

King spent the

reports.

When

rest

had been $386,71

1.

of

completed

1880 there were seven volumes (including two by Marsh), and the

bill

The

and mineralogy.

total

29

King and Marsh were more than

They were

collaborators.

also friends.

King teased Marsh about the size of his growing fossil collection, warning him that shipping so many fossils east to New Haven could tip the earth's center of gravity.

Gabriel would there,"

He that

He

assured

start at Yale.

Marsh

that

come judgment

"Think of the time he could

also

chided Marsh about so

many

his

bachelorhood, saying that

bones, Marsh "never got

that for an inveterate collector like

Marsh "only

While Marsh and Powell were now anxious

new

save

by

Angel

starting

King quipped.

among

survey,

of his

day, the

age,

King was

and

with riches in

his

a rib." a

intellect, looks,

and

The

was strange

harem would do." 30

for

surprisingly less enthusiastic.

age was gilded.

it

But King supposed

King

He

to take over the

was, after

all,

a

man

truth was that while he was blessed

personality,

King was not

a

wealthy man.

— M

224

In fact, he

had grown up

A R K

J

A F F E

in that genteel poverty that

sounds picturesque, but

really isn't.

His father had died on the other side of the world in the China

King was

raised

by

a beautiful,

trade,

and

but penniless mother, amid the splendor of

Newport, Rhode Island. And so, while being dashing, literary, and King was also looking to make a buck.

scientific,

At the same time Powell and Marsh were promoting him to head the survey, King had promised a New York publisher a novel, and he was

new

trying to persuade Hewitt to throw in with

Alexander Graham

made

Bell's patent

"We

in talk.

will

him on

scheme to break on the telephone. There was money to be a

whisper around the world," King enticed. Then

there was, of course, his western cattle venture, and perhaps

some Mexican

gold mines, too.

The law salary

creating the U.S. Geological Survey provided for a director's

of six thousand

director and

dollars a year.

members of

But the law

specifically said that "the

the Geological Survey shall have

no personal or

private interests in the lands or mineral wealth of the region under survey,

and

shall

execute no examinations or surveys for private parties or corpora-

tions." This

would

seriously

hamper

the bold Mr. King.

Still,

even he

Hayden hadn't com-

couldn't help but enjoy the race, particularly since pletely given up.

"Hayden I

think

1879.

3

I

moving Heaven and Earth to get the President's support, but have the inside track," King confided to Marsh as early as January is

'

Powell was not so sure. "The most vigorous efforts are being made by ," Powell wrote to Hayden to get the appointment under the bill Marsh in late February. "Can you not get letters from Michigan University, .

Rochester, and from scientific and public already been obtained. Dr.

Hayden

is

men

.

.

in addition to

what

has

collecting from every source

Europe and America." 32

Hayden had gathered together all the testimonials he had garnered over the years and now issued them in a pamphlet form. The effect was to suggest that this broad array

to

become the first Not that Hayden

of scientists and

politicians

were supporting

his

bid

director of the U.S. Geological Survey.

didn't have real support.

He

had the distinguished

English botanist, Joseph Hooker; John William Dawson, head of the Cana-

dian Geological Survey; Archibald Geikie of the British Geological Survey; Princeton's Arnold Guyot; and from Harvard, botanist Asa Gray and ento-

mologist Samuel Scudder.

Hayden had

also

sought

— and

received

—

the help of his old Oberlin

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

225

who

College classmate, Jacob Cox, the interior secretary before Delano,

had been too upstanding for the corrupt Grant administration.

A

few days

later,

speak to Schurz and President Hayes about the post. "If Dr. appointed,

end or In a tol

all

hope of further reform

indefinitely postponed,"

memorandum

in the system

of land surveys

at

is

to is

an

he warned.

to Garfield,

which gained some

circulation

on Capi-

Powell charged Hayden with wasting "splendid appropriations

Hill,

upon work which was intended purely tographs

him Hayden

Powell wrote to Congressman Atkins asking

—

for noise

and show

—

pho-

in

[and] in utterly irrelevant zoological works."

The Hayden

forces could play just as rough.

on King and Powell

also surfaced

on the

Hill.

A

rather defamatory report

Cope wrote

to Schurz charg-

ing King with being improperly involved in mining ventures and accepting private consulting fees while in the government's

Cope and Guyot "Guyot and Cope have been

In early March,

lobbying.

traveled to

Newcomb

the President,"

employ

Washington to do

a little

here for Hayden, and interviewed

reported to Marsh.

"The

latter

think, only

is, I

prevented by Schurz from tendering H. the appointment owing to over-

whelming preponderance of numbers

in his favor.

desirable that [Massachusetts Institute

President Porter [of Yale] applies to

Newberry."

come

as

of Technology's] W. B. Rogers and

soon

as practicable.

Hayden,

who

is

said to

the confidence of men of science.

among

habits

"Dr.

I

have often

spoken of with

respect. In the

con-

have often heard his ignorance, his scientific incapacity, and his low

when

in

camp, commented on with aversion and mortification."

One wonders which foremost professors

Hay den's think

said,

men, but have never heard

scientific

either his attainments or his character I

note that

a

be with Congressmen, the leading candidate for the

command

heard Dr. Hayden discussed

trary,

The same remark

33

Harvard's President Eliot also sent President Hayes

position, does not

therefore extremely

It is

it

scientists Eliot

spoke

to,

considering that two of his

— Scudder and Gray — were Hayden

supporters.

old mentor, James Hall, chimed in from Albany. "I did not

and so positively

possible that so notorious a charlatan in geology

dishonest

a

with such

a

man man

Marsh went

could have any chance as

when coming

into competition

Clarence King," the crusty Hall wrote.

to see the president about a

see the president, too,

week

and so did Newcomb.

—

after

Cope. Powell went to

When Newcomb

—

found out

Hayes the former governor of Ohio would put great weight in the opinion of Newberry the the former Ohio state geologist mathematician immediately wired New York City. A prompt visit to the that President

—

—

MARKJAFFE

226

White House was arranged. Schurz pointed out to the president that Hayden had been an intimate of Columbus Delano. Garfield, Atkins, and Hewitt also expressed their belief that Hayden was not qualified to implement their reforms. On March 20, Schurz announced that President Hayes had decided to forward to the Senate Clarence King's nomination U.S. Geological Survey.

On

While King supporters and bureaucrat.

"Our

fight

the

new

friends rejoiced, the

one more load of beef down the Oregon

to drive

till

as

first

director of the

April 3, the Senate confirmed King.

ended so

we

satisfactorily that

director hurried off

Trail before shall

becoming

a

never be happy

we've had another and got licked," Henry Adams exulted to Marsh.

Marsh wrote

to Powell

on April 6

saying,

"Now

that the battle

is

won we

can go back to pure science again." Perhaps.

now

Lieutenant Wheeler was

out of the survey business. Hayden had to

accept a minor position under King.

Cope

still

had

vey publications that he would have to speak to the his days

tagging along with Wheeler or

supplies

were

also

of pending sur-

director about.

But

Hayden teams and drawing army

over. at least in theory.

He would

head the Smithsonian's American Bureau of Ethnology. The

legislation

Powell was also out of the survey business,

now

a series

new

provided for the creation of the Public Lands Commission to codify

land law, and Powell was appointed Still,

as

one of the three commissioners.

Powell alone of the former survey chiefs would have access to the

new

survey. "It will

tific

work and

an April

letter.

be one of my greatest pleasures to forward your scien-

to advance

Yes, Powell

your personal

interests,"

would have an

King assured Powell

in

inside track at the U.S. Geologi-

So would Marsh. Things had worked out admirably from Marsh's point of view. He had bested Hayden and Cope in Washington, and he now hoped to be doing cal Survey.

the very same out west. For

bones had come to

when

his attention,

up the boneyard and cut Cope

a

second great cache of western dinosaur

he had moved swiftly and secretly to lock

off.

Or

so he thought.

Chapter Fourteen

AFTER THE THUNDEROUS

cave-in

weary and

had made

ailing Williston

hattan, Kansas, in early

be no

rest.

A

the Morrison quarry, a

at

way home

his

Man-

to

November of 1877. But

there

would

from

New

Haven

late-night telegram arrived

homecoming. Marsh had been trying destouch with him for days. He had wired Morrison, only to

just days after his

perately to get in

find Williston gone.

Marsh wanted Williston back

now as

soon

as possible,"

my movements to

in the field

Oregon!"

The

here

Williston assured him. "It

unknown.

...

shall give

I

But not

fast.

in Colorado,

secret. "I shall start

back

is

impossible almost to keep

it

out

I

am

going from here

1

true destination, however, was

middle of the Colorado dinosaur

from the Union

tantalizing, letter It

— and

he was to go to Wyoming, and he was to go in

Como

frenzy,

Bluff,

Wyoming. During

Marsh had received

a cagey,

the

but

Pacific Station agent's office in Laramie.

read:

July 19, 1877 C. Marsh, Geologist

Prof.

Yale College

Dear

Sir:

I write to

announce

to

you the discovery not far from

large

number offossils, supposed

there

is

no one here

sufficient

excavated one (1) partly, and

have not, as

found

is

We

yet,

be those of the Megatherium, although

of a geologist

know where

to state for certainty.

there

is

We

several others that

done any work upon. Tlie formation

are desirous of disposing of what fossils

others.

and

we can

ing others

We We

of a

in

have

we

which they are

of the Tertiary Period.

of the if

to

this place

We

are working

sell the secret

we would

like to

have said nothing

to

men and

we

have,

and

also, the secret

not able to present them as a

gift,

of the fossil bed, and procure work in excavatdo

so.

anyone as

yet.

measured one shoulder blade and found 227

it

to

measure four feet eight

— M

228

8

inches 4 ft.

One joint

1

of the vertebrae measures two feet and one half2 /2

We

enthusiastic geologist,

— more

Hoping

to

we

truth,

money

time and

cost us in

would be pleased

offinding

in cir-

ten inches (10) in length.

As proof of our sincerity and what they

A F F E

J

in. in length.

and

cumference

A R K

will

send you a few fossils, at

in unearthing.

hear from you, as you are well knourn as an

to

and a man of means, both of which we

are desirous

especially the latter.

hear from you very soon, before the snows of winter

We

set in.

remain,

Very respectfully

Your Obedient Servants

Harlow and Edwards

It

was

a letter

with

as

much

error as truth in

it.

The

strata at issue really

weren't Tertiary, and the bones weren't from the Cenozoic ground sloth

known

as

Edwards,

Megatherium. But then Harlow and Edwards weren't Harlow and either.

Marsh couldn't be

certain

what

it

was

his two,

mysterious

hunters were talking about, but after having been almost too casual

fossil

with Lakes,

He

this

time he took no chances.

urged Harlow and Edwards to ship him the bones. But the

didn't get around to sending the arrive in

New Haven

until the

fossils until

September

middle of October.

17,

When

men

and they didn't

Marsh opened up

the crates, he found about a dozen large vertebrae, pieces of claws and teeth,

and some

truly

he was again looking

monumental at

leg

and shoulder bones.

He knew once

the remains of huge dinosaurs.

Harlow and Edwards had also sent another letter announcing they had an hundred pounds of bones. "Besides this," they said, "we have discovered the bed of two more animals which we judge to be of the same kind. But which we have not done any work upon yet, and shall not until we hear from you and learn whether they will pay us." On October 20, Marsh telegraphed his two stealthy and avaricious coladditional fifteen

lectors.

them

"Bones came

a seventy-five-dollar

collect

Send

He

also

mailed

check, along with detailed instructions on

how to

today.

rest

with

bones and some questions about

all

small pieces."

how and where

the bones were

found.

Harlow and Edwards were digging at Como Bluff about sixty-five miles west of Cheyenne. It was a place Marsh had actually stopped in 1869 to collect

disk

some

rare salamanders

of water

at

Siredons

the base of the bluff.

—

that live in

Como

Lake,

a flat,

reedy

GILDED DINOSAUR

Til K

There was graveyard

chance Marsh had come upon another major dinosaur

a

— perhaps

Edward's next shipments of

as

letter

good

Canon

as

City.

you

left

Haven.

which we have

already

if

Harlow and

surprising

"We

are

keeping our

they wrote, "as there are

they could trace us they could

made and which we have no

desire

known."

That's

ton

isn't

it

as secret as possible,"

plenty of men looking for such things and

to have

So

New

caused tremors in

to

fossils

find discoveries

229

when Marsh began

down from

a rail

coach

at

why

telegraphing Williston, and that's

On November

immediately for "Oregon."

Como

Station

— two red buildings and

tower surrounded by endless prairies and low

bluffs.

He met

Willis-

climbed

14, Williston

water

a

with "Harlow

and Edwards" and immediately wrote to Marsh. here a few hours ago

"I arrived

(Reed and

tion foreman.

seen

a lot

Mr. Collins

Collins)

They used

.

I

go out

The two would-be

first

Reed

the sec-

a

tell

collectors turned out to

good

me

I

have

the bones extend

morning." 2

in the

fossil

were expecting to make

it

found Messr. 'Harlow and Edwards.'

those names to conceal their identity. ...

Carlin (not Collins) and William

made

.

of bones they have ready to ship and they

for seven miles. ...

their

.

the station agent and Mr.

is

be William Edward

Harlow Reed, two

deal of

money from

men who

railroad

But

their discovery.

seventy-five-dollar check couldn't be cashed because

Marsh had

out to the nonexistent Harlow and Edwards. They mailed

it

back to

the professor.

Two

days

are simply

later,

Williston happily reported,

nowhere

tion, accessibility

in

comparison with

"Canon City and Morrison

this locality

both

and quantity." The bones, Williston

regards perfec-

as

said,

were "magnifi-

cently preserved and scattered for 6 or seven miles." Williston chose for his first

quarry

a site

near the northwest shore of the lake, about

a

half from the station. Because of the protection of the blufFs, the to

mile and

a

men hoped

be able to work through the winter.

But Williston warned

that "there will

be great danger next summer of

competition. At present but seven persons here have seen or fossils

but

it

will

be almost impossible to prevent others

know about to know in

the

the

spring." 3

Williston struck a tentative agreement with Carlin and

of seventy-five

dollars a

Reed

month, but Carlin was planning to

Washington, D.C., and decided that he would

also stop in

for a salary

visit

New

family in

Haven

to

negotiate directly with Marsh.

"W E. Carlin will see you thinks he [has

a]

right to

in

make

about three weeks," Williston wrote. considerable

money out of

"He

the bones." 4

MARK

230

Everybody now knew to Leidy for free,

real

r

K

F

which just

that the bones,

were worth

A

J

a

few years ago were sent

money.

The Wyoming prairie between Laramie and Rock Creek was studded with bluffs. From the windows of a Union Pacific coach, rumbling across the flat, dry, sage-covered plain, they slid by on either side, huge humps of red, cream, and gray rocks, with clouds,

and white

as light

as

whipped cream,

topping the most distant ridges.

As

bluffs go,

Como

is

nothing

special.

and one mile wide, running northwest was

able

Jurassic as

that

exposed along

this

It is

approximately ten miles long

What made

to southwest.

hillside

were

—

so valu-

it

in various places

—

the

Sundance formation, Jurassic Morrison formation, Triassic red beds,

well as Cretaceous formations, such as the Cloverly Sandstone and the

Mowry

Shale.

It

was

this singular

perhaps the greatest dinosaur boneyard of all

The

Como

geology that would make

Bluff

time.''

name from the spring-fed lake at the western end of the hill. It, in turn, was named for Lago di Como in the Italian Alps. What made early settlers compare the thin, alkali pond with the cool,

But

bluff and the station got their

deep Alpine lake

it

was the lake

that

is

hard to

drew

first

scientific interest to the area

peculiar tiger salamander that lived in

The animal was known of its

little

as

was probably just wishful thinking.

see. It

the "devil fish" or "the

understood metamorphosis.

It

der that Marsh stopped in 1868. Carlin, also

showed Marsh some

But now, nine were

fossils,

later,

dollars a

a

all

new

fossil

also

with legs" because

for specimens

of this salaman-

was stationmaster

Marsh was most money.

at

the time,

agreed to

a

17,

found during the work." The all

Marsh

Reed each

bonus "proportionate

reasonable precautions to keep

and Reed

interested. Carlin

On November

three-page agreement hiring Carlin and

month. Marsh

tance of any

was

who

fish

but apparently they didn't interest him.

interested, too, interested in

wrote up

"take

years

because of a

it.

ninety

at

to the

men were

hastily

impor-

required to

others not authorized by Prof.

Marsh out of the region." Marsh also retained the right to have his own "two superintendents" at the site. 6 But Reed demurred at signing any agreement or doing any major work until Carlin had his little chat up in New Haven. Marsh found himself faced with the twin pressures of trying to lock up Como and haggle with Carlin. Negotiating with Marsh turned out to be an ordeal. He would not budge.

"I

have argued with you and did everything in

my power

to

come

THE UMIED DINOSAUR to an understanding

am

and

tired

231

of the whole business," Carlin wrote to

Marsh from Washington, D.C., the day before Christmas. 7 Late in December, a snappish Marsh warned Carlin, "I want the bones promptly or not

at all."

8

By then

Williston,

still

and longing for home,

ailing

Como and returned to Kansas, leaving his brother Frank to keep an

quit

on the

bluff.

But Como's

eye

great fossil cache was really in Reed's hands.

Marsh's interests were hanging in the balance, but he would not compromise.

Reed unhappily

First,

and

ness

I

followed.

do not approve of it," Reed

By January of 1878,

month, the

won,

as

first

is

told

a

very poor way of doing busi-

Marsh

9

Then, Carlin

they had both agreed to Marsh's terms. That

did.

But he had

also

made to each man. Marsh had sown the seeds of discord and bad

once again would cause him trouble

The men used tional protection

moved along

in a letter.

ninety-dollar payments were

he usually

feeling that

ter,

capitulated. "It

a tent to

in

from the wind, snow, and cold, and

the quarry floor with them.

and there were days

it

time to come.

cover the quarry face, offering them some addi-

Still, it

they worked, the tent

as

was

a hard,

Wyoming win-

was impossible to make the mile-and-a-halfjour-

ney from the station to the quarry because of roaring winds or blinding snow.

Reed had

Before Williston arrived, Carlin and

amount of

material, but

it

excavated

a

considerable

had been the haphazard work of amateurs.

Williston organized a systematic program designed to provide

Marsh with

an orderly flow of fossils.

The bones coming out of Quarry dinosaurs, but they were so

mixed up

belonged to

1

impar.

tually

was hard to

it

named

with what. Out of the jumble, Marsh

a

tell

new

exactly

what went

dinosaur Morosaums

Marsh would use that name to describe several specimens. But evenit would become clear that Marsh's Morosaums was nothing more than

Cope's Camarasaurus, and Cope had named the animal Still,

One

Como

day,

first.

was so rich there would be plenty of important

not long before he

left,

discoveries.

Williston was scouting areas just outside the

when he came upon the remains of a tiny dinosaur, with than an inch long. The next day, it snowed. "The small saurian

quarry less

yet sent," Williston reported to Marsh, snow blows off so that we can find it. " ,0

"and cannot

When Marsh

for a finally

named Laosaums gracilis. honor of its

When

(Its

name would

vertebrae I

have not

few days

till

the

did get the ani-

mal, he found that he had yet another small, bipedal dinosaur,

rex in

sauropod

several large

eventually be changed

which he

to Othneilia

discoverer.)

Williston

left,

the excavation was pretty

much

in

Reed's hands.

MARK

232

Born

of grammar school education, Reed

in Hartford, given a smattering

had been roaming the West since scout, hunter,

He

and guide.

his wife's

had landed

keeping

boss, responsible for

A F F E

J

at

death in 1871, working

Como

where he was the

of the Union

a stretch

as a

section

good

Pacific tracks in

order.

Reed took good

results.

second

site

yielded

of Quarry No. bones.

And

the

quarry seemed played out, he moved. But

first

His next try

little.

yet another

well as another

patch

new

a little

station

more than

—yielded

a

his

mile east

bounty of

a

dinosaur, the carnivorous Allosaums

finally

having to go to an area

had the worst time finding

station. "I

wrote to Williston in March, "but roll

a

good specimen of Laosaurus. u

then he struggled again,

away from the

—

and three miles from the

1,

Out of it came

fragilis, as

j^b seriously and was anxious to provide

his fossil-hunting

When

out and they are beauties. ...

wish you where here to see the bones

I

I

five miles

good quarry," he

a

think this quarry equal no.

1

good

for

bones." 12

Marsh apparently remained

Reed wrote

testy

and demanding, and

be glad

to him. "I should

when you

get your

in early April,

men

here

as

you

to doubt everything we do and do not like it." Another thing that Reed didn't like was that Marsh was chronically late with his pay. 13 Then in an early spring shipment, Marsh found a tiny jaw, and he

seem

I

— who had returned Como more remains of —

quickly wired Williston

of snow" on April 18

to

"in a furious storm

the animal.

to find

By June, Marsh

was to have enough material to report that he had found the oldest

mal on the North American continent. animal Dryolestes.

It

a paleontological

coup.

Como

a

ety

am the

Bluff was

wasn't

as

grand

as a

He

mam-

called the opossum-size Jurassic

sauropod dinosaur, but

it

was quite

wonderful treasure trove and was bound to create anxi-

among Marsh and his men about competitors, especially E. D. Cope. "I of sorry to say that Cope knows of this locality and the general naf miner "A 1877. December 9, fossils," Williston reported as early as -

found some vertebrae here

last

spring and wrote to the Smithsonian

describing them. Baird sent the letter to the miner) was here

last

week and

I

Cope and both

He (Brown who seemed very

replied.

read Cope's letter

anxious to gti io

Marsh seemed, however, to live a charmed life. Even before one gifted a diswould leave, another would be clamoring to take his place. Williston was just a few months away from handing in his resignation when a new

tant

graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School boldly walked into Marsh's office.

The

Yale professor looked up to see

gray-blue eyes that looked back

wanted

a job,

and

for

at

slight,

him

man with cool, The young man

wiry young

unflinchingly.

whatever reason, Marsh decided that John Bell

Hatcher would have one.

THE GILDED DINOSAUR Marsh knew boniferous

Hatcher had worked

that

fossils

was being worked for

spend

coming to New Haven. So he dispatched the Long Island, Kansas, where a new bone quarry Yale by none other than Charles H. Sternberg.

a total

to

twenty-one-year association with Cope, Sternberg would

his

would always

mines and collected Car-

before

would-be paleontologist

During

in coal

of thirteen seasons feel great loyalty

family that had to be

in the field for the Philadelphian,

and admiration

fed every year,

Sternberg had to work for those

for him.

the promising

Long

Island

site.

who But

It is

a

pay,

could.

it

when he

first

wasn't until 1884,

financed by Yale, that he could properly develop that spring.

and he

But Sternberg had

and when Cope couldn't afford to

In 1882, he was fossil prospecting for Harvard

work

277

Hatcher arrived on July

8,

it.

came upon

when he was

Sternberg had begun

1884.

what Marsh expected out of the twentywould soon realize that he had hired one of

difficult to say precisely

three-year-old Hatcher, but he

the most energetic, resourceful, and meticulous field paleontologists ever to

work

own

the western plains.

He

had hired

a

man who would be

Sternberg had successfully been collecting

saw Hatcher first

a

legend in

his

right.

as

fossils for

"an enthusiastic student from Yale,"

collection of his life."

16

But Hatcher was

as

eight years, and he

who

impatient

was making "the

as enthusiastic

and

do a better job than Sternberg. He had been at the site just two days when he wrote to Marsh asking to be allowed to work on his own. In a stream of five letters that month, quickly determined that he could

Hatcher argued industrious

man

for

autonomy. Sternberg, he

but quite careless."

said,

was "a hard-working

17

In August, while Sternberg was away, a dispute over access to the quarry arose with the property's owner,

agreement with Overton

that gave

had been the Sternberg Quarry,

More

James Overton. Hatcher struck

Marsh

exclusive rights to the

now became

the

new What

a

site.

Marsh Quarry. 18

than ever, Hatcher pressed for his independence.

When

Sternberg

returned, he was furious and immediately wrote to Marsh. "I wish to write to

you on

a

subject

collect either for

"Now on

this

tant

&

which

if not fully settled

years

work

deposit in the

state,

I

all

declared.

the

will resign

my

position ...

&

myself or Prof. Cope.

two

if after

I

work given

am

I

to

have discovered the only rich formation

be turned out of the

to him,

I

locality

have had enough of

it,"

by an

assis-

Sternberg

^

Either Hatcher was to be sent to "Colorado or elsewhere," Sternberg

warned, or he himself was gone on September

1.

Marsh

tried to resolve the

MARKJAFFE

278

he had done

situation, as

at

Como Bluff, by

having each

man work

separate

now

allowed

sites.

While

stinging rebuff to Sternberg, the arrangement

a

Hatcher to apply

own

his

approach.

He

divided his

site

into a checkerboard

of five-foot squares and systematically excavated, square by square.

Marsh

a

He

sent

site and then a chart of each square showing the locabone found. Hatcher also demonstrated remarkable skill in the

chart of the

tion of each

excavating, and out of a single square, he was able to unearth sixty-seven

bones.

Hatcher's techniques offered visited

Kansas in September to tour the

ceased for the year,

New

major advance

a

1

and Marsh

By November, when work

43 boxes of fossils had been prepared for shipment to

Haven.

Sternberg

left

Long

brooding about the events of the summer.

Island

Marsh had paid him about $1,130 he had still

site.

in fieldwork,

be

lost access to

for the season

—

including expenses

the quarry for future excavation. Years

a sore point. In a

1904

letter

Henry

later,

it

— but

would

Osborn at Sternberg would say, "Thank

written to

Fairfield

Museum of Natural History, you for sending me your memoir and a photograph of the specimen of the rhinoceros that was collected in my quarry' and not Marsh's, for ever the the

American

4

laborer

is

worthy of his

A month

hire."

after closing

20

down

the Kansas quarry,

Marsh

sent Hatcher to

northern Texas to search the Permian beds that had proved so valuable for

Cope.

Now

Hatcher began experiencing the same money problems

Marsh's other Falls after his

money

field hands.

On

February

9,

blankets and supplies had been stolen.

for a postal card."

—

a string

had "not enough

of timber buildings on the

iccated plains, sitting alongside the half-built Fort

— expecting

He

21

Hatcher reached the town Railway

as

Hatcher trudged into Wichita

relief in the

flat,

des-

Worth and Denver City

form of a check from

New

Haven, but

it

wasn't there.

The Comanche and Kiowa were no rough-and-tumble

men had promptly

a

place.

It

gunfight, and

arrest the

longer threats, but Texas was

was the kind of place, Hatcher

one man was

killed, the

still

said, that if

authorities

a

two

would

dead man.

But neither western

stories

nor

fossils

from the

field

could

move Marsh.

In early March, after walking sixteen miles and wading through the ice-

choked Big Wichita River

to reach the

Seymour

post office only to find

once again no mail and no check, Hatcher sent a message to New Haven. "Unless there can be a change I had rather stop work." It was a threat that

Tilt

GILDED DINOSAUR

279

Hatcher would use again and again over the next eight years. In 1886, Hatcher was dispatched to Nebraska to collect brontotheres.

Back on

his first

western expedition, Marsh had collected these hoofed,

horned, rhinolike animals, which lived about thirty-five million years ago

during the Oligocene.

Cope had

also collected

specimens of the genera and

now Marsh

had written about the animals. But

proposed doing with the

brontotheres what he had done with the Dinocerata quantity of bones and writing such a detailed

by Powell's survey) that

would be the

it

—

collecting such a vast

monograph

work. Hatcher, true to

definitive

form, collected 24,136 pounds of brontothere material. 1887, he was back adding even more brontothere

And

the next year,

skulls.

Hatcher was to surpass

In the next four years,

be published

(to

his

performance with

bronotheres, in the pursuit of Ceratopsian dinosaurs. This quest had begun rather doubtfully when Hatcher tried going Cope had explored back in 1876.

am

"I

having very poor success

commencing

way

interesting

east,

22

After gathering

horn

cores,

compared

it

—

am he

huge

But on

his

some bones gathered

fossil

horn.

Haven, Marsh sorted through

it

and

with some other horns, including one he originally believed a

huge, ancient buffalo.

especially skulls

— of

Hatcher went back to the these gigantic horns

He

realized he

once more into the

dinosaur. Hatcher was sent

remains

river valley.

to look at

across a

New

bed

few boxes worth of fossils including

Wyoming

came

again, he

the material arrived in

belonged to

a

"I

that

Hatcher reported back.

,"

Hatcher abandoned the

he stopped in southern

up by ranchers. Here

When

.

to think that Sternberg lied about the rich fossil

talked about here."

some

.

.

over the Judith River territory

horned

these

Wyoming

and excavated

a

was on to

a

dinosaur

Triceratops.

Over

new

beasts.

ranch where he had seen one of

thousand-pound

skull,

which proved

horn on the nose and two on top of the head, Marsh

have had

a

field to search for the

the next three years Hatcher

to

called the

would scour

the

Dakotas and send back to Marsh the remains of fifty ceratopsians, including thirty-three nearly perfect skulls,

This was truly

a

one of them weighing 6,850 pounds.

breakthrough, an entirely

new

type of dinosaur. Harry

Grovier Seeley, for one, was deeply impressed. "I offer you gratulations "It

is

on your discovery of the

one of the most interesting

made known; and

after this

skull

beasts

my

of Triceratops," he wrote Marsh.

of the long

series

anything in skull structure

is

which you have

possible."

Marsh developed an extensive description of these horned as far as

Cope was concerned, Marsh was

he had discovered the

first

hearty con-

23

dinosaurs, but

simply following in his wake, for

horned dinosaur

Monoclonius crassus

—

in

Mon-

MARK

280

"Marsh

tana back in 1876.

Sternberg in 1887, "in

his

J

A F F E

been duplicating

has

newest shameless

describing the horns of one of these fellows

Hatcher did sta?ki; fell

work

this

"My

me

over backwards on

a

new

as a

good beginning by of Bison!"

species

despite recurrent bouts of rheumatism and the

hardships.

i.

According to him noth-

style.

He made

ing has been done on this field before!

work," he wrote to

this

horse tried to play circus the other day

my

injuring

legs a

little,

Hatcher reported one day from Hermosa, Dakota.

&

but not seriously,"

might have

"It

easily

been much worse." 24

months

(Indeed, eight

up

at

earlier,

had been much worse for Fred Brown,

it

Como Bluti, when his horse had run offand then pitched and fell atop

of him, breaking Brown's collarbone. 23 )

But

the

as

equally

a

and publication of the material wasn't proceeding

"I think

you

not see

in 1888.

an

why you

should

your

all

let

him

assistants

"I will certainly try to

get ahead of you

&

it

is

on the

keep the end out here

"But," he warned, "if Osborn or in this rich field

far as material

concerned

literary part

back there to help you," he wrote from

ahead of any party that attempts to come

for the millions

Haven," Hatcher warned

26

long way ahead of Cope so

are a

of the work, with

Wyoming.

New

are as thick as sparrows in

from the Dakotas

lectors

at

quick pace, and he was growing worried about the competition.

"Bone hunters

& do

flowed into the Peabody, Hatcher became concerned

fossils

that the analysis

Cope

(which they have

a

good, long pull

in."

or anyone else sees

a right to

would be the utmost

fit

to send

col-

do) there are bones here

folly to

attempt to keep them

from getting some of them." 27

There was no question that things seemed to have slowed down over the Marsh was no longer prodded by Cope who had and neither access to government publications nor ample funds of his own

—

years at the Peabody.

so he

felt

no imperative

—

to publish.

In fact, his slow, methodical inclination coupled with his penchant for

secrecy frustrated even his assistants

were

his receptions

clubs, his

dinners

up on Prospect at

down

in the

basement.

And

Street, his evenings in the

Delmonico's, not to mention

his

then there

New

York

duties for the

Academy of Science. "During most of my time in his employ," Williston charged, "I never knew him to do two consecutive honest days' work in science." National

UN) HI DINOSAUR

THE Marsh was

one

had

also

a

281

habit of dawdling, of procrastinating,

most recent campaign,

time. His

funds to build the second

for example,

wing of the Peabody,

Marsh even tried to tap Barnum. The showman, however, who was now

some might

say. It

on too many things

flaw that was exacerbated by his habit of taking

a

was to

at

raise additional

the original

as called for in

design.

wealth had been greatly exaggerated.

worth five

times the

num, who would

amount

in his seventies, said reports

of his

"The newspapers mark me down

as

ever was or wished to be," he told Marsh. Bar-

I

die in 1891, said his

first

concern was "to do justice to

my

2 children and 9 grandchildren." This, he declared, might be a "drawback

from your humble servant." 28 The

to further charitable contributions

money

for the

second wing of the Peabody would have to come from

else-

where.

But "the

cause of his inadequate productivity after 1882," said

real

Marsh's biographers Charles Schuchert and Clara

Mae

LeVene, "was that he

had become overwhelmed and confused by the very mass of riches,

and by the

effort required to direct his

oratory and in the field." It

tors

was true that

It

literally

the lab-

29

Hatcher, Sternberg, Baldwin, and

concerning dinosaurs

"almost

his fossil

staff in

all

the other collec-

— — became more and more confused. Marsh was

unearthed more and more bones, the view of prehistoric

ularly

gist

as

superabundant

partic-

life

being buried by tons of dinosaur bones," said paleontolo-

and historian Edwin Colbert. was perplexing for everyone. Germany's Hermann von Meyer even

suggested doing away with "dinosaurs" altogether and instead calling these animals Pachypoda. Certainly "elephant foot" didn't seem as "fearfully great lizard."

Not

opposed the name change.

He

sized an affinity to

mammals

the elephant as crude specially

Owen

mammalian

model

But

while

all

the

species like Marsh's initial species

had

and some

didn't.

Things

own

really

It

had only used

in fact,

were

not a single

was

closer to birds.

criteria for

was

a

what made

now some

Some of the

30

a

group of huge

City Nanosaurus were

fused vertebrae,

tiny,

and

specimens

animals had armor

were getting confusing.

Huxley, Cope, and Marsh each took a stab

growing menagerie of dinosaurs.

is,

Initially, this

Canon

five

"There

that dinosaurs

with just three were being called dinosaurs. plating,

name

Owen

whole organization," he maintained.

feature in their

dinosaur were breaking down.

animals.

Owen

that simply didn't exist.

for the dinosaur.

Dinosaurs stayed dinosaurs. But Owen's a

a

argued that von Meyer's Pachypoda empha-

was even prepared to concede

dinosaur

grand

as

surprisingly the dinosaurs' creator

at

trying to organize the ever-

a tricky exercise.

The

criteria

had to

282

MARK JAFFE

be general enough to sort

this large, diverse

ingful groupings.

But

everything just

muddled

as

it

bunch of animals

into

mean-

couldn't be too general, because that would leave as before.

As underscored by the story of Owen's

Tliecodontia

ing of that broad group of Triassic reptiles into

a

and Cope's rework-

group called Archosauria,

the key was to be thoughtful and elegant.

Cope

tried to sort the dinosaurs

by their ankle structure and

a

hipbone.

His dinosaur groups were:

—Armored and duck-billed — Carnivorous Symphopoda (grown-together — Small carnivorous

Orthopoda

(straight feet)

Goniopoda

(angle feet)

dinosaurs

dinosaurs

feet)

The problem with Cope's

was

efFort

that

dinosaurs

things were

a

still

Orthopoda contained both armored quadrapeds and armorless

jumble. bipeds.

Symphopoda contained both herbivores and carnivores. In an efFort to clean things up, Cope added a fourth classification, Opisthocoela, for the gigantic swamp-dwelling; dinosaurs, but this was a name Owen had created and was not

really

based on ankle structure.

Huxley rejected Cope's not the key determinant. a

hipbone, and

a leg

efforts

He

on

teeth, jaws,

bone. Huxley came up with three groupings:

— — Armored Iguanodontidae —

Megalosauridae

arguing that the ankle bones simply were

tried to classify dinosaurs based

Carnivores, such

Sceldosauridae

species,

as

Dryptosaurus and Megalosaurus

such Hylaeosaurus

Herbivores, like the Hadrosaurs and Iguatwdon

The

first

problem with Huxley's method was

Compsognathus managed to

fit

into

all

that a dinosaur like the

three categories.

little

So Huxley added

a

fourth category, Orntithoscledia, that in turn was divided into two categories

— Dinosauria and Composagnatha. But by

this point,

Huxley's system

was both complicated and messy.

Marsh

also

came up with four

different

and

distinct orders

of dinosaurs,

proposing:

— Armored — Iguanodonts, duck-billed marsh-dwelling Sauropoda — Theropoda — Carnivorous dinosaurs

Stegosauria

Ornithopoda

dinosaurs, and so on.

dinosaurs

Gigantic,

dinosaurs

GILDED DINOSAUR

Tilt

This sorting was based on

backbones,

feet, hips,

wide range of

a

characteristics including teeth,

and shoulders. Marsh had come closer to the essence

Cope

of the dinosaurs than either

or Huxley. But Marsh's system required

very complicated sorting, and something was In 1887,

Cope's English

organizing the dinosaurs.

huge group with

283

Harry Grovier

friend,

The key

missing.

still

Seeley, solved the riddle

of forms. They were two

a great variety

of

Seeley saw was that dinosaurs weren't one

but distinct,

large,

groups or orders. Seeley pointed out that

all

these specimens had

one of two types of hips,

which varied by the position of one of the hipbones, the these groups the hips

were similar to those of

a

one of

pubis. In

bird and in the other, to

those of a reptile.

"Dinosauria has no existence

two

distinct types

of animal

.

.

.

as a natural

group of animals, but includes

which show

their descent

ancestry rather than their close affinity," Seeley wrote in cation of the Fossil Animals

Commonly named

from

"On

a

common

the Classifi-

Dinosauria."

"These two orders of animals," Seeley proposed, "may be conveniently

named

the Ornithischia and the Sauricha"

— bird-hipped

dinosaurs and

lizard-hipped dinosaurs.

Seeley had done

ontology lines

and

more than simply

a vision that

clearly

much

He

had given pale-

had taken the source of the animals back to the

even more important than a

sort fossil bones.

dinosaur evolution had proceeded along two separate

that,

he had intimated

that dinosaurs

larger evolutionary pattern involving other reptiles

Eventually, Marsh's classifications

The Ornithopoda and

Stegosauria

would be absorbed

and

Triassic.

But

were part of birds.

into Seeley's system.

would be placed underneath the

bird-

hipped dinosaurus, and the Sauropoda and Theropoda under the lizard-

hipped dinosaurs. All this, however, piling

up

in the

"At times,

would

take years,

and

in the

meantime, the bones were

basement of the Peabody, overwhelming Marsh and

his assistants

were

left

for a day or

his staff.

more with nothing

to

do

except talk over their grievances," Schuchert and LeVene wrote, "while

Marsh lingered in New York at the University Club or the Century Club, where he undeniably like to 'spread himself.' " In Marsh's defense, there

which was

still

another

were some major

least

of

full-scale congressional investigation into the role

of

not the

was an investigation that opponents of Powell and Marsh would

science.

It

use

weapon of attack, and

as a

distractions,

mer Confederate Abner Herbert.

solider

in

it,

new ally, a forAlabama congressman, named Hilary

they would also find a

and current

M

284

A R K

Powell and Marsh would have to to counter their enemies.

dent, James Garfield, had

J

A Y Y E

summon up

been

killed

by an

sin

sciei;dsts

their political

who

acumen

greatest allies, the presi-

assassin.

seeker had shot Garfield. But there were those

who

all

Worst of all, one of their

A

said

disgruntled office it

wasn't the assas-

was responsible for murdering Garfield, but rather the doctors and

who were

supposed to be taking care of him.

Chapter Seventeen

President james garfield walked depot on

railroad

the

into the

morning of July

Washington

1881, heading for

2,

the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts and his alma

mater, Williams College.

The filled

first

few months of Garfield's presidency had been

with the tumult that seemed to mark Washington

who was

officials

on western mail Scandal."

Another fraud investigation had broken

in office.

involving postal

The

who were

routes.

trial

The newspapers were

calling

a

seemed

nostalgia-driven

enough

delegates.

it

this

the "Star

one

Route

terrible fracture in his

product of his struggle for the presidency. to

On

Garfield was offered as a

It

was

a

be getting worse. The

1 880 Republican nomiMaine senator James G. Blaine

nation had been ferociously fought over by

and

—

had just begun.

Party, a

divide that only

no matter

cheating the government out of revenues

But of even greater concern to Garfield was the Republican

politics,

Grant. But neither

Ulysses

man

could muster

the nominating convention's thirty-sixth ballot,

compromise candidate, and with

Blaine's support,

Ohio congressman took the nomination. The general election was another war, with Garfield beating Democratic candidate General Winfield Scott Hancock by less than ten thousand pop-

the

ular votes. (Garfield did have a better than toral college). It was, at least, a

more or

two

less,

was one of the

Garfield's inaugural ball

to

one margin

in the elec-

honest race. first official

functions held in

new National Museum, and it was a fitting venue for celebrating a man who had served as a Smithsonian regent and fought alongside Powell and Marsh in the struggle to recast the national survey. The ball's center-

Baird's

piece was

holding

Liberty, but instead of one of Thomas Edison's new incandescent

of the Goddess of

a large plaster statue

aloft a torch,

she gripped

light bulbs.

The

election, however,

had

between Blaine supporters, Stalwarts. Garfield

owed

left

called

his

hard feelings on

all

sides, particularly

Half-Breeds, and Grant men, known

as

nomination to the Half-Breeds, and they

received the lion's share of administration appointments, inflaming the

285

M

286

A R K

A F F E

J

wounds even more. That morning,

accompanied by by Charles sought

been

his

the Baltimore and

new

Guiteau,

J.

pohu

a

at

Potomac

a

appointment, preferably

Now

rejected.

train station, the president,

of state, James G. Blaine, was approached lawyer and Republican Stalwart. Guiteau had

secretary

ambassador to France, and had

as

Guiteau walked up to Garfield and shot him twice in

the back. Garfield,

One

bullet

who

never

was rushed to the White House.

lost consciousness,

had grazed

Garfield's arm, the other

the president's torso. But doctors did not

The accepted procedure of the

know

day to find

was lodged somewhere in

where.

was to use

a slug

follow the bullet's path through the wound. Dr. Willard Bliss did first

examination of Garfield.

nonsterilized probe. (The

worked out

in

Bliss

a

probe to

this

on

his

used his unwashed finger and then

"germ theory"

a

was only then being

for disease

Germany and France by Robert Koch,

Paul Erhlich, and

Louis Pasteur.) Bliss couldn't find the bullet. After Bliss, a string of doctors paraded into the

White House. They pre-

dicted a quick demise for the president, but Garfield lingered. a

He

fever.

was put on

a diet

He

developed

of milk spiked with brandy. The doctors

weren't sure what to do.

Newspapers

across the nation ridiculed the indecision and limited ability

of the president's physicians. Here they were living

and

times,

still

began deluging the White House with herbs,

A comb

in the

nothing could be done. People from

and patent medicines,

committee of

as

scientific

—

—

most modern of over the nation

home remedies, poultices, own advice and theories. by Powell and Simon New-

their

well as their

men

all

lead

was gathered to devise a way to ease the president's discomfort in humid oven of a Washington summer, and Alexander Graham Bell appeared on the scene with a plan to use science to find the bullet.

the

Employing

electricity

running through wire

ratus to amplify the signal, Bell believed that

the bullet since his coil

hummed when

and

coils

a

telephone appa-

he could detect the location of

placed near

a

metal object.

Before going to the White House, Bell took the apparatus to the Old Soldiers

Home, where

Bell to pass his

Civil

War veterans, with

bullets

in

them, allowed

coils

hummed, and

still

coils over their bodies. In each case, the

Bell was able to locate the bullet.

But Bell had no such luck

at

the

White House.

No matter where the coils

were placed on Garfield's body, they hummed. Bell was

now

in for taunts in

the press similar to those the doctors had received. Editorials charged he was

merely

a

self-promoter and "publicity seeker."

GILDED DINOSAUR

Til H

Back of July,

More

to the lab, Bell went.

doctors to

him have another

let

dejected Bell

a

the

left

try.

tests.

More

But the

287

successes. Bell persuaded the

results

were the same. At the end

White House and returned

to Boston.

Meanwhile, with Garfield's condition deteriorating, the doctors decided to operate.

The

They

conditioner

air

cut the president open, but

—

a

contraption that blew

was

In August, Garfield

Elberon,

New Jersey, and

still

could not find the

committee had been able

best relief the Powell

finally

air

moved

there he died

over

a

War had been

nearly impeached,

to his family's

coming

one president

of

who

Cope

in the sixteen years since

all

and one president

What was

time.

the

followed the Garfield story with the avid

teenager just becoming aware of the world of events around

a

She questioned her father about Guiteau.

tain

way,"

At

summer home in The nation

19, 1881.

stole his election,

her.

much

crude

to?

Fifteen-year-old Julia interest

bullet.

a

grim: two presidents assassinated, one president

presiding over the most corrupt administration of

nation

was

cake of ice.

on September

was dismayed by the news. The presidential record the Civil

to devise

Cope

replied.

"He

"I

think he

is

crazy in a cer-

has emotional insanity, but his intellect

is

not

out of order." his trial,

Garfield,

it

Guiteau's defense was that while

was the doctors

to the argument,

who

had

and even though

killed him.

it

was true that he had shot

The jury was not

agreeable

believed Guiteau was insane, he was

it

found guilty and hanged. ence.

And

moment

American medicine or American scideprived Powell and Marsh of a valuable ally just when they

was not the

It

it

finest

were about to face

another attack.

still

There was, however,

a

in fact,

If

only Bell's invention had worked.

good reason why

by another modern invention

White House,

for

—

it

had not. Bell had been undone

the just patented, coil-spring mattress.

was one of the few places

in the

country that had

The this

marvelous advance in sleep technology. Bell didn't realize Garfield was laying

on metal

haps his

No,

it

life

springs. If the president

would have been

hadn't been

a

shining

run

ment

The law

in science.

saved.

moment

for science,

and soon Congress would

the questions of science in government, and govern-

to take another

at

had been moved off the mattress, per-

creating the U.S. Geological Survey had cleared

up

The

Public Lands

Commission, of which Powell was the leading member, had,

after extensive

the problem of the competing surveys, but

little

else.

MARK

2«8

hearings and

J

A F F E

recommendations

fact-finding trip across the West, issued

a

Region"

that read a lot like the original 'Arid

report and received a simi-

unenthusiastic reception by Congress.

lar,

The General Land

Office was

But with each

ness.

dishing out parcels, and the other sci-

still

Coast and Geodetic Survey, were

entific bureaus, like the U.S.

of the

year, the presence

scientist

grew

Powell, in particular, was pushing and expanding the

1884, Congress decided that

it

would again

in

in busi-

still

Washington.

So, in July

of

investigate the proper role

of

field.

science in the federal government.

This

time

they

created

charged with looking

at a

greater efficiency and said Bureaus." sibly,

a

House-Senate commission

special, joint

host of scientific agencies, with

economy of administration of

The commission was

"view to secure

a

the public service in

to report back in six months.

the role of the commission was to consider things such

as

1

Osten-

whether

printing costs were reasonable, the administrative efficacy of bureaus, and the

Army

appropriate place for the U.S. Weather Bureau (then part of the nal Corps).

But

in reality, the

commission became

of government in science, and science

role

One

of the

first

acts

to seek the opinion of the National

old friend

for debating the

Simon Newcomb on

appointment, concerned

the Allison Commission, was

a

committee.

He

had wanted to

the panel, but the navy blocked his

represented

it

as

Academy of Sciences. Marsh, who was

once again the academy president, formed his

podium

in society.

of the commission, which was chaired by Senator

William B. Allison of Iowa, and thus known

put

a

Sig-

a

conflict

of

for

interest

the

astronomer.

The academy came back with

a soaring proposal that science

to the position of an essential national activity rior.

"The country

will

government devoted

demand

especially to the direction

work of the Government,"

"In

day the pursuit of science

directly

like war, treasury,

and inte-

the institution of a branch of the executive

scientific

this

—

be elevated

the

and control of all the purely

academy proposal maintained.

itself is, visible to all

men of education,

connected with the promotion of the general welfare

committee continued. "The study of

.

.

.

,"

the

electricity has resulted in the tele-

graph, the telephone, the electric light, the electric railway." These inventions, the scientists

pointed out, were worth millions of dollars in revenue

and jobs.

"None who

have lived with open eyes during the development of purely

scientific investigations

the general welfare,'

doubt

" the

that the cultivation

academy maintained.

of the sciences 'promotes 2

Perhaps, but the academy committee spoke of "educated

men" and

THE GILDED DINOSAUR "who

those

legislators

have lived with their eyes open."

were looking

Navy

tion officials, like

2»9

What about Congress? The more. Besides, administra-

for less bureaucracy, not

Secretary William Chandler, were opposed to losing

their scientific agencies to a

new

department. Scientific research, Chandler

argued persuasively, "should be conducted within and under the direction

of the Department that needs the

The

National

scientific assistance."

Academy of Sciences, realizing

ence might "be

now

that

its

Department of Sci-

impractical," suggested that at the

minimum

the

observatory (navy), the weather service (army), the geological survey (interior),

and the

coastal survey (treasury)

The department

all

be placed

in the

same department.

heads didn't care for that either.

Powell offered an alternative, which was to take the purely "informational" bureaus

— such — and make them as

the geological survey, the fish commission, and the

naval observatory that

one

part of the Smithsonian.

No support for

either.

Although Newcomb,

as

the navy's senior scientist, had been prevented

from participating on the academy's committee, he was able to send to the Allison

Commission, with

his views.

He believed

a letter

the "evils of the sci-

entific

bureaus" came from "the want of adequate administrative supervi-

sion."

There was, he

scientific

said, "but one adequate remedy ... to place all the work of the government under a single administrative head to .

be selected by the President."

Newcomb's

.

.

3

proposal didn't garner

much

support.

was about bureaucratic organization, the subtext was legitimizing science and also about controlling

it.

But while the debate really

Much

of

about ways of this

had been

forced by Powell and his persistent expansion of his survey.

The

U.S. Geological Survey's budget had quadrupled since King's day,

and Powell was making

all

sorts

of agreements and

veys and independent researchers. This worried

Abram

Hewitt.

They

alliances

with

state sur-

many congressmen

— even

feared that Powell was building an empire within the

government.

Alabama congressman Hilary Herbert, one of the members of the Allison Commission, had an entirely different idea. As far as Herbert was con-

No

federal dollars

when

came to science should be none at all. should be spent, no federal facilities constructed, and

cerned, government's role

it

those that existed should be sold.

The son of a South versity a

Carolina planter, with one year of study

of Alabama and one year

low opinion of science, and

at

at

the Uni-

the University of Virginia, Herbert had

after serving as a colonel in the

Army, an even lower opinion of the

federal

government.

Confederate

MARKJAFFE

290

After the war, he had been elected to Congress in 1877.

who

lawyer in Montgomery, Alabama, and was

a

Now he took up the banner ofJohn Calhoun,

"had enough of

am

"I

radically

from the

to purge science

my

democratic in

Marsh. "I believe in

as little

Adam

Smith

&

&

Mill

government.

federal

views," Herbert would explain to

government

as possible

should keep hands off and allow the individual learned from

had

thing called science." Herbert's goal was to use the

this

Commission

Allison

I

who

had fought against the Smithsonian, and Simon Cameron,

—

fair play.

Government

that

This

is

the doctrine

Buckle, from Jefferson, Benton and

Calhoun." 4

These were not

words

idle

for Herbert. In 1878,

ment guarantee on bond payments

he opposed

govern-

a

Texas and Pacific Railway,

for the

despite the strong support for the project by both his constituents and the

Alabama

He

legislature.

was prepared to be voted out of office, but saw

He

reelection as a vindication of his views.

one to have to face."* The end of 1884 came, and

March House

4,

since 1861.

Democrats,

It

Herbert, to

like

Cope

the Allision

Powell and Marsh.

vey

at

It

was

a

good

time for

at

Southern

faithful

markers.

The Cleveland

the survey.

Commission was one more chance

make

to

a

run

mind, to

at least in his

set

would be Hilary Herbert.

to be a thorough ventiliation of the Geological Sur-

is

boost the organization," is

also a

was another opportunity,

It

Washington. Marsh

"There

his

for any-

Commission labored on. On first Democrat in the White

call in their political

things right. Unfortunately, his avatar

"This winter there

tough opponent

a

was time to clean out Republican waste and find

administration also took aim

For

the Allison

still

1885, Grover Cleveland became the

patronage posts for Democrats.

at

was

will probably try to get the National

Cope wrote

to

Osborn

in

Academy

October of 1885.

deal of Marshisms in other departments ... as

In any case such an opportunity of placing

Marsh

to

am

I

told.

in his true position will

6 not soon occur again."

Cope's major goal was to

discredit Powell

campaign by trying to gather Endlich, apparently

men I

still

on the

not

now

I

During the commission

The

are aware

letter to

of the

get without calling

on

hearings,

one of them, Henry Gannett,

fact that the

Powell Survey

is

on my

friends.

I

want to

know

asked:

going to

have been called upon for certain information which

the deadheads

this

Cope's urging, wrote to several of the former Hay den

survey.

presume you

the wall.

at

dirt.

and Marsh, and he began

all

I

can-

about

the survey, favoritism, misapplication of funds, waste

THE GILDED DINOSAUR of money &c.

If you are in the position to give

much obliged, and Your name will not appear be very

letter quiet.

money

it I

will ask

all

turned their

I

shall

by and

by.

to keep this

Cope

also

Marsh, so Baur would be

free

letters

over to Powell.

dollars

also tried to enlist

Cope could not

Baur needed.

Hayden

in the

campaign. But Hayden,

in steadily failing health, declined. In a letter to Leidy,

tried

you

commission. But cash poor himself,

few hundred

Cope

any way, and

in

to pay ofFBaur's debts to

to testify before the

find the

remember

information,

in the sweet

7

But Gannett and the others tried to raise

will

me

291

Hayden

who

said

was

he even

without success to defuse Cope. Enough was enough. Cope's passion,

knew no moderation, and soon

however,

document

a

twenty-three-hundred-word

viciously attacking the survey was floating around Capitol Hill.

Herbert picked up the ammunition. Powell and the survey would have been targets of the inquiry under any circumstances given the agency's high level of

numerous

political

looking for

a

way

activity. Besides,

Powell's

enemies in the western development camp were always

down

to take the major

doubly sure the survey was

a target,

a

peg or two. But Cope made

and what's more, he made certain

paleontology and the publication of major studies would also be

that

issues.

Cope's principal aim was to ensure that Marsh was not forgotten. In

fact,

he had been lobbying against him even in the days before the commission convened. "I wrote Prof. Baird,"

employs others to [do]

his

work

or control

all

not

Washington and does

live in

It

I

see, for

The

practically

fact

is

Marsh cannot and

will

no work, and why they give him

they admit his selfishness and his bad quali-

8

was

a

remarkably self-destructive performance, because

trying to get the

But

do not

man who money enough to fill

told his wife, "that a

him, only needs

the positions in the country.

the preference ties."

Cope

for

this

ful to

last

Cope was

still

two volumes of his Hayden work published by Powell.

was the unyielding, almost-rabid Cope that had proven so

distaste-

the polite scientific societies in Philadelphia. This was, as Leidy had

once called him "the unnecessarily offensive" Cope.

Back

in Philadelphia,

to

win

a

at

the

Wagner Free

schools.

Cope had once

again been rebuffed in an attempt

paying position. This time he was passed over for an appointment Institute

What was even more

— one of galling

the city's scientific

museums and

was the selection of Professors Heil-

prin and Leffinann to the posts.

"Both

as

you know

are Jews,"

Cope wrote

to Leidy,

who

was

a trustee

of

MARK JAFFE

292

the institute. "In the next place Leffmann has

Cope

ever," "It

and

is

said,

no

while Heilprin, was he charged, "scientifically on

remarkable too that Americans

&

Philadelphians of

could not have been found for the positions," he

ability

what-

scientific standing

trial."

good standing myself

said. "I

9 was an applicant."

He for

complained to Hayden,

Cope

ness?"

Wagner

in

.

.

.

,"

who

wrote to Leidy. "Can you find

Hayden

work

asked. "Will he

a place

double har-

in

10

A week

later,

two Jews of

.

.

.

Cope was

still

fuming. "The association of your

unsavory scientific antecedents

Leidy. Leidy's reply was that both

men had

is

been

not

a

good

affiliated

name with

thing," he told

with the

institute,

had done good jobs, and were deserving of the one-year appointments. But he added, "should they not prove trustees

hired by the Geological Survey of Canada,

for analysis.

The work was

intermittent,

was no fieldwork, although he did able to report treal

Cope's

at

home

and the

travel to

"Canadians

all

which

fees

sent

him

fos-

were modest. There

Ottawa and Montreal and was

wear

fur caps"

and

are rather better looking than in

that "in

Mon-

Ottawa." 11

however, remained south of the Canadian border,

real focus,

turned out that he was not the only prominent

it

scientist taking

aim

Powell's survey and raising questions about government-funded science.

Alexander Agassiz a

that

women

the girls and

where

otherwise wanting," the

might consider other candidates "for the future."

Cope was sils

efficient or

emerged

also

as a

valuable ally in Herbert's holy

war and

comfort for Cope. The Harvard professor, however, was motivated not by

personality but rather by ideology.

Agassiz believed that decentralized, private science was

and more powerful

German

states,

scientific

community was

scattered

more powerful

The robust and among its regional

appropriate than centralized, government science.

Agassiz pointed out, while the weaker French science was controlled

by the government.

become

"It

would be

a greac disaster if Washington

should ever

the Paris of the United States," Agassiz warned.

There were some

areas

where government action was

acceptable, he

conceded, but government ought not to do whatever can be done by private interests. "I do not see why men of science should ask more than any other branches of knowledge,

literature, fine arts

&c," Agassiz

This "laissez-faire" approach to science was right times,

and

it

was

a

powerful argument

that

12

in the spirit

of the

Herbert promptly adopted. The

was independently wealthy and the curator of Harvard's of Comparative Zoology, one of the prime competitors of the

fact that Agassiz

Museum

said.

Smithsonian, was

lost

on

the Alabamian

— but not on

Powell.

THE GILDED DINOSAUR Herbert, Agassiz, and fall

of 1885. 'There

Cope whipped up

good

a

flood of paragraphs

a daily

is

293

.

deal of mischief by the .

.

showing

attempt on the part of some newspapermen to write bureaus] down,"

Newcomb wrote

our best policy

silence at least until

is

to

Marsh

we

that

[all

a

systematic

the scientific

September. "So

see a chance to

kill

far

I

think

somebody," the

astronomer roguishly advised. 13 In the that

same

had run

Newcomb included New York Times and the

letter,

in the

September newspaper

a

Boston Advertiser, reporting

of the U.S. Geological Survey.

federal audit

reported, "that large collections of

article

"It

is

have been

fossils

on

a

claimed," the dispatch

made by

various

branches of the geological survey, which instead of being deposited in the national

museum

the law directs have been diverted to the

as

private parties notably those of Prof.

Cope of Philadelphia. The the government for dollars for those

Marsh of Yale College and Professor

report said that the costs direct and indirect to

making these

collections to have

been

fifty

thousand

been held by Professor Marsh and one hundred thousand

dollars for those retained

instance,

museums of

by Professor Cope. These were kept in the

under the plea that

it

work

preparatory to making reports but the

is

now

done."

In late 1885, Herbert and Agassiz had an exchange of letters that part of the

dating back to the to the nation

first

King

became

November letter, Herbert outlined a on Nevada's Comstock Lode done by surveys

commission records. In

of four different studies

series

first

was for the purpose of legitimate study

party.

a

He

also raised the question

of the value

of the many paleontology studies published by surveys.

"To me," Herbert wrote, "it is very clear Major Powell is transcending you lay down that the Government ought not to do scientific work which can properly be accomplished by individual effort." 14 the rule

Agassiz obligingly replied, "Private individuals have learned nothing

from the works you

refer to

.

.

.

[and] are

all

such that they

within the

of individual investigation. ..."

limits

"As regards paleontology," Agassiz went on, "that things

which

private individuals

Government. They sities

fall

will

plenty of people

of doing

it,

societies to

who

and

do

it

and learned

is

societies can

just

one of the

do just

as

well as

cheaper. There are always in different univer-

who will be

too thankful to do such work for the sake

will get the gist

of their

results

published by scientific

which they belong." 13

After getting

a

peek

at Agassiz's letter

before

it

was public,

Newcomb

wrote to Marsh, "Herbert wants to lop off everything he can, and that seems to be "the

rest

all

he cares to do." But he held out some hope, believing that

of the commission favors science." 16

MARKJAFFE

294

That was the hope of the science community, of Sciences was

campaigning for

also

new Naval Observatory. dome of the current building was

a

reported to Congress that the

tists

"warped," the heating was falling apart. It is

the equipment old, and the building

failing,

17

from the volume of return

clear

ried and was writing about affairs in allies.

Academy The scien-

the National

as

letters

But the general counsel he received was

dle things. Marsh's

own words

he received, Marsh was wor-

Washington to

many of his

to

sit

tight

Powell was not cowed by Herbert or Agassiz, and

1884 and June of 1886, the major

him

seven times, making

written statement and

testified

follow-up

a

and

friends

Powell han-

the situation.

the loyalty of his

as

Between December of

well in check.

star witness.

its

let

would only inflame

or presence

Hayden men showed, he had Cope

and

before the Allison Commission

He

also

submitted

a long, detailed,

on

the

bold and sweeping vision of what

sci-

letter.

Powell, in a word, thrived

challenge.

Once more he would ence was and what

it

articulate a

should be for the nation. Taking up the theme that the

academy had sounded, Powell

told the

commission

that science

an exercise in knowledge, but also an exercise in the public ica

needed science to prosper.

It

was too

vital to

be

was not just

interest.

Amer-

to just the private

left

sector.

Herbert did draw some

blood. Yes, Powell had to concede no

political

maps had yet been produced by the survey and

more than

anticipated. Yes, at least

ably did not

need

to

—but

in

one of the Comstock Lode

map was

studies prob-

be done. Yes, Powell had made agreements with

beyond the bounds of

surveys and private researchers

mandate

that the cost per

doing

state

his survey's legal

he had saved the federal government money.

so,

Marsh's relationship with the survey and

his four-thousand-dollar

Marsh was simply

stipend was also defended.

a

annual

full-time government

employee, because he received no salary from Yale. (Marsh actually used that

money

to

fund other work

Powell's records

showed

that

at

showed

he did not

the Peabody.)

that

steal

it.

he certainly spent money. But they also

The

Herbert could disagree on whether

be so detailed, the money

really

dollars

were accounted

for,

the U.S. Geological Survey

and while

maps had

to

was used for maps.

Powell's survey was politically impregnable, but the political process, and

the Cleveland administration, needed a scapegoat. So the heat

swung from

the U.S. Geological Survey to the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey and its aging director, J. E. Hilgard. Charges were made, and Hilgard was forced to step

down.

"I

am

afraid

we

shall

not see

a scientific

man

in the post again,"

THE Ml.

Newcomb

I) 1. 1)

predicted. Cleveland proved

DINOSAUR

Newcomb

295

a

prophet, appointing

as

M. Thorn, a political crony from the president's hometown of Buffalo. Thorn had headed the investigation that ousted Hilthe survey's

new

director

F.

gard.

no such easy mark. In his own testimony to the Commission, he went right after Agassiz and laissez-faire science. He

Powell, however, was Allison

pointed out that the Harvard professor had accumulated "a great fortune,""

which he was now using to "make the museum over which he presides the American center for scientific research." But Powell went on, "a hundred millionaires could not do the work in scientific research now done by the General Government." Besides, should the "scientific research and progress

of American

civilization wait until the

contagion of

hundred millionaires to engage

inspired a

No. Even rich

in like

[Agassiz's]

example

good works?"

Marsh and Cope, had needed at least a little elevate and speed their work. Without the surveys

scientists, like

government support

to

and the government printing

office,

American paleontology might

still

be

a

backwater instead of a leader.

But Powell for the use

also

made

it

of all the people. Science paid for with federal

given back to the people

which they have

libraries

and museums

societies

that for

government science was

clear that

at

large

established.

To turn over would be

little

beast that

dollars

good

"should be

material to private

to defraud the people

of

18

the collections an issue, and

created a

all this

for publication

but to affirm that what the government paid

Cope had

public

through the agencies of the public

which the money was expended."

Cope had made

a

for,

now

Powell had no choice

the government should

get.

would bedevil both him and Marsh

in

the years to come.

Herbert was

first

to issue a bill with his

proposed reforms. The aim was

to sharply restrict the role

of the geological survey to mapping and limit

publications

annual report.

not

.

.

.

to

a

single

expend any money

for

"The Geological Survey work," the

paleontological

its

shall

legislation

stated.

In his

accompanying

vey's research

report, Herbert said that

was

it

clear that the sur-

and publications plan "promises to be very expensive and we

think ought to be curtailed. ... In the Act of 1879 [creating the survey], to wit,

it is

also true

Congress did not then expect such

has followed." Herbert

work

as

went

so far as to actually

expenditure

as

use his

an example of what the survey ought not to be doing.

This issue of printing expenditures became the fight.

a lavish

name Marsh and last

battleground of the

Agassiz had told Herbert that the "methods of publication adopted by

MARKJAFFE

296

the various bureaus, the size of the editions, were extravagant and wasteful."

Was he

thinking of Cope's Bible and Marsh's Dinocerata?

These works troubled even supporters

Hewitt. "I never contem-

like

plated the establishment of a scientific publication department for original

works," Hewitt wrote Marsh.

"It

seems to

ambitious, and like pride has o'er lept

With a

itself."

Cope jumped on

suicidal fervor,

me

the attempt has been too

19

the issue. "Agassiz's letter has had

very great influence with the Commission," Arnold Hague, one of Pow-

ell's

May of

top aides wrote to Marsh in

closely having states that

he

expense of course

is

had interviews with is

several

ready to publish material

societies, thus relieving the

a direct

blow

at

still

own

at his

expense and

Government of

at the

the cost. This of

you." 20

Cope's assertions were

moment, he was

1886. "Cope has followed it up members of the Commission. He

like

hoping

a

wound,

self-inflicted

that the cost

of printing

his

for at

that

very

remaining Hayden

Survey manuscripts would be borne by either the geological survey or an

independent

congressional

Meanwhile, Marsh was

appropriation.

What was Cope

fearful that the Allison inquiry

thinking?

had turned into

a

campaign to get him. "I

do not think

assure

Marsh. "Last

Herbert.

He

there

any reason to be anxious,"

is

Monday

evening Powell and

I

was perfectly frank and courteous

Newcomb

had quite

a talk

tried to

with Mr.

in expressing his

decided

opinion that the Geological Survey has gained influence by employing pro-

of the country and that

fessors in various parts

the function of making maps. is

anything personal in

A

few days

later,

his

I

am

it

ought to confine

itself to

sure your are mistaken in supposing there

opposition." 21

Hague

sent

Marsh an update saying

that Powell

was

"pretty well pleased" with that morning's appearance before the Allison

Commission. 22 Hague

which

I

included

also

a

clipping from the Washington Capital,

said:

am informed

that the raid

of Senator Morgan and Congressman

Herbert upon the Geological Survey grows out of the feud between

Marsh of Yale College, and Prof. Cope, the two eminent paleontologists. Major Powell, the director of the survey, has placed Prof.

Prof.

Marsh

in charge

instead of Prof.

work of each mos Club, where the

of

branch of the investigation of the bureau,

that

Cope.

.

.

.

Both

are able

men

but are not

satisfied

with

other and have not been for years. ... At the Costhe scientific

men of Washington make

their ren-

dezvous, the details of the squabble are well understood and are the

GILDED DINOSAUR

TIIK

297

topic of constant discussion.

There

only one voice concerning the report that Congressman

is

Herbert has made, and only one opinion say that

as to its

authorship.

no one but Cope could have written

imprint in every

that

it;

it

They

all

bears his

line.

Cope! Standing on the House ceased to be

a scholarly

floor,

Herbert charged that the academy had

body and turned

of the country." Marsh could stand

forces

into it

"one of the

no more.

to Herbert saying that while he did not believe the

do an

injustice to himself or the

active political

In early July, he wrote

congressman wished to

academy, he had "unintentionally done

both."

The academy, Marsh

become involved in an issue without the request of the government. "Individual members may have done so, but not the Academy or its officers. Marsh went on to defend his role in the U.S. Geological Survey. His affilwith Yale actually saved the government

iation

been devoted to salary for

As

maintained, had never

Marsh

for the illustrations in his Birds with Teeth

ernment nothing."

after

it

and he himself had

twenty years' service in Yale College," Marsh

to the charge of extravagance,

When

rent,

survey duties. "I have never received

his

stressed that

a single dollar as

said.

he himself had paid

monograph, "and

cost the gov-

23

the majority report of the commission was issued

was originally ordered

nificant cuts or changes.

It

—

did

it

— two

years

spared the U.S. Geological Survey any sig-

call for a

tightening of the survey's appropri-

ation and disbursement procedures and suggested splitting off publications

more easily monitored budget. The rest of the government bureaus also weathered the storm, but the commission saw no need for a Department of Science. Still, it was, in its way, a great victory for government science. By endorsing the status quo, the

into a separate and

commission was favoring the slow and steady growth of

federally

funded

science over Herbert's Luddite beliefs or Agassiz's laissez-faire approach.

Marsh had

also

come through without damage. His

paleontologist, his budget, that

and

his collections

were

all

position as chief

intact.

Perhaps he

by associating himself with Powell, he had opened himself up to

attack. Perhaps

Powell

felt

the same

way about Marsh. But

felt

this

the relationship

continued.

"You and

the Geological Survey have

the late fight that

I

hope you

are

now

been so completely victorious

very happy over the matter,"

in

New-

M

298

comb wrote Marsh been

settled,

in July.

and the

last

A R K

But the

J

A F F E

had

issues raised in the battle

really

not

had not yet been heard from Cope or the Honor-

able Hilary Herbert.

In that

another ber that

same

"little last

letter,

Newcomb

said

measure of reform"

spring,

on

at

he wanted to

the academy.

motion of Professor

a

enlist

He

Marsh's help in

wrote,

"You remem-

Baird, Colonel Gilder was

Academy with an account of his proposed plan for You may have seen in yesterday's papers that been arrested in New York on charges of embezzling a SI, 000

invited to entertain the

reaching the North Pole. Gilder has

bond, the accuser being

a

woman

supposed to be

more suggestions know more about them." 2

superfluous. If Baird has any ple

I

shall

That

want to

line

between science and scam was

to

'his girl.'

make about

Comment

is

inviting peo-

'

still,

after all these years,

still

per-

ilously thin. s

s

I

Chapter Eighteen

warm, torpid days of July 1886, as Washington down for the summer, and congress-

In those

was preparing to close

men and

were planning

senators

to flee to the seashore,

mountains or even their hometowns, was nearing

too,

appropriation to publish the

and painfully worked had been

It

a

its

legislative success.

volumes of

way toward

a

his

new

Cope,

bill

for an

Hayden work had slowly exercise. First,

Cope had

Secretary of Interior Quintus Lamar.

and son of the South,

ularly interested in science.

His

that

vote in Congress.

time-consuming and humbling

sought the support of the sissippian

own

his

last

seemed

it

A Mis-

Hilary Herbert, Lamar was not partic-

like

But the South was

faithfully

Democratic and the

Cleveland administration paid obeisance.

Lamar suggested Cope write Powell was

his

writings for

no prompt

How

years?

Cope

in the

a surprise.

There was

Cope had gone

as far as

writing an

Powell and charging that "a verbal

Naturalist vilifying

I

Cope by Maj.

left

the Department.

.

.

.

.

was

Seventh day (yes-

waited an hour, and then Gen. Warner came along

terday)

I

retary

himself on

my

acct.

tomorrow, and tomorrow to

But the next

Annie

I

He made go,

— Cope spent

idle

all

the time.

I

five

and

a half

some

a good deal disgusted." row and soon."

to

go

2

of Warner

— an Ohio congress-

hours in Lamar's outer

proofs

Still,

me

with considerable hope of seeing him,"

in early June.

read

& saw the Sec-

an engagement for

day, despite the intercession

man

Cope was

.

& waited 2 hours without seeing him. Next

waited an hour and then he

am

.

went 5th day to the

to Lamar, or at least he tried to. "I

of the Sec. of the Interior

Cope wrote

Powell

1

Cope went back day

his

a letter.

reply.

fulfilled."

office

explain that

wrote

dutifully

promise made to Dr. Hayden and Professor not

Cope

could

problem, that Powell and Marsh had been "squelching"

more than two

This should not have been editorial

to Powell.

&

had

a

Cope vowed

book

office. "I

to Annie, "I

I

go again tomor-

trying to muster support wherever he could find

299

was not

to read; never the less

it.

"I got a

MARK

300

courageous

do

will

from Dr. Williston

letter

great execution if

it

A F F E

J

for ten years in Marsh's employ. This

become

necessary to use

It

it.

shows M.'s

modus operandi perfectly." But Hayden, now in deeply declining health, wanted no part of this fight. "I had a most cowardly letter from Hayden, who is in a pitiable state between Powell & my work, which is his work as well," Cope told Annie. Three days later, Cope finally got in to see Secretary Lamar. "It only resulted in his dictating a letter to Prof. Baird asking for information

my

opinion about

Cope wrote

to Julia.

recommendations

"He

fossils,

as if

doesn't want to see

he had

that

who knew

Lamar, Pliocene

work. The Sec. looked

to."

me

at all,

less

"A

on

great deal depends here

at

twenty years

is

Papa

.

.

.

old, but a

to

me

does

good while

that thee

As long

old.

as

Thee

Cope wrote to

,"

have so

official position,"

is

as

like

Cope

And Cope had no

since

is

9,

her. "It doesn't I

was

was 20! ...

It

seem at

still call

so long thee was

has always

industrious and does thy best

"Today

also Julia's birthday.

not so old but that thee can

been

a

me

one day

great pleasure

whatever thee undertakes.

thee does thy will always have the sympathy of thy Papa,

his love

many

all.

The day Cope met with Lamar, June thee

I

about such esoteric matters

observed. "It regulates everything, especially society."

none

but

&

funeral

simply tended to rely on those in positions of authority

Powell and Baird.

position,

at a

3

and cared

little

he was

as

thee

anyhow."

Even without the administration's support, Cope headed for Capitol Hill, where he had a difficult time in the House. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Representative

was

J. S.

Randall of Pennsylvania,

utterly unsympathetic.

But Fred Endlich had come

Cope

lobby. Together, they

east,

from the

Silver

Lake mines, to help

were able to add the appropriation

— Cope

fig-

ured he needed about thirty-eight hundred doDars for printing and expenses

—

the Sundry and Civil Appropriations Bill in the Senate. "This

is

news yet," Cope reported on June 16. That same month, Cope was editing the final manuscript for his new work on evolution, a series of essays titled Origin of the Fittest. On the title page, he would be identified as "E. D. Cope, Ph.D., University of Heidelberg." It was an honorary degree conferred on Cope a few months earlier. the best

It

was

his greatest

academic recognition and one of which he was duly

proud.

The lobbying went go,

my

appropriation

well,

is

and things looked promising. "So

secured!

But

I

far as

words

do not allow myself to be sanguine

THE GILDED DINOSAUR about

it

or expect anything until

whole corps of men

man

actually see

it

done.

to get an appropriation through

succeed will be rather remarkable,"

to

June.

I

301

a great

It is

job for

a

Congress and for one

Cope wrote home

at

the end of

4

In July,

Annie and

went

Julia

West Falmouth,

to the coastal village of

"The further it Cope believed, and he hoped may not feel disthe summer

Massachusetts. Cope's efforts were approaching their end.

more likely it is "Congressmen anxious to

to get through,"

gets, the

get through for

.

.

.

1

posed to object."* Jacob

Wortman was

"We

an afternoon in the country. [salamanders]

'sallys'

Washington, and one

also in

.

.

Cope

,"

.

brought them home." At

he and

Cope

spent

&

some

got

&

told Julia. "I obtained three lots eggs

boardinghouse,

his

day,

explored some great woods

Cope

fixed sets of eggs with

chemicals on successive days so he could study the development of the sala-

mander embryos, thus turning

The less. "I

days passed slowly, and

Cope was with

a

grand

fight

reported to Julia. "I bathed

of it that

On July doubt

27,

it

was

have

exactly,

future at

Cope

and

it is

now

quiet.

live

"My

I

will have to

very cheaply for

so that

I

bill

was thrown out on

of Powell," Cope wrote to

list-

am getam so I

a technicality,

his wife.

be here again next winter. Second,

a year.

I

no

"This means

will have to figure

up what

cannot say about going to Berkshire, or

a

we

will

I

as to Julia's

Bryn Mawr." left

Washington

to join his family

The

New

Haven

to

on

the

spend

New a

England

campaign. "Next winter however, require

all

I

the aid

defeat,

coast,

but

day with Williston and

very day he was in town, Baur's wife gave birth to

Within two weeks of his

Cope was planning

his

a girl.

new Washington

intend to try again," he told Osborn. "It will I

can muster from

all

quarters to preserve myself

from the attacks of Powell, Marsh and some of their adherents. of statements circulated by them

Cope

I

and want to get up to West Falmouth.

along the way, he stopped in Baur.

simultaneously impatient and

bad tooth, which ached fiercely" he

in carbolic acid

it

over.

all

in the interest

have to

a

can scarcely do any work."''

I

great deal for us. First, will

lodgings into his laboratory.

have had

ting of tired of staying here, tired

his

I

met

all

sorts

among congressmen." One argument,

Government should publish nothing from specimens that do not belong to them." Cope's demon was loose on Capitol Hill. Of course, he pointed out that, there was "not a volume of Marsh's past heard, was that "the

or to come, that

is

not based on his

own

materials."

7

—

—

At the end of August, Cope and Marsh crossed paths almost at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting held in

— MARKJAFFE

302

President

hometown of

Cleveland's

another from

Buffalo.

They

large representation

from Washington

is

here,"

Cope

saw one

certainly

but they did not speak. "Prof. Marsh

afar,

rolls

around, and

a

sniffed in a letter to

who was now with family in the Berkshire foothills of Copake, New He also reported that "the scientific girls are out rather strong." Miss

Annie,

York.

Abbot,

two

whom

a botanist

papers.

And two

he had met collecting plants

other

women

Yellowstone, read

at

— Miss Hitchcock and Miss Martin

each read one. 8 In the

fall,

Cope was

invited to be the

new Snow

Kansas dedication of the for an

hour and

a half

honor and accolade

and thought

that

was to be one of his

It

close, everything that

last

went off quite

it

he longed

main speaker

for,

well.

It

was the kind of

but so rarely received.

moments,

pleasant

the University of

at

Museum. Cope spoke

Natural History

for as the year

now

had been slowly crumbing,

wound

to a

completely and

totally collapsed.

Cope

returned to Washington in

Lamar and

Sec.

S. J.

Randall."

late

He

November

on

to "dance attendance

also inquired

of Baird about

filling a

him

that the

recent opening at the Smithsonian, but Baird quickly told

vacancy no longer existed.

W

Cope once again made the rounds and even sought the help of McGee, "Powell's right hand man." Lamar had asked Cope to get an cial

"How much is

what could Cope

possibly expect at the hands of Powell

matic," he told Annie.

know." But and

his

By now rated,

stock.

really,

minion?

and

the

Still,

Cope

I

left

wrote her thee

trustees,"

I

drafted his

bill

New York on

it

City to

filed again.

mines had completely evapo-

to

sell all

when he made

in Philadelphia

a letter

and had

silver

December, he arranged

in early

waited until he was in

He

I

dream of wealth from

Cope was

offi-

"McGee is very friendly and diploone and how much the other do not

estimate of the printing project.

9

tell

but

a

few shares of his

the arrangements, but

Annie the bad news.

stationery filched from the Smithsonian. "After

went to the Grande

office

&

had

a

talk

with one of the

he wrote. "I found that certain things had occurred in connection

with the company which will put them into tedious time which will use up any

profits that will

litigation for a

be made out of the

ore.

I

long

con-

cluded that the stock would probably become worthless or nearly for

time

at least.

Cope

S.

More

over

I

have not the

money

to pay the assessment."

a

10

recovered a pittance, enough to scrape through the winter, until

his

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

303

congressional appropriation or one of his other stratagems succeeded. If

King had

was any consolation, the brilliant Clarence

no

fared

it

better than

Cope.

The Grand as

managing

Central Mining

director,

get of $750,000.

Company had been

$5 million in stock, and an

That was more than seven times

incorporated with King

initial

development bud-

much

as

as

King had been

given for the U.S. Geological Survey.

But the money was quickly eaten up by technical problems and labor disat the Prietas, Yedras, and Sombrete mines. King went out and got

putes

more money from John Astor

the tobacco magnate Pierre Lorillard, and

II,

Frederick Billings, former president of the Northern Pacific Railway. Additional stock

was sold in Europe

Mining Company. But when Agassiz went

in a venture called the

to the

London, he found the operation

Anglo-Mexican shareholders meeting

common

his directorship. It

most

sense

less

...

I

I

in

see the Yedras

understand the

total

King." In 1877, Agassiz forced King out of

was the beginning of a long and bizarre descent for "the

man of his

brilliant

[in]

"The more

in total chaos.

business," Agassiz wrote Higginson, "the

absence of

Anglo-Mexican

generation" that would end in both mental and

financial collapse.

King's

tale

of woe probably offered no solace for Cope.

more than enough of his own was to seek out

a

new

The

reason

Cope was

publishing house for the Naturalist,

having gone bankrupt

lisher

worries.

— owing Cope

He

had, after in

its

New York

former pub-

four hundred dollars.

things turned bad, they turned horribly bad. For a while,

all,

When

Cope even con-

"He has done more foolish things than Hayden wrote to Leidy. "I have written him to hang on His perpower is nothing, but as long as he [owns] such a journal he will be

sidered abandoning the review. that,"

sonal

—

something of a power." 11

The problem in finding a new publisher was that the magazine never made money. In the past, Cope could offer guarantees to make up

actually

the difference between costs and revenues.

He

was, however,

no longer

in a

position to provide such subsidies. If he could find a sympathetic publisher

willing to take to ante

on the magazine, he would have

to

beg

his friends

and

allies

up the surety money.

So now came

a

time of great hardship.

The Copes moved

into a modest,

once servants' quarters, which sat behind their grand townThey had scraped together enough for another year at Bryn Mawr for Julia. But they could not see what would happen after that. The nineteenth-century Quaker marriage vows did not ask a man and

little

cottage,

house.

MARK

304

woman

one another

to take

Quaker common

that

Edward and Annie sim-

for "richer or poorer."

ply promised be "loving and faithful

death to separate us." 12

A F F E

J

Still,

.

.

until

.

how must Annie

Lord by

shall please the

it

have

felt? If

she maintained

which Cope had married her twenty-two Such a very large fortune,

sense for

years before, she could not help but be dismayed.

and

now

had

tried to thwart

was

it

all

gone.

was probably just such

It

by keeping

the destiny of someone

as

a result

son on the farm. But

his

strong willed,

as

that Alfred

"mule headed"

Cope

hard to bend

it is

borrow Hay-

to

den's description, as Cope. It is difficult

much

life

of a marriage, even when there

In the case of Edward and Annie,

said.

time on there Perhaps

to penetrate the inner

it is

more

is

a hint

business and

less

we know

all

that

is

from

is

this

affection in the letters that remain.

of how things were.

Then again, when one is living hand to mouth, business becomes a good more important. "Mamma says thee is bankrupt & so write thee a brief letter with pay," Cope says to Julia in one letter. "Return to me the deal

I

check for

Annie raise

I

am informed my back account is over drawn," he writes to am afraid thee is short of money and am trying to am trying to sell the casts [of fossils] Jacob is making but have

in another. "I

some.

I

I

not yet succeeded."

Once

again,

Cope pondered

most of the material was

Cope

still

be cleaned and

in crates, waiting to

wasn't even certain precisely what he had to

was of great value. "As to told Annie, "I cannot I

The problem was

selling his fossils.

do

selling

that

my

collection for

with propriety until

I

that

identified.

offer,

although surely

what

it

can

will bring,"

show what

it is,

it

he

and

cannot do without the assistance of Jacob and possibly of thee and Julia to

mend and sense,

and exhibit somewhere.

label

which means thine and Julia's

collection so far as collection

By bill

I

I

can see now. If

will consider it."

the following March,

My

entire future in a financial

so long as she

anyone

will

is

single,

Cope had once

again gotten his appropriations

through the Senate, only to see Representative Randall

Cope continued

&

but

keep It

will give

now J. W.

in

had to be

me

Powel;

with them.

kill it in

He

little

chance. "Prof. Baird

nothing regular yet for awhile. is

has

in

power here

little

totally galling for

It

is

in

some

Cope when

afraid

aspects,"

least,

it

of me

thinks he

Cope

later that year,

Marsh the Smithsonian's chief paleontologist. At

WashingI

did not use to be

& O. C. Marsh, he

backbone

the

relief for 1887.

to pursue his attempts to secure a position in

ton, but he concluded there was

suspect

offer for that

13

House Appropriations Committee. There would be no

so,

depends on that

make me an

must

said.

Baird

14

made

was only an hon-

THE GILDED DINOSAUR orary

and came with neither

title

305

nor resources. Cope simply could

salary

not see that his repeated attacks on Powell

—

a

friend of Baird's

— and

liaison

with Hilary Herbert had turned him into something of

among

scientists in the capital.

Back

in Philadelphia,

Cope

his last refuge.

front door,

shuttered,

looked

The

first

nothing so

like

and the front

pariah

spent long hours amid the clutter of 2102

Pine Street, even sleeping there on

become

a

his

narrow cot many

a

had

nights. This

floor,

behind the heavy wooden, arched

much

as a

parlor, the dining

warehouse.

The windows were

room behind, even

the kitchen

at

the back of the house were piled with crates, boxes, and cases. The basement

was packed with bottles and

of alcohol holding specimens of modern

jars

animals.

A mounted

caribou stood in the front parlor, and scattered through the

house, one could find the femur of the giant Camarasaurus supremus, pulled

from the Colorado Rockies, the nasty talons of the carnivorous Dryptrosaurus clonius.

The

of the Kansas

A

fine layer

plains,

and the

skull

of the Montana horned Mono-

of dust covered everything. 13

stairway led to a narrow second-floor hall connecting

two

front

and

back rooms. The front room was lined with shelves of paper boxes holding the smaller and

more

delicate specimens

of Cope's Argentinean and Texas

collections.

In the back

room, away from the sharp

strike

of iron hooves on cobble-

stones and the shouts of liverymen and teamsters, was Cope's study.

Cope was moved

to

complain to

being driven through the

Mayor Edwin

Stuart,

who

street.

city officials

His protest was answered by Philadelphia

explained apologetically that "city ordinances do

not absolutely prohibit the driving of streets in

A

Still,

about the noise of livestock

cattle,

the busiest sections of the city."

sheep, swine, etc. through the

16

room dominated the study. It a stuffed lynx, a human skull, and assorted fossil bones. Sitting in a cane-backed, swivel desk chair, Cope wrote away, still generating a steady stream of papers on paleontology, herpetology, and huge, square desk in the middle of the

was heaped with papers,

ichthyology.

A

visitor entering the

room when Cope was hard

to take the chair opposite the desk, only to find

books and

it

at

work might be

told

was "piled high" with

periodicals.

Despite, his financial and political woes,

Cope wrote

thirty-five scientific

papers in 1886, fifteen the following year, and sixteen the year after that.

They included

reports

perhead snakes,

a

new

on

subjects as varied as dinosaur breastbones, cop-

sabertooth tiger

fossil

from the Loup Fork beds, the

MARKJAFFE

306

evolution of teeth in rodents, and a comparison

of the pug dog and

the Chi-

huahua dog. 17 Just to the left

of the desk was small

ster circling its glass walls.

By

window

the

chair

sat

Cope

table

liked to feed

"a fernery,"

home

with

it

a

A

as well.

raw eggs and scratch stacks

Cope

of paper and

string.

"Here

had gathered on

I

may be tempted

Cope was

all,

band would go out

to dine at

get a slice of roast beef, lively

case,"

letters,

the notes, the papers he

at

"I

some

was

a

a

marked

and Osborn would drop

contrast to

by,

one of the "odd, half-Bohemian

mince pie and

coffee.

and peppered with amusing anecdotes decade

and the restau-

as

recalled,

The conversations Cope entertained

as

he had done with Sternberg

at

Sunday dinner

earlier.

the meal was done,

Osborn

Street

taken to frequenting. Here for twenty-five cents, they

young scientists, much

Haddonfield

When

the

2102 Pine

indefatigable. Scott

would

in

more precious

hill.

Cope had

the

all

far

accumulated store of Marshiana,"

to publish."

rants"

would be

The

the third floor, Cope's one remaining, loyal employee, Jacob Geis-

Marsh's mansion on the

little

and

enemy. "In these papers," he announced,

his lifelong

mar, lived and worked. All in

Still,

floor

record of Marsh's errors from the very beginning, which

future time

Up on

my

is

he one day told Osborn. Here were

a full

on the

carefully collected as an

But the desk's lower right-hand drawer held something

have

head.

economy.

exercise in

bits

its

mon-

large tortoise crawled across this obstacle course.

desk drawers held the twine and scrap paper

than

Gila

a

to tree frogs and salamanders. Every

was heaped with books and papers. There were

bookcases

vivarium,

"Cope would bring out

"from which he would extract

his venerable cigar a

half-burned

cigar.

This was smoked following our coffee, then replaced in the cigar case for future

reference."

18

While

raised

indulged in both cigars and wines

an

abstemious

—but only

Quaker, Cope

now

to aid digestion.

Somehow, the Copes struggled along. Annie and Julia went to West Falmouth in July. Just a few miles away, in Woods Hole, Spencer Baird was on his deathbed. The sixty-four-year-old Baird had been failing for some time, and

his

doctors had ordered complete

rest,

but he never

rallied

and died

that

summer on Cape Cod. "The death of Prof. Baird has given me sorrow. The Pioneers are dropanxious ping off," Hay den wrote to Leidy in August. "Mrs. Hay den is that your turn may come." Leidy would endure, but before year's end, Hayden himself would be gone. 19 On November 6, 1887, Hayden died at his home in Philadelphia. His .

.

.

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

307

death noticed appeared in the same issue of the Naturalist

many

toil, " the notice contended,

years of

"was

which he succumbed." But

the disease to

Marsh could be blamed

as that

of Oscar

which he had won through

Harger. "His removal from the position

so

on

influential in bringing

nor

in reality, neither Powell

Hayden's demise from the advanced degenera-

for

tion caused by syphilis.

The National Museum and Smithsonian now passed to G. Brown Goode and James Langley, younger men for whom Cope and Marsh and were mostly legendary

their feud

artifacts.

In the

fall, Julia

returned to Bryn

Mawr, although something as basic as the question of her new winter coat became the subject of family correspondence. year, Cope made a short, sad journey to visit one Mary Cope. He had been so fond of Mary that years

Toward the end of the of his later

closest relatives,

Osborn would suspect

that she

prompted young Cope's European

had been the love

trip. (Julia

would

had

interest that

insist that

wasn't

so.)

Cousin Mary," Cope wrote to Julia. "I found room expecting her death. Of all my relatives, except my own family, have loved Mary Cope the best. ... can only say "Yesterday,

the family

went

I

to see

in her

all

.

.

.

I

how is.

very glad

was

I

She cannot

would be nice

if

Increasingly discussions

that

live long,

I

went,

I

how sweet

Cope confided

over

Parker's

an extra exercise for thee got

may come

at

how happy

she

any time. ...

It

thee could see her." 20

Now,

in Julia.

Zoology

and

Medusae. Sometimes Cope would write

how

her talk was and

indeed her death

Julia,

on with the

chatty letter written to "a

father

and daughter were

monograph on

Haeckel's his letters in

in

the

French or German

an extra bond between them. "I haven't heard

Cope mentions in a Bryn Mawr," and offers, "If thee

osteological examination!"

young

comes

lady at

can give thee one!" 21

wants

a

Cope

pushed, urged, cajoled, and cheered his daughter through the most

quiz before

demanding of

studies

and yet despite jects,

it

his

—

off,

I

analytical chemistry, physics, foreign languages

admiration and belief that she could master these sub-

he remained an unreconstructed male chauvinist and opponent of

women's

rights.

In an article in Popular Science Monthly, titled

Government," Cope argued,

"Woman

is

"The Relation of Sexes

not only restrained by her repro-

ductive functions from taking the same active part in the world's

man; but what

is

more important she

to

life as

inherits a greater disability

does

from

MARK

308

the

.

.

.

J

\ F F E

countless generation's of man's animal ancestors. This nature

thoroughly ingrained, and

as

is

permanent

as

is

any other part of her organ-

ism.

Men tally

were more

and could deal with more physically and men-

rational

taxing situations. Mental strain in a

perament.

Cope maintained

woman

leads to a hysterical

these were simply facts and reasons

should not have the right to vote. Besides, there were also the

tem-

women

political

and

social implications.

How

would a woman vote? Either she would merely follow the lead of the dominant male in her household, making such a vote meaningless, or she would vote in opposition of her husband or father, causing "unpleasant consequences."

"No man would view daughter nullifying tion

Opposed

to

they republished

Woman it

with equanimity the spectacle of

Cope warned. The New York

his vote,"

in

his wife

or

State Associa-

Suffrage was so impressed by Cope's article that

pamphlet form. 22

Studies, "scientific" studies,

were physical and mentally

had already turned up evidence that

inferior to

advanced and simply lacked

as

men. They were

less

women

evolutionary

highly developed faculties. For example,

work pioneered by Philadelphia physician and scientist George Samuel Morton in the 1830s, and then advanced by French anatomist Paul Broca in the 1860s, clearly showed that women had smaller brains, and as everyone knew, brain

size correlated

with intelligence. But Harvard paleontologist and

many of Morton's

science historian Stephen Jay

Gould

experiments, and in doing

he revealed chronic errors and glaring omis-

sions,

which Gould

so,

actually re-created

attributes to social bias.

(Morton, for example, never

adjusted his measurements of skull cavities for size and weight, and since

women

are

would be

on average

smaller than

men,

it

stands to reason their skulls

smaller.)

In reality, what was going on was finding "facts," just like Owen and Huxley did with bones, that would buttress a particular point of view, dressing up opinion and prejudice as science. "Conclusions came first and

Broca's conclusions were the shared assumptions of most successful white

males during

his

time

— themselves on top by

the

good fortune of nature,

and women, blacks and poor people below," Gould

said.

23

of science would have equally pernicious impact on the debates over race and class and turn Cope's neo-Lamarckian evolution into a loathsome, evil exercise rather than a kinder and gentler

These

attitudes

substitute for the

science

would

and

this sort

Darwinian

struggle.

find a comfortable

It

home

wasn't surprising that such a inside Philadelphia's circle.

racist

THE GILDED DINOSAUR But Cope made no apologies and voiced

"We

have too

many

incapable voters now,

309

opposition even to

his

to give suffrage to

all

Julia.

women

would be to increase the numbers very greatly," he wrote. "... If all women's privileges based on her sex were taken away, & she was reduced to the level of man in ordinary affairs, she would find the road a hard one to too hard for her lesser powers.

travel;

"As

.

.

recent English physician said,

a

Shakespeare themselves they have and Shakespeare.

what

is

Now

doing

I

must close on the

.

they cannot be

if

may

a

Bacon or

a

a

Bacon or

a

again produce

woman

question. Write and

tell

me

Biology and Chemistry." 24

in

Later that year, Origin of the

reached the bookstores, adding fuel to the

Fittest

newest debate over evolution.

By

this time, there

—

was

little

question

—

at least

that evolution was a fact. The likes of Louis Wagner were now gone dead or simply defeated. The new debate focused on the mechanisms and implications of evolution. Many scientists, like Cope or Germany's Haeckel, accepted the

community

in the scientific

—

Agassiz and Andreas

process but rejected Darwin's "natural selection" force.

They

In the nineteenth-century spirit that

some

the sole evolutionary

as

believed there was direction and progress in evolution.

races

were more

win's theory did not shake.

fit

and

The

of imperialism,

clearly superior.

it

It

was an

article

was one idea

of faith

that

Dar-

age of the world might change, the process

by which animals were created might be

different,

but the inherent and

inherited superiority of some over others endured. logical that humans would be at the top of the evolutionary humans drew up the ladder. And it was only logical that at the very top would be white Indo-European men, since they were the particular humans drawing up the scheme. It

was only

ladder, since

So convinced of Europe

their superiority

conversation. Consequently,

it is

coming

It

as laborers,

was

a

American West or

that

saw

it

was

a different era,

as

good

with

as

men of America and and

politics

"new phase of Aryan

after visiting California, "I

to pass in the

remark to Marsh

work, their

their idle

not surprising that Powell would

"Arid Region" study speaking of

here

were the white

that this attitude suffused their

seeing

a bit

a different sense

Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most could say he "would rather address

start his

civilization"

Alexander Agassiz would a lot

of Japs

.

.

.

who came

of Japan."

of what was

politically correct.

progressive politicians of the time, a

Methodist audience than any

MARK

310

other.

.

.

.

The Methodists

Catholic Church

Even exhort

a

women

Stanton

open

may have

for

men, but when the clear to

them who was

Gould

.

.

"is a

always a reflection of

its

society, his closed circle.

Cady Stanton would

really the fittest.

That science would

door

were seeking is

simply affirm what

facts to

neither surprising nor limited to the

social-embedded

times.

offer proofs

activity,"

he maintains and

So these were Cope's times

is

— and Cope's

26

was that evolution theory was adapted to explain and

was "social Darwinism." At

wealth and power were multiplying

were

sions of robber barons

rising

cold-water slums seethed on the

buttress

The most immewhen disparities of with numbing speed, when the maneconomic

host of social, political, religious, and

diate incarnation

The

.

Sambo."

argues that this

Gilded Age. Science

a

rights like Elizabeth

inevitable. In reality, they

result

class.

women were ready to take an equal place alongmen of the day turned to pondering evolution, it

felt

side

The

middle

great

to seize the vote, pressing "through the constitutional

it is

they believed.

the

suited to this country." 25

women's

was

seemed

represent

no way

in

crusader for

moment

the

is

A F F E

J

New

on

a

beliefs.

time

York's Fifth Avenue, while

city's eastside,

and when

local millers

and

butchers were being put out of business by the combination of railroads, Pillsbury's grain rollers,

and Swift's refrigeration

assured the populace that this was not only the for the best.

all

allowed to

fall

cars, social

in fact

Those who could not keep up with "progress" must be

by the wayside.

"Fostering the good for nothing

the expense of the

at

extreme cruelty," warned Herbert Spencer, the English foremost promoter of social Darwinism. first

Darwinism

way of the world but

coined the phrase

It

good

is

social theorist

was Spencer, not Darwin,

an

and

who

survival of the fittest.

America's most articulate proponent of the

new

hardheartedness was

Graham Sumner, the nation's first profes"What do the rich owe the poor?" had a simple answer: "Nothing." Life was an endless struggle among unequals, according to Sumner, and "hard work and self denial" were the only tools that could advance "the welfare of man on Earth." Marsh's Yale colleague, William

sor of sociology. Sumner's essay,

It is

not surprising that the great

this view. "I

remember

that light

Andrew Carnegie wrote of his rid

capitalists

came

first

of the day rushed to embrace

in as in a flood

and

all

was

clear,"

reading of Spencer. "Not only had I got

of theology and the supernatural, but

I

had found the truth of evolu-

tion."

And John

D. Rockefeller was to argue,

"The American Beauty

rose can

THE GILDED DINOSAUR be produced in

its

311

splendor and fragrance only by sacrificing the early buds

which grow up around

it.

This

is

not an

tendency in business.

evil

merely the working-out of a law of nature and

a

But what Cope and the neo-Lamarckians brought

meaner and more

ultimately something

that way. If life

was

to the debate

moving

chain of evolution,

it

direction,

with mammals the highest expression of animal

highest expression of

mammals, then there had

species, such as the

These blacks

—

and

man

much more

the

to be intermediate stages lesser

Negro.

transitional aspects

so

was

in a particular

life,

between man and animal. For Cope, these were represented by

human

is

vicious, although they certainly

didn't see

a

It

law of God."

could be traced in the jaws and limbs of

"We

of Aryans.

apelike than those

all

admit the exis-

we now find Cope wrote in an

tence of lower and higher races, the latter being those which to present greater or lesser approximation to the apes," article for Lippincott's

belong to the negro

magazine.

in his

most

"The typical

peculiar structural characters that

form

are the kind,

however great

may be the distance of his remove there from. The flattening of the nose. The prolongation of the jaws constitute such a resemblance." 27 In Origin of the Fittest, Cope went even further, arguing that looking at the physiognomy of the principal human subspecies, the Negro, the Mongolian, and the Indo-European "we can readily observe that in the first two named there is a predominance of the quadrumanous [apelike] features which are retarded in man." 28 Cope goes on to argue that "some of these features have a purely physical significance, but the majority of them are •

.

.

.

intimately connected with development of the mind."

Cope was

certain that the

distinct in character

Negro was "a

from the Caucasian

are

lower white ethnic groups, such

as

—

as

accustomed to recognize

today in other departments of the animal kingdom."

Caucasian and the Negro were intermediates

Homo

of the genus

species

we

as

29

the

And between

the true

Mongol; the

Slav; the

the Irish, Jews, Italians.

They were

all

arranged in progressive order, culminating in the Creator's most brilliant expression

—

the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant man. Wasn't

What was species

the

were primitive and

Negro

ape to

surely obvious

were the implications

limited.

It

would be

as

to excel like an advanced Caucasian as

the trees like

live in

a

chimpanzee.

It

Their biology determined and limited their Part of this was a variation of the old

These lower

a stage

obvious?

These sub-

unreasonable to expect

it

would be

to expect an

simply was not in their nature. capacities.

German

races exhibited childlike aspects

development,

it

for society.

of the

recapitulation theory. early stages

of human

out of which they never outgrew. This was, to some

— M A R K

312

degree, Cope's argument for

Doubtless,

Cope would

a villain for his tific

works

are

also.

have been shocked to be considered

views. This was after

all

just science.

devoid of any race baiting or

Cope saw them.

facts, as

women

A F F E

J

bigot and

They were simply

the

message was unpalatable, the messenger was

If the

Of course,

not to be blame.

slurs.

a

true that his scien-

It is

Cope, himself, saw nothing wrong with the

message.

A

few years

European"

later,

for the

broader audience,

however,

Cope would

write

magazine Open Court. Perhaps this

was

a

"Two

much more inflammatory

remained "mentally undeveloped," Cope warned, and ence posed

a threat.

White

of the Indo-

Perils

in an effort to appeal to a

The Negro

piece.

his

continued pres-

society was faced with carrying "eight million of

dead material." Material that had to be kept

apart.

Mixing the

races

was

a

recipe for disaster.

"The

highest race of man cannot afford to lose or even

advantages

mingling

it

its

compromise the

has acquired by hundreds of centuries of toil and hardship, by

blood with the lowest," Cope wrote. "...

We

cannot cloud or

extinguish the fine nervous susceptibility, and mental force, which cultivation develops in the constitution of the Indo-European, by the flesh instinct,

and dark mind of the African." 30

Just look at the imagery.

The white

race had risen by hardship and

while blacks had wallowed in their dark thoughts and carnal

instincts.

was not science. Whites were not only physically superior but so.

The

gated.

the

— should

also

immigration

be limited.

keep the

his best to

It

of lower white

a story that

groups

he had heard

Cope and Marsh

for use in an essay

had borne the child of

conceived with

a

a

trying to run

he was calling "The Inadthat after a

white

Negro, subsequent offspring, even

when

white man, had "traces of black blood." This, Spencer

heard, had

been "repeatedlv" observed.

something

like scientific

know South who did. 31 The understanding of

didn't

for

was for the good of society. Cope was

equacy of Natural Selection." At question were reports

woman

—Jews,

circle closed.

In 1893, Herbert Spencer wrote to both

down

morally

solution was clear. Blacks ought to go back to Africa or be segreSimilarly,

instance

doing

also

toil,

This

i-ification,"

"I

should

anything perhaps one or the other

be able to give

like to

he explained.

If

knew

Cope

or Marsh

a scientist in

heredity and environment was

all

the

very fuzzy

despite Darwin's best efforts, and the fact that twenty-eight years earlier

Gregor Mendel had published

his

groundbreaking

— but

largely ignored

studies on heredity. For example, Alexander Graham Bell wrote Cope

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

313

querying under what conditions profoundly deaf people could be bred to create a "a deaf variety

of the human race."

Surely,

it

had to be

though the majority of the children of the deaf had the

As odious

as

further. Haeckel, along

and philosophers, created Darwinismus

The

32

were the implications of neo-Lamarckian progressivism, the

Germans went even science.

even

possible,

ability to hear?

—

a

German

with other

movement

naturalists

closer to religion than

core belief was another variation of recapitulation theory

development of the individual follows and

—

the

the history of the

illustrates

33

race.

But by refining the species or a

"master race," and the

Germany

view

that "politics

is

Haeckel explained,

race,

few decades,

vated and perfected. In

this

Nazi's

would

it

could be ele-

of a

translate to the idea

would solemnly quote Haeckel's

applied biology."

For the Germans, the struggle for survival came not only in the compe-

among

tition

species, but

even

among

political

organisms such

as nations.

This competition, of course, was called war.

Such armed

Von Bernard would argue

conflict,

War, was "not merely

a

in

necessary element in the

indispensable factor of culture, in

which

fittest.

of

a truly civilized

highest expression of strength and vitality." struggle of the survival of the

Germany and

life

Next

but an

nation finds the

Here was the ultimate

All this

the

a nation,

test in

the

from Charles Darwin ponder-

ing the finches of the Galapagos Islands.

may seem, returned

In the early

months of 1888, Cope,

Washington

for a third try at getting an appropriation to publish his

incredible as

it

to

Hay-

Lamar was gone. Cope was now dealing with William F. Vilas, the fourth interior secretary in nine years. But Powell was still at the survey, and Randall was still running the House Appropriations Committee. den

studies.

In February, the

with

a

new

first

edition of the

"new" American Naturalist appeared, Osborn and other Cope sup-

publisher and fresh backing from

porters. "It looks very well,

I

think,

and the papers better than heretofore,"

he told Julia.

The

story in Washington, however,

was the same. In

his first eight days in

He made the House Ways and Means as a representative for the AAAS, lobbying to remove the duty on imported scientific books and apparatus. But it wasn't all hard work. No, once again, the

city,

Cope

tried three times to see Vilas,

rounds on Capitol

Hill.

He

without success.

also paid a visit at the

even the financially beleaguered

Cope was

ready to

flirt

with the

ladies.

MARKJAFFE

314

room with

"I

"He

daughter. visits

Dr. Spencer a

good

&

style

only two that were

She

is

thing.

than

I

may remember," Cope

man, and

&

ladies are single

are,

really well

of Probasco

about thy

thee

I

some married, and they

size

who

having few aspirations in that

informed

are

told his

have done considerable

kind, but not oppressed with intelligence.

which some of these

relation

who

deal of a society

Some of the

with him.

of a good girls,

is

from Cincinnati; one of them

gave the bronze fountain that so adorns that

& only

16! but she

is

are

The southern direction. The

studying and really

a

city.

knows somefar more

was pleased with her unsophisticated ways, which please or

flirtations

artificial

assumed manners of the average society

woman. »»14 -

As the days

Cope became

passed,

"feel like giving

it

who

and had no time to deal with

he would give

it

and began to

up." Finally, three weeks after arriving in Washington, he

got his interview with Vilas, issue

increasingly frustrated

Cope he knew nothing about the If Powell recommended it, however,

told it.

serious attention.. "I concluded that

my

chance of finish-

work for the Hayden Survey is very slim!" he told Julia. Cope went and had lunch with Powell, who was polite, but said he simply couldn't get Vilas interested. The major, however, proposed publishing some of the work under the new survey provided Cope gave a set of fossils to the National Museum. "This will be a good beginning," Cope wrote feel much relieved. This will not, to Julia, "& he proposes to pay a salary. however, commence until July. Between now & then am 'short.' It was a difficult spring. Cope didn't think he would be able to manage to send Annie and Julia to West Falmouth for the summer until he hit upon the idea of taking in a pair of boarders at six to eight dollars a week each. ing the Still,

I

I

Julia

was able to find some classmates interested

"I feel

I

can hold on

a

while longer yet

if

I

in the offer.

can get the

money

I

asked for

from the Bache Fund of the U.S. National Academy, by the time spent that

I

suspect that Whitaker Wright's

he advised Annie shells."

in

May.

"I

may

sell

new mines

will

I

have

begin to pay,"

one of the duplicate collection of

36

did not know was that Wolcott Gibbs, who was one of the Bache Fund, established by the academy to promote original trustees of the Marsh of research, immediately informed the president of the academy

What Cope

—

the application.

—

37

Simon Newcomb would get a fifteen-hundred-dollar grant from the Bache Fund to study astronomy, and Powell would get one for twelve hundred dollars to drill a deep mine shaft to measure subsurface temperatures. There would, however, be no grant for Cope. Nor would Whitaker's min-

ULDEI) DINOSAUR

Tilt

ing stocks pay

New

off.

Museum

following month, the American

The

315

of Natural History

in

York City passed on a Cope proposal that they hire him and purchase "As this is the second time they have done that, I think I can

his collections.

38 consider the place definitely out of the question," he wrote.

While Annie and Julia spent the summer

in

West Falmouth, Cope was on

Block Island running down reports of the sightings of a giant "sea serpent,"

which he suspected was nothing more than

would change

in the

fall,

but

at

the

improved

when in

&

hope

I

A sad state

in the country.

do

will have to

I

"The

I

had

— she would get

plan herself

a

New

financial position has not

have no word from Powell yet

town," he wrote to Julia from Washington Julia

prospects in

of affairs for one of the most

possible things to get through the winter,

all

better times arrive.

large eel. Perhaps things

moment, Cope had no

York, Philadelphia, or Washington.

prominent paleontologists

a

a

in

as

he

not

is

September. 39

job.

Cope

agreed to ask the

publisher of the Naturalist to see if he had anything that might be "agreeable,"

and

retary.

So much

that

fall

Cope's daughter prepared to switch from student to sec-

weaker sex not being able to deal with adversity and

for the

stress.

But

now

"Learned

into Cope's inexhaustible optimism crept a strain of bitterness.

he was to conclude, were "largely

societies,"

sional failures,

and the

shifty disciples

filled

with profes-

of personal expediency."

humor took on a rancorous tone. In a parody of a scientific article, titled "Some Points in the Zoology and Geology of Glycaphutal," by Robert Ramrod, Cope wrote of a mythical Caribbean island inhabited by Even

a

his

These Petromogli,

race largely without backbones.

species, ate sugar

and went around

in

as

together so they could support each other's spineless bodies. this

gelatinous state

.

.

,"

.

he wrote,

he called the

groups of three or four slumped

"is that

"The

result

of

they are continually engaged in

taking care of their feelings." There were a few individuals with spines

on

the island, but they were outcasts. "These

by

the others," he wrote,

and

interfere

"who

backboned people

are apparently jealous

are disliked

of them, and obstruct

with them in almost every possible way." 40

In the spring of 1888, the British paleontologist Richard Lydekker

unwittingly inflamed old

paper

"Icthyosauria

and

wounds an ocean away when he published

Pleisauria."

Somehow

Lydekker had

a

his

copy of

Cope's Elasmosaurus paper, with the head on the wrong end. Cope had tried to

buy them

all

up, but at least

one had managed

to

make

it all

the

way

to England.

In the August issue of the Naturalist,

Cope once

again tried to stamp out

M

316

A R k

A F F E

J

the old error, insisting Lydekker had misquoted

Am.

appears in the Transactions of the

him and

Phil. Soc.

"no such

that

plate

or in any other society."

This, of course, was technically true.

The

subterfuge, however, troubled Leidy, and in the

Marsh asking

we know

"This

his thoughts.

wrote of Cope's contentions, "or pointed out the error

.

.

.

he wrote to

fall,

to be virtually false," Leidy

so only in the fact that after

is

Cope managed

to get possession

I

had

of most of the

copies of the original Transaction."

What concerned truth.

one copy," Leidy If it

destroy it

now were

said.

"...

the few remaining copies that told the

originals. "I have, as I

have

a

mind

you no doubt remember,

my

to present

copy to the Eco-

of London or to the British Museum. What do you think of

logical Society it?

Leidy

Marsh had two of the

may come into the possession of some one who may it. The librarian of the Academy tells me that the copy presented to

remains here

it

was stolen." 41

to be no relief yet in sight. Cope was workon his newest project a paleontology manual while still huntsome permanent position.

As 1889 opened, there seemed

—

ing away ing for

former governor, and

California's

Stanford

—

now

the state's U.S. senator, Leland

was preparing to use some of the wealth he amassed

Jr.,

building of the Central Pacific Railroad to fund is

looking for

to look in at

Cope

a

a

Street if he wants one!"

University, in Worcester, Massachusetts. it.

this

is

In the meantime, dollars to pay the

not settled," he

at

I

Rhoads, the president of Bryn have thy

letter.

new Clark hold much hope in

the brand

But did not

such

a

person to

live at

said.

on

his

suppose," he wrote.

For her part, Julia had received an offer of

"I

him

scrambling to

interest

do not know where it is to and then only get a part of it

an offer in which she took

advised

come up with five hundred two Philadelphia townhouses. "I come from, but I shall have to do some begging

Cope was

mortgage

I

he told Julia.

"I suspect the University will require

Worcester, but

in the

university. "Stanford

president for his big university in California.

2102 Pine

inquired after a "scholarship" position

obtaining

new

Mawr

much

Mamma

and

a

employment from James

family acquaintance.

It

was not

relish.

has explained matters to

me

Cope told Julia in May. "The and not choice. Were it not for this I could find

and

I

have been

one

thinking over the question,"

situation

of necessity

thee more con-

is

THE GILDED DINOSAUR and not more confining employment, but

genial

sidered

317

present $ have to be con-

at

first.

"...

have some reason to anticipate that next winter the finances will

I

look up, but

as this

is

too uncertain to rely on, there

Rhoads proposition mentally

accept Dr.

at least.

is

nothing to do but

And when he

longer for an answer, and nothing has turned up meanwhile, accepts."

42

Meanwhile, Cope was being considered

for a spot at the Smithsonian, but

and reputation weighed against him.

history

alas his

no him thee

will wait

tell

"I

am

almost brought

to the reluctant decision not to offer the Curatorship of Reptilia to Profes-

Cope,

sor

who

is

wrote to Goode

beyond

—

other

all

in a letter

There was no question

men

so eminently fitted for

marked "private and

that

Cope's

it,"

Langley

confidential."

"scientific abilities rise to genius,"

said. The problem was his brawls and behavior. "I think that if ProCope were connected with the Museum in some way which would oblige him to recognize that there were certain rules laid down for him, as to what he was to do, and more particularly, as to what he was not to

Langley fessor

do

.

.

something might perhaps be done." But nothing ever was. 43

.

That

spring,

Marsh ran

for reelection as president

of Sciences. There was, however, chair,

He

it

a

of the National Academy

general feeling that after six years in the

was time for him to step down. Cope led the campaign against him.

was promoting the candidacy of mathematician Benjamin Gould,

although some

members

vituperative that

"He

preferred Wolcott Gibbs.

caused

it

Vindication'

is

what

"You 1

it, is

see that the Natl.

know of 5

against him.

Such

or 6

is

and Marsh managed to

Vindication.'

as

But Cope's

Why

stranger

Academy

still,"

Cope wrote

disgraced

attack

was so

retain the gavel.

he should think he needs

do not understand, and why sage

I

should want him to have

to 13.

a backlash,

sought re-election

44

physicists etc.

his daughter.

itself again.

The

4 "*

vote was 22

men whom remained away who would

have voted

the cowardice of certain specimens of alleged man," he

complained to Osborn. 46 In the

fall,

to finish his

Cope went

to

Washington yet again seeking an appropriation

Hayden work. Times were

increasingly desperate.

publisher of the Naturalist $455, but had only

you give

me

a

lift

with

this difficulty?"

managed

He owed

to raise $45.

the

"Can

he inquired of Osborn, adding,

"Sorry to have to ask." In October, he faced another five-hundred-dollar

mortgage payment. In late 1889,

Cope

finally

obtained

the University of Pennsylvania.

Now,

if

he could only get

his

The

a

teaching appointment in geology

salary

at

was modest, but dependable.

Hayden papers

published, perhaps his finan-

MARK

318

cial

nightmare would,

Cope

after three

hard years, be over.

prepared to deal with his

Noble. As had

secretary of the interior,

fifth

Noble

his predecessors,

A F F E

J

been dealing with Cope and

time, Powell had

must surely have seemed to him

years.

It

crafty

Powell adopted

a

new

John W.

referred the matter to Powell.

By

his publishing hassles for

that

it

this

nine

would never end. So the

tack.

In a letter to Noble, Powell outlined the history of Cope's manuscripts

pointing out that based on Cope's Bible,

it

time and an expenditure of not

years'

remaining work

— not counting

would "require twelve

"The make but a

the cost of engraving and printing.

estimate of $3,800 mentioned in Professor Cope's letters will

warned Noble.

small beginning," Powell

But Powell did not

to fifteen

than $60,000" to publish the

less

leave

it

he struck right

there,

upon which

ing that the "collections

Professor

at

Cope's heart, charg-

Cope was working were

of the government. The extent of the collection

chiefly the property

is

unknown. "Before sending an estimate to Congress for the completion of the work

recommends

the director

ernment

now Museum

collections

to the National

On December of Powell's tion,"

that Professor

United

at

that the

gov-

Washington," Powell wrote.

at

Noble

sent a letter to Cope, along with a copy

letter to the secretary.

Following Powell's "reasonable sugges-

16, 1889,

Noble directed Cope

Museum

Cope be informed

hands in Philadelphia should be transferred

in his

Washington,

States."

as

I

to "place the collections in the National

understand them to be the property of the

47

After the ravages of the 1880s, Cope's entire professional and financial

hinged on that collection, and Powell was trying to take

most serious

threat

Cope had

ever faced.

"Major Powell never 'understood erty of the government.' assertion to this effect

attempt to rob me. In $75,000, which

United

Powell's aim, researchers.

lege,

is

my

.

.

.

this collection

known

it

away. This was the

it

immediately wrote Noble.

was chiefly the prop-

the contrary for

many years and

his

an attempt to deceive Your Excellency and an last letter

I

wrote that

becomes

its

to

me

this collection

had cost

me

by the government of the

property."

Cope said, was to prevent him from besting the survey's "One of those men, Professor O. C. Marsh, of Yale Col-

now engaged

science.

is

has

sum must be refunded

States before

own

He

He

life

in duplicating that

work

in a

way

that

is

disgraceful to

"48

This was war, and

them war

— an

if

all-out,

Powell and Marsh wanted war, well

no-holds-barred war.

Cope would give

Chapter Nineteen

war with Marsh forever seemed to be throwing him into bad company be it his sympathy for Columbus Delano or his collaboration with Hilary Herbert. Now it Cope's

—

would make Cope

Worse than gogue, Ballou was

conspirator with William Hosea Ballou.

a

crooked bureaucrat or

either a

political

The world of the Gilded Age newspaper was

a

rough one, populated by

the penny- press, the Police Gazette, yellow journalism, crusading

and imperious

ers,

all else,

was to

and Hearst. The goal here, above

press lords like Pulitzer

newspapers. This was

a

muckrak-

world

that didn't put

much

stock

or for that matter the truth.

in civility

"An

sell

dema-

a journalist.

morning "would have been one ideal

edition

.

," a critic

.

.

wrote of the Hearst papers,

which the Prince of Wales had gone into vaudeville, Queen Victoria had married her cook, the Pope had issued an encyclical favoring free love France had declared war on Germany, the in

.

.

.

President of the United States had secured a divorce in order to marry the

Dowager Empress of China verted to Christianity Still,

Cope saw

wrong

is

doing

it,"

to

it

all

and the Sultan of Turkey had been con-

press

as his final field

gun

&

"When

of battle.

bludgeon

popular-science

it

was Ballou

articles.

lector with delusions

&

is

a

great

—

as his

who would

better. Ballou

He

said that

be

his

was, as

his

and

redress

champion. Once again,

a freelance journalist, a

one biographer put

of grandeur."

own

was

Cope sought

it,

"a

writer of

mushroom

col-

2

entry in Wlw's

Wlw showed

—

a habit

of making

he had attended Northwestern University and the

University of Pennsylvania, but neither school had any record of him. said

He

Law School, but member an 1884 Arc-

he had received an honorary degree from the Chicago

there's tic

a

medium of

the best and most Christian

is

in the daily press that

Cope could have chosen

He

.

1

vengeance, and

things up.

.

replaces the shot

said. "It

was here

Ballou had

.

these being 'scoops.'

the newspaper page

be righted, the he

improvement."

So

—

no record of that,

either.

rescue expedition, but there

He is

listed

no

himself as

a

indication he was there. This was the

319

— M

320

man who was Ballou and

to

tell

Cope's

A R K

A F F E

J

story.

Cope had met some time

and the journalist knew of

before,

the feud with Marsh. Doubtless, Ballou had offered to

Cope now took up drawer and gave customer," but

it

He removed

that offer.

to the journalist.

moment,

at that

Ballou quickly cobbled together

around to the major York Times passed Herald bought

it.

on

Cope knew

that's just a

the

tell

tale,

was "a rough

that Ballou

what he was looking

for.

long expose and shopped the

New York papers

in late

article

December of 1889. The New

New York

the article, so did the

and

the Marshiana from his desk

Sun, but the

New York

Now Cope's descent into the journalistic netherworld was

complete.

The

Herald was one of the original penny-press newspapers, aimed

emerging working-class readership. The newspaper thrived on equal breaking news

Herald reporters were experts

send dispatches

— and

sensationalism.

It

using the

at

was the Herald

new

parts

a

become

the

New

that sent

Henry M.

By

Weeks

cast

only

disparaging glance

a

was coming. The

a

reporter to the

New York Times

community knew

that

had tipped everyone off when they sent

American Geological

check out the allegations

New

way.

its

before the story went to press, the scientific

it

the

York's circulation leader, with

readership of nearly eighty thousand, even though upper-class

Yorkers would

of

telegraph to

Stanley in search of the missing African missionary, David Livingston.

1860s, the newspaper had

the

at

Society's

December meeting

Among

in Ballou's article.

those

at

to

the meeting '

Newberry, and Arnold Hague of the U.S. Geologic^' The reporter was told this was "an old controversy, and a very deplorable

were

one

Hall,

[that]

has

been thoroughly investigated by the National Academy of

Sciences and has been discredited." the story was around, and

He went

to

Times might not be interested, but

Marsh quickly learned what was

week of 1890, he was hard demanding

The

at

work

up.

By

the

first

trying to stop publication.

William Pepper, president of the University of Pennsylvania,

that

Cope withdraw

this "libelous" article

was leading an ambitious expansion of the

or be

university,

departments including the coeducation! School of Biology. part of his expansion, but

now Pepper found

Cope-Marsh web. There was no tactic Marsh would not

fired.

Pepper

adding thirteen

Cope had been

himself entangled in the

use to stop the story.

The word was

that Pepper had himself been involved in a blackmailing case, and Marsh

threatened to

air that

scandal if the university president did not silence

Cope.

"Marsh has made

a

dead

set

on Pepper

.

.

.

,"

Cope wrote

to

Osborn on

THE GILDED DINOSAUR January

"so

5,

& yields

frightened

my

secure

as [to]

resignation or expulsion. Pepper

everything to him.

The two

they are pretty sure to get the article published.

my

effort to prevent

"What Marsh

come train

I

need

is

being

some

him with

fills

lies

321

'retired'

are It

making such

is

terribly

a fuss that

will require considerable

from the University.

.

.

.

credible person to inform Pepper as to the facts.

&

soon

to Philadelphia very

word I say. Can you Osborn dutifully took the

Pepper does not believe

—

say tomorrow.

"3

a

from Princeton to Philadelphia and spoke to Pepper, relieving

at least

some of the anxiety. The Herald also heard about Marsh's threats and warned Pepper that he would have "cause to regret" any attempt to interwith Cope's freedom of speech. Poor Pepper was trapped. 4 Cope's

fere

position at

Penn was

safe,

and Ballou's

article

was

just days

away from

hit-

ting the streets.

On

Sunday morning, January

cornucopia of news to the headlined

South

12, 1890, the

New York

There was

city.

a story

Herald offered

daily

from South Carolina,

"The Genesis of the Negro Exodus" explaining

now abandoned by

its

that blacks in the

and

their carpetbagging, white, northern friends

facing increasingly hostile local whites were contemplating

a

return to

"The intelligent Negro realizes that he is considered an interloper The fact that he was unwillingly brought does not change the fact,"

Africa. here.

the article stated.

There was

Town"

also

— which

told

a

fashion

report

— "Frocks

of a Russian princess

zling outfit with a green satin skirt, a corsage

green velvet sleeves.

But biggest story

on pages 10 and

11,

The ensemble

—

in the

paper

under

a

and Gowns from

who went to

the theater in

daz-

of green spangles, and dark-

3 giving her the allure of a mermaid.

at least in

the

number of columns

cascade of headlines that read:

WAGE BITTER WARFARE PROF. COPE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENN SCIENTISTS

SYLVANIA BRINGS SERIOUS CHARGES AGAINST DIRECTOR POWELL AND PROF.

Paris a

MARSH OF THE GEO

LOGICAL SURVEY

— was

MARK

322

J

A F F E

CORROBORATION IN PLENTY LEARNED MEN COME TO THE PENNSYLVANIAN'S SUPPORT WITH ALLEGATIONS OF IGNORANCE PLAGIARISM AND INCOMPETENCE AGAINST THE ACCUSED OFFICIALS IMPORTANT COLLATERAL ISSUE

THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, OF WHICH PROFESSOR MARSH IS PRESIDENT, IS CHARGED WITH BEING PACKED IN THE INTEREST OF THE SURVEY RED HOT DENIALS PUT FORTH HEAVY BLOWS DEALT IN ATTACK AND DEFENSE AND LOTS OF HARD NUTS PROVIDED FOR SCIENTIFIC DIGESTION

WILL CONGRESS INVESTIGATE? So there

was out

it

in the

open

fight

between Cope and Marsh

days.

Oh,

it

It

—

also

a full

had

daily press, but

was not

—

the meanspirited

now

it

was

all

official

a little

something past a

here

New

extra, the

hyperbole of William Hosea Ballou.

volcano has been slumbering under the Geologi-

and of late there have been indications

far distant,"

if it

at

over the streets of

Ballou told his readers.

that the time for eruption

"Now

it

long pent-up forces have gained their freedom with

which,

little

had been going on since Bridger Basin

page in the Herald with portraits of Cope, Marsh, and Powell.

'Tor some time cal Survey,

everyone to see

that

had laced the pages of science journals and been hinted

and there in the

York

for

has arrived and the a

rush and

a roar

does not indeed carry the present management of the survey to

destruction, will certainly disturb the entire scientific world of

America, and bring

in

its

train a series

of charges and counter charges,

THE GILDED DINOSAUR which

recriminations and reproaches

will ring

323

from one end of the land

to

the other."

The

charges, the article noted, "covered a great deal of ground."

were, in

two decades. As

nearly

for Powell,

Geological Survey into

machine

They

grab bag of all the accusations and complaints gathered over

fact, a

political

was alleged

it

he had turned the U.S.

that

on

"gigantic politico-scientific monopoly, run

a

methods."

was

It

machine so

a

large

and unwieldy

that

it

was out of control.

The

was giving Marsh

survey, according to the article,

thousand dollars

a year, plus a salary

ontology division. But

this

of four thousand

a

budget of sixty

dollars to

run the pale-

simply wasn't about science. No, in return for the

money, Powell received the prestige of Yale College and control of the National

Academy of Sciences.

For these advantages, Powell was ignoring Marsh's behavior, which included destroying specimens out west to prevent any other researchers

from obtaining them and sequestering else

could see

it.

his assistants to

shortchanging villain, a cad,

Marsh was

his

and

employees on their federal

it

skill

and

intellect

of

the same time, he was

salaries. All in

all,

Marsh was

a

warned of Professor Marsh's doings Marsh's usefulness he would long ago

sufficiently

"He has had faith that Marsh's would somehow pull things through."

article stated.

connection with Yale College

were

at

a plagiarist.

have gotten rid of him," the

this

New Haven so no one

in

depending on the

basically

during the past years, and that but for

of

plunder

write his scientific papers, and

"Major Powell has been

All

his

might have been kept from the public, the Herald explained,

not for attempts to suppress the

distinguished Philadelphia

researcher

work and

—

seize the collections

Professor

of the

Edward D. Cope,

the

chair of paleontology and geology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Here Ballou practiced with

I

Cope

a singular bit

for his readers that

saw Professor Cope

at his

went

of conceit, concocting an encounter

like this:

residence,

No. 2102 Pine

Street, Philadel-

was engaged in naming new species of fossil animals, but cheerfully put aside his work when the nature of my call was made known to him. He is a man of not over forty-five years of

phia, a

few days

ago.

He

age and of distinguished appearance.

"What Survey?"

is I

the origin, Professor, of this

war

against the Geological

asked.

So began Ballou's interview.

How much

really

occurred and

how much

MARK

324

made up

Ballou

is

difficult to say,

J

A F F E

although

revealing that the journalist

it is

didn't even get the forty-nine-year-old Cope's age right.

Cope

In the interview, retary

explained that his attack was prompted by the sec-

of interior's order to turn over

Cope maintained

his collections.

he had spent eighty thousand dollars (the figure had grown by

five

that

thousand

month) of his own money on gathering fossils. "I bushel of specimens belonging to the government," he

dollars since the previous

have no more than

a

insisted.

"Who is the author the order?" Ballou asked. "Why to be sure, who but Major Powell," Cope replied. "The object of this absurd order to place my collections in the National Museum is to gain control of them, so that my work may be postponed until has been done it

by Professor Marsh."

Cope then recounted

in great detail the

access to other researchers to

problems of Marsh denying

government specimens,

his reliance

on

his staff

to write papers, and his misapplication of funds.

On

the plagiarism issue,

about the evolution of Vladimir Kovalevsky; that Williston;

and

Cope charged

fossil

his

that Ditwcerata

Marsh had

that

lifted his ideas

horses from the Russian paleontologist,

monograph on toothed birds was written by was the work of Baur. Cope also went after

Powell's scientific background, contending that he wasn't

much of geolo-

"Major Powell must be held responsible for the blunders of his agent,

gist.

He had used Marsh as a tool, and Marsh has used him as a They together have used the National Academy of Sciences as a tool their mutual purposes," Cope concluded.

Professor Marsh. tool.

for

As unpleasant was even more article.

Cope

as this

public airing was for the scientific community, what

distressing

indicated that Scott, Osborn, C.

Winchell were

all

named in the Hart Merriam, and Newton

was the number of other

scientists

in a position to "offer evidence."

country's foremost mammalogists,

worked

Merriam, one of the

Department of the University of

for the federal

Agriculture, and Winchell was a professor of geology

at

Minnesota. Marsh's

Meyer, and tific

former

Max

assistants

SchJosser

—

Williston,

— were

also

named,

as

were Cope's

supporters Endlich, Persifor Frazer, and T. Sterry Hunt.

men named in the article were Cope and Marsh vendetta.

ber of the the

Baur, Barbour, Hatcher, Otto

But published right there

in the Herald

aghast

were

at

closest scien-

A

good num-

being publicly linked to

letters

written by Williston

and Otto Meyer. "Prof. Marsh performs very little, I might say almost no scientific work, at least in the later years," Meyer's letter stated.

NIK

Of Scott

325

course, not everything was to be believed. Ballou had telephoned at his

Princeton

home and

of Marsh. They chatted for

when he

day

ULDED DINOSAUR

a

used Cope's name to bring up the subject few minutes, and then Scott hung up. On Sun-

picked up the Herald, Scott was mortified. Ballou had not

identified himself as a reporter,

and Scott had not agreed to speak

for the

some of the

record. Perhaps that didn't matter because he never said

things

attributed to him/'

"If these things charged against the Geological Survey are true, ought not scientific is

men who had

the facts speak and root out the evil doers?" Ballou

supposed to have asked.

"They ought, perhaps, but we fear that may destroy the survey, and that would be is

supposed to have replied.

incompetent

as a

"I

can

in rooting a

out the

evil

doers

we

public calamity indeed," Scot:

testify that

Marsh

Professor

wholly

is

paleontologist," Scott reportedly said.

Endlich and Frazer were also interviewed. Each

man

raising his

own

set

of complaints. Endlich pointed out that Powell had sent researchers to look at

Hawaiian volcanoes but

still

hadn't produced

geology inside the country. Frazer,

eral

roughshod over other geologists

standardize

geologist and professor

a

mapmaking

at

an international congress

the threat of a libel suit, as well

had sent advance copies of

his article to

responded immediately, and

his reply

cal

Marsh was preparing

set

up

to

procedures. This was just an example of the high-

handed, autocratic way that Powell operated, Frazer

To dampen

on minof chem-

systematic report

Franklin Institute, charged that Powell had tried to

istry at Philadelphia's

ride

a

a

said.

mix up the cauldron, Ballou

both Powell and Marsh. Powell

was part of the

article.

voluminous rejoinder to run

The methodi-

later that

week.

In his Powell-ish way, the major started offby thanking the Herald for dis-

playing "eminent fairness" in allowing

almost

a relief to get

ciously stab, ried,

and

his

it

response. Indeed,

covert

may be met

T. Sterry

men

led by Cope.

The

and

it

appeared to be largely

—

its

in a cammanagement by

—

Cope and Hunt a geologist and chemist, repeatedly survey positions? Had not Endlich been a top aide to Hayden chance to advance when Hayden was bested? "I suppose Frazer

not both

lost his

was

mali-

Hunt. Powell charged that they had been engaged

putting themselves in charge of the work."

applied for

it

others being Endlich, Frazer,

paign to "reorganize" the survey, "or rather to change

Had

enemy may

face to face," Powell said.

explained that in examining the manuscript,

the handiwork of four

and

a

"A

unseen blows may injure because they cannot be par-

but an overt assailant

He

him

out in the public.

all

aspired to be chief geologist,

though

I

have no written evidence of that

M

326

fact,"

Powell wrote.

He

A R K

A F F E

J

referred to the

group

as

Cope and

"Professor

his

coparceners in martyrdom."

how Cope and Endlich Then he set out to address made by Cope and Company. It was

Powell ran through the history of the survey and

had been thwarted

1879 and again

in

point by point the scattershot charges easy Powell was able to knock

He

had only put the

was an honor student. but rather to serve

down one

He

after another.

of one congressman on the

relative

had hired

payroll,

and he

not to spew out propaganda

a journalist

the editor for the

as

in 1885.

numerous survey

reports and publi-

cations.

Powell said

ontology

is

it

had been necessary to have

because pale-

a paleontologist

crucial to being able to identify geological horizons,

was the best

man

for the job.

"He

has exhibited in his

having made vast collections in the laboratory," the major said. "For a

of Sciences has kept him for

Marsh was not

work

great industry,

and produced great

field

number of years

and Marsh

results in the

the National

Academy

president."

its

getting sixty thousand dollars a year, but just twelve thou-

sand to sixteen thousand

including his

dollars,

own

true that his assistants helped with publications,

it

salary,

and while

was

it

was merely "a method of

writing adopted by most public men."

What had

really

been the survey's transgression? Not hiring or publish-

ing Cope, and in so doing, Powell to put under a bushel the light

said,

it

stood guilty of "nothing

less

than

and glory of the genius of Professor Cope."

Cope, Powell conceded, was

"fair systematist"

and decent

scientist.

He

could do good work "if his infirmities of character could be corrected by

advancing age ...

if

he could be made to

sees forever haunting

him

Marsh had not been the piece, demanding

as a

ghost

idle either,

to

know

is

realize that the

enemy which he

himself."

having contacted everyone mentioned in if

they supported the article and what

charges they were making.

He

received telegrams from a half-dozen scientists, which he forwarded

to the Herald

and which were then run under

a headline

"They

All Deny."

article

whatever."

But did they?

Obsborn wired, "Have not seen or authorized any Baur

said, "I

never authorized the use of

have given no one authority to use

my

my name

name." Williston in

replied, "I

connection with charges

against you."

Not one of them, however, said the charges were false. Indeed, soon there would be even more explicit challenges from Osborn, Baur, and others. Williston was so delighted with the expose, he cut out every article and

THE GILDED DINOSAUR pasted in

327

scrapbook.

a

VOLLEY FOR VOLLEY IN THE GREAT SCIENTIFIC WAR PROFESSOR COPE RETURNS TO THE AT TACK RIPPING UP MAJOR POWELL'S ANSWERS TO THE FIRST CHARGES AND HEAPING MORE ON TOP OF THEM

MEN OF SCIENCE AGOG SOME SHOCKED, ALL STIRRED UP, BY THE SENSATIONAL DISCLOSURES IN THE HERALD, AND MANY UNABLE TO BELIEVE THE ACCUSATIONS LONG SMOLDERING EMBERS OF HATRED And

so the second day's story in the Herald began.

scientists

.

.

announced.

.

goes bravely on and the fur

"It

is

very pretty fight

a

as

it

stands."

Ballou led off with Cope's retort to Powell. manuscripts, like Cope's Bible, saying, "It

found to be rich and is

that

my

is

"The war between

the

flying in great shape," Ballou

is

not

7

He defended the size of his my fault if formations were

report reached considerable dimensions. That

the fault of nature.

"But Major Powell would have no report exceed length,

and told

manuscript with

Cope paper on

Marsh

got in

me

that if any

a pair

that

amount he would

in

cut off the

some more jabs at Marsh, charging that he had written a a discovery that based on discovery by Otto Meyer the use of money only, can, by didn't understand. "No man

—

fossil frogs

initially

hundred pages

of scissors."

palm himself off successfully

Cope

exceeded

five

as a

representative of the science of America,"

asserted.

A large part paper business

of Monday's as a

story,

however, was what

reaction story. Ballou

and

a

small

is

known

in the

news-

band of correspondents

had fanned out on Sunday and buttonholed some of America's most

dis-

tinguished scientists for their opinions. In general, the reaction was one of

MARK

328

A F F E

J

dismay.

Ballou himself interviewed Pepper

the University of Pennsylvania.

at

it clear that when he learned what Cope was up to he had "endeavored to get him to abandon the project." Pepper was most fearful

Pepper made

that his university

Cope would Scott,

"was to be dragged into the squabble," but

feeling the sting of Ballou's

still

have been grossly misrepresented."

men

had never

said anything critical

but say "I

am

was, Scott thought,

It

in public."

of Powell.

glad the subject has

subterfuge, told the Herald. "I

little

of science to wash their dirty linen

"Though

now hoped

substantiate his serious charges.

come

Still,

"unbecoming

He went on

even Scott could not help

out."

thoroughly disapproved of Marsh," Scott would explain

I

in

to stress he

in his

memoirs, "and would have rejoiced to see him removed from any connection with the U.S. Geological Survey,

I

did not

at all like

the sensational

method of a newspaper attack." Osborn was "foxy" when the Herald reporter called on him. "I am glad the matter has at last come out. It will clear the atmosphere. The truth will be sifted out from the falsehood, and a great good will be accomplished," Osborn said. "I don't think I want to say another word." Marsh did have his supporters. Memam told a reporter, "I place no conwhat Professor Cope says. His whole attack is due to jealousy."

fidence in

Harvard geology professor Nathaniel Shaler

men

the Harvard

said,

"You can

interested in geological matters that

attached to Professor Cope's statements,

as

they

little

say for

me

and

weight should be

grow out of disappointment

and envy."

The Marsh's

reaction was the same from scientists at Cornell and, of course, at

home

But one voice not heard was that of James Dana. his home on Hillhouse Avenue and knocked on the

field, Yale.

A reporter had gone to

door. But other than expressing surprise that the story was in the newspaper,

Dana declined comment. "He

that the controversy

had

a

refused to talk

tendency to make

That Monday morning, the

New

— Why

Cope's Charges," was on the

last

Based on the reporting done

December, it was paragraphs.

It

a brief,

balanced

subject and said

York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer

published short stories on the dispute.

"An Old Grievance Aired

on the

scientific matters ridiculous."

The

Times

Scientists

story,

Make

under the headline Light of Professor

8 page of the paper.

at

the Geological Society meeting in

story,

sketching the feud's history in a few

largely discounted Cope's charges, but

it

did note criticisms

against Marsh. "I

do not

say that

I

approve altogether of what Prof. Marsh has done,"

THE ULDED DINOSAUR said

Alexander Winchell,

geology professor

a

"But such criticism

the University of Michigan.

at

Newton had been mention

(Winchell's younger brother story.)

.329

as

have to make

I

in Ballou's

make

will

I

Sunday

in his presence.

I

have told Prof. Marsh that he ought to be more liberal with the younger

men who were employed by him and ought to allow them the credit and Prof. Cope is a genius in his way, and has all honor of their discoveries. .

.

.

the erratic peculiarities of genius."

The

sent a reporter to Leidy's

obliged, saying, "It

the newspapers.

men

and

Philadelphia Inquirer called the report "a sensational scandal"

is

home on Sunday

very unfortunate that

a

comment. Leidy

thing should have gotten to

and vexation among the

will simply cause strife

It

evening for

this

scientific

of the country."

Leidy went on to

blame on Cope's "consuming

lay the

Leidy praised the Geological Survey, and giarism, he said, "I

and

original

all

do not

as for

can be

so.

.

.

.

All his descriptions are

come out

against

me

in the

he has always done," he complained to Osborn.

third story ran in the Herald, but

rehash of what had

the charges of Marsh's pla-

9

happy. "Poor old Leidy has

Phila. Enquirer, just as

New

it

his reports are excellent."

Cope was not

On Tuesday, a

how

see

restlessness."

come

before.

The

had

story

it

was nothing more than

also

a

been picked up by the

York Sun and the Philadelphia Record, but the issue was clearly losing

steam. In Tuesday's story Ballou

windmills,

compared Cope

to

Don Quixote

which might have been more accurate

actually intended, considering that

adversaries are rich, powerful,

Quixote was

and have

a

tilting at his

comparison

delusional.

that

he

"Although

his

influential friends in almost every

department of the government, the plucky Pennsylvania professor springs

on

gallantly to the fray as ever

Cope was Monday's.

I

delighted.

There or

I

is

"You have

seen Sunday's Herald

have a good stock of hot shot

wrote to Osborn on the has to be

10 any knight of old," Ballou sang.

first

&

shell

on hand

day of publication. This was

done or American Science

[will]

&

by

as

you

this

time

he

see,"

a great crusade. "It

sink into eternal disgrace.

nothing wrong with speaking the truth about Marsh.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Either he

must go under." 11

The stories,

body

next day responding to concerns about the excess and license in the

Cope

else

wrote, "Ballou

is

a

rough customer but

would have pushed the matter

I

doubt whether any-

to the conclusion

it

has reached.

I

MARK

330

am

A F F E

J

&

not responsible for the long preface

seem

be credited with

to

it."

Cope, however, had no

Meyer

they cannot stand by them," he

he

On

now

specifically

&

said.

others,

But Cope had

week after one more story.

grist for

disavow

it,

as

I

communica-

must not write such fired his pistol,

had to stand and await Marsh's return

Sunday, January 19,

became the

must

regrets for turning over his personal

tions to Ballou. "Williston,

a duel,

I

12

a

the

initial

letters if

and

as in

fire.

Herald story, Marsh's reply

MARSH HURLS AZOIC FACTS AT COPE YALE'S PROFESSOR PICKS UP

THE GAUNT-

LET OF THE PENNSYLVANIA PALEONTOLOGIST AND DOES ROYAL BATTLE IN DEFENSE OF HIS SCIENTIFIC REPUTATION

HURTFUL ALLEGATIONS DENIED Marsh,

professor had

was

filled

was methodical, and

as always,

off one by one

The

National

eminent men; Besides,

which Marsh and then knocked

trouble dismantling Cope's scattershot assault,

little

with unsubstantiated accusations, half-truths, and

organized Cope's charges into

them

deliberate. Like Powell, the Yale

all

come from

—

a series

of allegations

in the sharpest, nastiest

of manners.

Academy of Sciences was populated by

how

could Marsh manipulate such

academy actions were open

a

move

the nation's most

distinguished group?

Could Cope's

to scrutiny.

the fact that there had been a

errors.

to expel

hostility

him from

the

group?

The

national and college collections at Yale were

"Every specimen belonging to the government ing with Yale

As for

collections

his assistants at Yale, the

"mechanical." it

Museum

When

that

is

why some

possible,"

work they did was

part, assistants

marked and

kept by

itself,

separated.

and no mix-

he assured. 13

one of them did render an

was duly noted. For the most

and

is

is

primarily "clerical" and

intellectual contribution,

took "dictation" from Marsh,

extensive manuscripts are in their handwriting, not

his.

"Little

Africa,

men, with big

and Stanley

heads, unscrupulous in warfare, are not confined to

will recognize

them here when he

returns to America,"

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

331

Marsh wrote. "Of such dwarfs we have unfortunately a few in science.** Marsh fiercely denied the charges of plagiarism and intellectual panhandling from other scientists. "My work on the genealogy of the horse was

my own,"

entirely

he

insisted.

He

hadn't even read Kovalevsky's papers.

(Considering Marsh's reputation for not keeping up with the

might have been

committed

suicide.

literature, that

Since then, the troubled Russian paleontologist had

true.)

"Kovalevksy was

stricken with remorse,"

at last

wrote, "and ended his career by blowing out his

own

brains.

Cope

Marsh

still

lives

unrepentant."

Marsh's resist.

He

final

jab

at

Cope was

at

an old wound, but he simply couldn't

dredged up the story of the Elasmosaurus, one more time. Marsh's

defense was followed by yet another reply from Cope, but

it

could hardly be

called news. It

looked

like

with which

Marsh had won the

this reply

day.

"The thoroughness and

was prepared indicated

that

it

ability

was by no means the

work of a single week, but years of preparation," Osborn concluded. "Whereas Cope attacked after a truly Celtic fashion, hitting out blindly right and left with little or no precaution for guarding the rear, Marsh's reply was thoroughly of a cold-blooded Teutonic, or Nordic type, very dignified

and under the cover of wounded years, as if his reply

There followed two more ary 26.

hand sions.

feelings reluctantly breaking the silence

to keep the story going.

on January 20 and Janu-

stories in the Herald

But these were rehash of the rehash, an

effort

Cope conceded that there might have been am not infallible, but I have not on

mosaurus,

to assistants to have

Cope

said, "I

by Ballou's

There were, however, a few

his papers. "I

work over

of

had been forced upon him." 14

it

done

for

sleight

of

interesting admis-

inaccuracies in dates

on

account turned

my

that

me," he

said.

answer 'peccavi' to some extent."

As It

for the Elas-

was

a

curious

confession depending on the obscure word peccavi, an acknowledged sin. Even then Cope couldn't help modify it with "to some extent." The

extenuating circumstance, he explained, was misleading information from

another

scientist,

Cope's "predecessor in the same

grace not to publicly

But Cope be

settled

—

a

"If anybody

name

insisted there

At

least,

he had the

Leidy.

remained

position with is

field."

which

a serious

question of scientific ethics to

others, like Michigan's Winchell, agreed.

being robbed of intellectual property in any government

bureau or university laboratory claimed. "There must be

no

"In America, where the tively small, the standard

it is

class

a

good time

to speak out,"

of privileged brains

number of men

Cope

pro-

in this country.

devoted to pure science

of excellence of scientific work

is

is

rela-

constantly liable

— MARKJAFFE

332

to

men who

be lowered by the entrance into the Geld of

incompetent and sometimes by mere seekers

are

more or

notoriety,"

after

less

Cope

argued.

Almost half a century papers are

filled

phorous in oxygen and exhibits is

then, or had

would have

sent

poor Henry into

The end of Ballou's campaign was

titled

science had

Surely, such a public display

it?

man who

few experiments to

a

man of science." American

called a

spirits

Henry had bemoaned, "Our news-

earlier, Joseph

with puffs of quackery, and every

can burn phos-

of young

a class

come

a

ladies

long way since

of scientific pettiness and mean

despair.

slipped into

rhyming buffoonery, which

"Paleozoic Poetry."

The Unfortunate

Pterodactyl

Wings

Its

Flight through Prosody

I.

Professor

Cope

to Professor Marsh:

Your ignorance of saurians

something very strange;

is

The mammals of the Laramie

You

fail

stole

trees,

range.

nor feared the ground beneath.

your evoluted horse from Kovalevsky's

previous people's

To permian

You

beyond your

to see that certain birds enjoyed the use of teeth,

That pterodactyls perched on

You And

are far

reptiles

fossils

you

are blind

him Mae lachrymae

are

brain,

smashed, from Mexico to Maine.

—

— you

in short,

I

do

insist

are a plagiarist!

II.

Professor

Marsh

to Professor

Cope:

who always get the cart before the horse, Should dare to state, my equine screed filched without remorse. Tis strange that you, who helped to kill a moribund magazine, Tis strange

that you,

I

Should hint

Your

that

I

have

fossils

smashed of prettiest pliocene.

reference to a horn cone

Professor

Huxley

is

my

friend,

on an ischium sends

a chill.

and likewise Buffalo

Bill.

Though paleontologic facts you've studied since your youth, You shun the streptasauria as if they were the truth!

Then,

at last,

it

was

finally over.

"The

great sensation was not even a nine

THE GILDED DINOSAUR wonder;

days' less

it fell flat.

The

public of those days

333

knew nothing and

cared

about such matters; vertebrate paleontologists were few, feeble folk,"

3 Scott said.'

Well, actually,

it

The March and

wasn't quite over.

American Naturalist carried extensive

about the conduct of

Marsh

served

as

versity

and Barbour

There

is

assistants,

both were

Iowa College

at

no question

that the

now

academe

in

— and both had

fall

on the

of the Yale Museum," Barbour intoned. a

Museum. Both men had

called

Marsh

In the

point in

a

article.

were kept

left

halls

"scheming

a

true

a

both Barbour

assault,

German, could

Marsh had shown

display as

own

in his

defense.

Baur went over Marsh's statements point by

Naturalist,

six-page

collections

and Baur,

rigor in his attack as

March

walks the

place of "deceit and falsehood."

specific allegations,

much Teutonic

any truth

is

who

He

Clark Uni-

at

scientist

But unlike Cope's careening, ill-aimed broadside and Baur had

— Baur

tales to tell.

two hated Marsh. "If there

under the sun then judgment must

demagogue" and the Peabody

by Baur and Erwin Barbour

articles

the Peabody

research at

April editions of the

He

contended

separate,

while the national and college

that

Marsh had the option of deciding which

specimens went into which collection and had

a

tendency to keep the best

tell

visiting scientists that par-

for himself.

Furthermore, he had actually seen Marsh ticular

specimens were boxed and inaccessible

very room, lying

Baur cited

on

a large table,

a litany

a set

of fossil and

a set

between the

his

in the

different groups

as

"What

are the

are the rela-

of dinosaurs?" Marsh would then use the it

was

his dictation,

it

was

his assis-

answers he was relying on.

"Only

a

short time ago

I

had the opportunity to observe Prof. Marsh's

passion to adorn himself with other's plumes self,

were

his staff was to give

of Sauropoda?" or "What

answers to "dictate" his papers. So while tants'

approach to

of questions to answer such

principal characteristics of the skull tions

in fact they

a cloth.

of small errors over the years Marsh had preferred to

bury rather than correct and noted that

them

when

covered with

had found some trends

.

in the evolution

.

.

,"

Baur wrote. Baur, him-

of the ostrich skeleton that

threw "new

light on the relationship between birds and dinosaurs." Baur Marsh about it and did not publish himself. When Baur saw the proofs on Marsh's "Ornithomimus" paper, there was

told

his discovery,

hours, and

without any credit

Marsh

relented.

caption for an illustration. easily

be overlooked." 16

at

all.

The two argued

But he put the

It

for nearly

two

credit not in the text, but in the

was, Baur complained, "a place where

it

could

MARK

334

The

J

A F F E

He had two basic Marsh was using "government time and

following month, Barbour's piece appeared.

charges against Marsh.

First,

own

money

in beautifying his

plaster

of Paris to dress up and improve

restorations.

"His

truth, but instead

in

assistants are

Marsh had used

private collection." Second,

asked not

'How closely Which

his fossils

how

without noting the

nearly they can approximate

can you imitate the coloration and texture

the missing part?' " ,7

translates

'How

into

cunningly can you

Barbour concluded, "A certain unfaithfulness runs through

deceive.'

his doings.

.

.

.

He

cannot but be weighed in the balance by

scientists

all

and

found wanting."

Then sole

at last,

it

was

really

and

truly finally over. James Hall tried to

Marsh. "The attack was so gross and uncalled

Albany, "that

decency

it

has reacted against the parties

in the course they pursued.

It

has

who

for," Hall

violated

done harm

to

all

con-

wrote from pledges and

no one except

themselves." 18 It

lic

did appear that Marsh and Powell had weathered Cope's gale.

had not taken

any

loser,

it

notice.

seemed

to

Hayden work would

Congress had not even blinked. Indeed,

make

for years.

fictions that

who

if there

was

be Cope for Secretary Noble informed him that the

definitely not

There was, however, one reader interest, a reader

The pub-

thought

be published.

who

this spat

There was one reader

had tumbled

forth.

had followed the proved

a

battle

with great

point he'd been trying to

who would make

use of the facts and

That reader was Hilary Herbert.

Chapter Twenty

COPE'S ACCUSATIONS IN THE Herald might have just melted

As Scott had

away.

something ing was

as

on Cope's

that Powell's

anyone

said, hardly

obscure

as

side.

about

really cared

paleontology. But for

His attacks came just

a

at

change, timthe

moment

western enemies were watching one of their

the most cherished myths wither away.

For years, western developers had assured hopeful homesteaders that rain

would follow

the plow.

mate.

Why, back

Hayden had

1

860s, Louis Agassiz had postulated

scientists seriously try to

But the promise was might have had

in the

of railroads might even change

that the building

a lush,

dream,

at best a

humid

electrical fields, altering cli-

measure climatic changes.

at

worst

a

come-on. Wyoming

forests fifty million years

ago in the Eocene,

now bone dry, and that's the way it would much in "Arid Region," back in 1878.

but most of it was ell

had

said as

Pow-

remain.

Powell's report could be dismissed and ignored, but the truth was driven

home

to

enterprising developers

drought descended on the West.

and hopeful If that

in

settlers

1886 when

lesson wasn't learned,

it

was

repeated the next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.

By

1889, there had been four relentless years of drought. Wells dried up, wheat

and dreams evaporated. Something had to be done. Powell had warned

fields shriveled,

be developed

in the

more

same way

needed

a

section,

and most of

interests

now

as

careful analysis all, it

the lands east

of land and

needed

agreed with Powell,

West could not of the Mississippi. The West that the

soil, alternatives

significant irrigation.

at least

when

it

came

to the quarter

Western

political

to irrigation.

1

In 1888, the "irrigation clique," lead by Senator William "Big Bill"

Henry

pushed

a resolu-

tion through Congress directing the secretary of the interior to

make an

Stewart of Nevada, and Senator

Teller of Colorado,

"examination of that portion of the United States where agriculture is carried on by means of irrigation" and determine where dams should be placed "together with the capacity of streams, and the cost of construction

and capacity of reservoirs." Secretary Vilas passed the job onto Powell,

335

who

happily embraced

it.

MARK

336

Powell had tried to impress

J

his vision

with "Arid Region," and again

A F F E

of development on the West 1880s with

in the early

his

in

1878

management of

the U.S. Geological Survey, but this was the greatest opportunity he

would

ever have.

What

Stewart and Teller had envisioned was

quick scan of the rivers

a

and streams, followed by the designation of some dam

sites,

followed by an

ambitious dam-building program, followed by water getting to the

fields

of

constituents.

Powell, of course, had other ideas. This was

topographical and hydrological surveys,

a

chance to do complete

a

comprehensive categorization of

land, plus basic engineering studies for public works. In short, Powell this as

an occasion to organize and manage the West

— an

saw

area that covered

nearly two-fifths of the nation.

One way,

it

thing was certain, whether

was going

In the gap

to take time

between

initial

—

it

was done Stewart's way or Powell's

years to survey the land and build the dams.

surveys and the finished

dams lurked the

threat

of

land speculators and corporations gobbling up the acres most likely to benefit

from government water. There were visions of the land grabbers with

their

checkbooks following the surveying crews. As

were concerned, there had been enough of that

far as

already.

many

in

Congress

So Colorado Con-

gressman George Symes added an amendment that withdrew from

settle-

ment "all lands made susceptible of irrigation" under the survey, until the work was completed. That was modified in the conference committee to enable the president to restore lands to the market

Homestead

he saw

as

fit

under the

Act.

In a bit of legislative expediency, the irrigation survey, like the legislation

merge the old surveys, was attached to the Sundry and Civil Appropriawhich passed on October 2, 1888. Powell got one hundred thousand dollars and set to work. He had told a legislative committee that, all in to

tions Bill,

all, it

would

take six or seven years and six or seven million dollars to

do the

job.

But none of this dampened the

efforts

lators to file land claims. So, in late

by both homesteaders and specu-

1888, the General Land Office closed

its

October 2. In effect, the West was closed for business. Western political and economic interests howled. Nevertheless, the General Land Office bureaus were officially closed on

windows and canceled

August

An

5,

all

claims filed after

1889.

effort

was made to get the

Solicitor General William

Howard

offices

open

again, but in early 1890,

Taft ruled that until the president had

certified the land, "entries should not be permitted

.

.

.

upon any

part

of the

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

337

come within the operation of this act/' PresiSome 850 million acres were off limits. The president would certify land when the survey was completed, and it was Powell who would determine when it was done. arid regions

which

possibly

dent Cleveland concurred.

So, as

1890 opened, western and

attack Powell

Imagine with what

survey with any club they could seize.

interest Stewart

and the others read the Netv York Her-

Here was ammunition

ald in late January.

were getting ready to

political interests

his irrigation

against Powell they hadn't even

expected. Cope's complaints had nothing to do with Powell's "Arid

Region" It

theories or his irrigation survey.

was the

Still,

scandal was scandal.

thing Powell needed to worry about

last

when he went up

Capitol Hill that spring for appropriation hearings. But

it

the politicians wanted to talk about most were water and money, not

"Every representative of the arid region

—

think there

I

would prefer there would be no appropriation Major Powell," Stewart announced. Powell defended the plan the land for just a failed

little

as best

to having

he could. Wasn't

it

is

it

to

turned what out fossils.

no exception continued under

better to hold onto

while than have helter-skelter development and

homesteads? Congress did not agree. The lands were open once again

and Powell's request for

for settlement,

irrigation survey

a

$720,000 appropriation for the

was cut to $162,500. The major's vision for western

set-

tlement had been thwarted once more. Perhaps Powell could find some solace in the U.S. Geological Survey's appropriation of $719,000 for the year. That entities in the

made

government and the best-financed

world. If Powell could find

some

it

one of the best-funded

scientific

satisfaction there, Hilary

agency in the Herbert could

not. Herbert

had been stewing over the growth of government science

since his days

on the

ogist

the

Allison

Eugene Smith had

Cope camp

his

Commission. The

own war

and the western

government

legislators.

and

geol-

member of

fire.

of ill

ripe to try

will

between Pow-

once more to curb

knew something was coming, although

when. In April of 1892, Marsh was of the

that residue

The time was

a

state

science.

Powell and Marsh

One

Alabama

with the survey and was

doubtless added fuel to Herbert's

Now he had Cope's allegations ell

fact that

allies

in

Washington trying

they weren't sure to rally support.

he was most depending on was Representative Joseph

Outhwaite of Ohio,

who happened

to

be

his cousin.

MARKJAFFE

338

heard various rumors in Washington about

"I

the U.S. Geological Survey],

wrote Outhwaite." ... vey,

his

heard that Herbert was

as

had been told

I

had been removed." Mar^' enclosed told his cousin, "if the matter

And come up

it

On May

did.

of the House brandishing

huge volume about

Why just

look

tinted paper.

at

it

And if that

you

letter

comes up

What was

Charles

Darwin had

called 'Birds

With

Owen

told

edges, and

gilt

called Odontomithes "magnificent

Marsh

it

this

later,

"the

same Gov-

"3

Teeth.'

.

port for the theory of evolution which has appeared in the

Richard

A

the government doing?

wasn't enough, Herbert added, two years

was then

it

2

Herbert rose on the floor

same book, with very few changes, was published again by ernment, and

are free to

in Congress."

red Morocco-leather binding,

its

six

a letter outlining the limits

18, 1892, Hilary

birds with teeth!

with

of five or

copy of Marsh's monograph OdotUomithes.

a

[at

hostile to the Sur-

still

that his animosity

funding from the federal government. "This

Marsh

use,"

change of Directors

a

Powell has had about enough of it," Marsh

also

which surprised me,

years ago

of

I

as

the best sup-

.

.

20 years."

last

Sir

was "the best contribution to Natural History

"Now

since Cuvier." Hilary Herbert, however, wasn't

much

impressed.

when you come

that

was simply going

to

examine the book you found

back into the past ages to show there existed birds of a certain

it

some prehistoric period of the world type which had teeth," Herbert explained

that at

incredulously.

Herbert put the challenge to

by

its

his colleagues. "If the

bound at all begin upon the

House

we ought to we ought to put the

repeated promise to reduce expenditures,

Geological Survey," he

moneys

are

expended

said. "Especially,

is

that are not necessary to carry

on

knife

where

Government,

the

not necessary for the preservation of order, or the protection of life, liberty or property." just

It

had to

stop.

"We

are

expending today on science twenty times

more than any government in the world," Herbert announced. Clearly, this was a bad thing. With Marsh's volume sitting on his desk, Herbert took special

aim

at

"What sils.

These

paleontology. is

paleontology?" Herbert asked. "It

fossils

and investigated eventually

or rocks are picked up by parties in the in laboratories. ... In this

what they

an abstract science,

ment

the science of ancient fos-

is

it

call is

the story of the rocks.

paleontology.

What

.

.

field,

brought here,

the scientists weave out

manner .

If there

is

on

practical use has the

this earth

Govern-

for Paleontology?"

Herbert had been waiting years for

"When

the

morning of resurrection

moment, and he went on and on. shall come, some paleontologists will this

THE ULDED DINOSAUR

339

be searching for some previously undiscovered species of extinct beings," he ".

proclaimed.

.

.

There

no end

is

to

societies

can do just

as

read Agassiz's letter of 1885

"one of the things private individuals

again stating that paleontology was

and learned

He

it."

well as the

Government."

Finally, tying

science to Powell and his hated irrigation survey, Herbert concluded, "Pale-

ontology, paleobotany and even general researches into the science of geology, are

of no value whatever to the surveys which

irrigation

intended to aid in the

are

of our Western country."

Herbert's

amendment

cutting the U.S. Geological Survey budget by

thirty-seven thousand dollars and virtually wiping out paleontology passed

by

a

U I

vote of ninety to

Where was

sixty.

cousin Outhwaite through

had watched and waited two days for

are so deeply

interested

.

.

.

,"

that part

Outhwaite wrote

being called out upon committee business

being engulfed over a

short time.

a silver

—

a

all

this?

which you

bill in

to Marsh. "Yesterday,

Committee of the Whole

the

coinage proposition,

was accidentally detained

I

of the

I

though

half-hour.

safe to leave for

it

Upon my

return the

motion had been made by Mr. Herbert. Debate was closed and the vote was being taken. utilitarian

The

then did

I

and has

letter

its

all

I

could to get votes.

.

.

.

This House

extremely

is

teeth sharpened for everything simply scientific."

Marsh had

sent

Outhwaite

specifically

went

4

into the issue of

Odontomithes, and the following day, Herbert, under questioning, conceded that

Marsh

also

had sent him

a letter

back

in

1886 pointing out

that

mono-

graph had been published before the creation of U.S. Geological Survey, that the Yale professor had paid for

bound

the illustrations, and that the leather-

all

copies were from a private author's edition.

But the damage was

done, and the truth would not easily be set straight.

Marsh was

seething.

"As to the

practical value

of paleontology," he

more money where a paleontologist would know at a none could be found than would pay for all the works ever published

wrote to Outhwaite, "there

wasted every year in the United

is

States searching for coal in places

glance

on paleontology." 3 Powell had also been caught by surprise. "This was sprung in the mittee of the Whole, by Herbert,

who made

a

Com-

violent speech against Pale-

ontology and no one came to the rescue," Arnold Hague explained to

"An attempt

Marsh.

reported from the

attempt

Hague tells

will

Committee of shows

failed, too. "It said. Still, there

me

this

be made to

morning

a

reinsert these items

Whole

the

black eye so

far as

to the

House."

the Survey

were hopes the damage could be

to say to

you

that

he thinks there

in having the Senate reinsert the items."

7

when is

6

the

bill is

But

that

concerned,"

repaired. "Powell

will

be no

difficulty

MARKJAFFE

340

The Senate, however, was brimmed with venom when

the it

home of Big

came

Cope

weren't enough, there were the

man who

Bill Stewart, a

and

to Powell

his survey,

charges and

allies

and

still

if that

lingering

about.

When

the appropriation

Henry Osborn

asked

bill

reached the upper house, Senator Allison

for his assessment

U.S. Geological Survey.

seemed

It

of the value of paleontology to the

like

moment

the thiity-five-year-old Osborn,

ing "like

a college

a

reasonable request, for

whom

Ballou described

at

as

that

look-

senior and athlete," was the country's emerging light in

Osborn had been simultaneously appointed at Columbia University and head of the division of mammalian paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. the science. Just a year earlier,

chairman of the

In

many

new biology department

ways,

as

Cope's

rather than the master,

Cope, Osborn with

Museum

star

who

had

set

and Osborn's

had become Marsh's

his links to

rose,

it

was the protege

real rival.

But unlike

Princeton, Columbia, and the American

of Natural History was well connected professionally and

politi-

cally.

Osborn and Marsh had been going at one another since the late eighties. In 1890, Osborn wrote to Marsh saying he was postponing a visit to Yale in protest, after learning that Marsh had blocked Baur's Harvard appointment. In the same letter, he accused Marsh of having covered up Ditwcerata bones on his last visit to the Peabody. A few months later, Marsh was fretting over Osborn's western expediOsborn has been imitating Cope in trying to secure specmy men," Marsh wrote to Leidy. "If the facts are, as You will do me a great stated to me, he has acted most dishonorably. favor, if you will let me know all you know about this. will regard anything you say as strictly confidential. I do not want to believe that Osborn would tions. "I learn that

imens from one of

.

.

.

I

do anything wrong

intentionally, but

ence of Cope and Baur."

By

this time,

he

is

so completely under the influ-

8

Marsh's ace

fossil collector,

John

Bell Hatcher, was feeling

increasingly frustrated not only by his boss's laggardly salary payments, but

by the sense of being blocked from advancement. Marsh was reluctant to have him work

of Hatcher,

at

the Peabody and had sponsored Charles Beecher, instead

for a doctoral degree.

In the spring of 1891, Hatcher decided to try for a position as an assistant

THE

next day Senator Hawley of Connecticut once

The

described

had to cost between three and four thousand

that

What was

343

a letter

the original

more

tried to set the

from Marsh. But Stewart was

volume

one

to the

that

had been

them "substantially" the same. "If this is a year's contribution by Professor Marsh as an employee of the Geological Survey, it is a very meager contribution," he charged. Did Marsh, Stewart asked, do "anything else to earn his $4,000 salary?" "Professor Marsh is a gentleman and everybody knows it," Hawley reprinted by the U.S. Geological Survey. Stewart found

shot back in his constituent's defense.

Marsh may be

"Professor

Joseph Carey of Wyoming,

most estimable gentleman,"

a

"He

very valuable discoveries; but

is

learned

a

man

do not believe

I

.

.

.

said Senator

and he has made some

in carrying

on

the

of

rolls

government college professors."

Then summing up said,

"Democrats

the feelings of many of the western legislators, Carey

are elected to office,

Republicans are elected to

office,

heads of bureaus change, but this bureau under Powell goes on forever."

Powell had also sent

a letter

to Congress emphasizing that Odontornithes

had been done under King's survey of the fortieth fossils

were "of great importance." The

found

in

and

parallel,

that these

toothed birds were

fact that the

Kansas hundreds of miles away from King's survey was not

men-

tioned.

The

only defender for science was Senator Call of Florida. "In regard to

whether

the question of

world he

is

said.

too

"We

tricity to a

Call

full

see

it

went on

every day in the

new

to quote Sir Francis

who

is

of any value

.

.

.

the it,

motors, in the applications of elec-

Bacon

—

the sixteenth-century English

pioneered the idea of scientific method. But even "Lord

Bacon" could not vey, so

investigation

thousand uses."

philosopher

when

scientific

of all the practical triumphs of applied science," to deny

save the day. Stewart called for the "yeas

the counting was done, not only was paleontology

was more than two hundred thousand

dollars

—

and nays," and

gone from the a

sur-

40 percent cut

in

Powell's budget request. Just as bad, the appropriation specified the staff positions and salaries to be paid.

Powell launched the

money

—

a frantic

lobbying effort and was able to restore some of

the final appropriation

coming

But two paleCoupled with the cut

in at $430,000.

ontology posts and fourteen other positions were

lost.

— MARK

344

J

A F F E

had been smashed.

in the irrigation survey funding, Powell's plans

Damn

those birds with teeth. Powell had spent precious time and politi-

defending them, and

cal resources

just convenient clubs

really the senators didn't care.

with which to

hit Powell.

"There

is

They were

nothing important

connected with these two paleontologists," Colorado senator Edward Wollcott had confessed, "but here

is

chance to cut the survey appropria-

a

tions."

As soon

Marsh

to

the vote was

as

New

in

final,

Powell fired

Haven: "Appropriation

a

telegram

—

brief and bitter

cut-off. Please send

your resigna-

tion at once. 17

"Powell, director"

628

The same day, Hague posted a letter to New Haven. "My dear Marsh The game has been played and we are badly out. Much to the .

.

.

House concurred with

surprise of everybody, the

ments.

.

.

.

Not

only

is

amend-

the Senate

paleontology badly damaged, but geology

is

equally

Order has not yet come out of chaos, and we do not know where we stand. I think all geological fieldwork will be stopped at

badly hurt. exactly

once. ...

I

.

.

.

see

no way out of it." 18

Defeated, Powell cleared out of Washington for the summer, leaving his aides to pick

he would hand in

affairs,

sonian's tar

up the pieces and write

his

his resignation in

Bureau of Ethnology.

If only

felt

that

to

1894 and return to the Smith-

he hadn't taken up with Marsh and

baby Cope, things might have gone

undoubtedly

it

annual report. After tidying up

differently.

he had been put through

Of

a political

course,

his

Marsh

wringer because

of Powell's irrigation survey. Well,

Cope might have had

Marsh had used each other had to

it

right

as tools.

when he

Now

a

time

when

a price.

Cope

the loss of the four-thousand-dollar salary from the

U.S. Geological Survey wouldn't have years,

Peabody peak

they had each paid

and

feel vindicated.

There was

many

told Ballou that Powell

meant

all

that

much

to Marsh. For

he had received ample sums from two funds created by George

for his relatives

—

the Boston Trust and the Peabody Trust. In

its

1872 and 1877, Marsh had received as much as fifty thousand But the Peabody Trust had issued a distribution payment of $37,598

years,

dollars.

1888 and since then had yielded hardly anything. Now as the markets went soft, and were about to get even weaker, the Boston Trust also went in

down. 19

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

345

Marsh's remaining income, several thousand dollars for the year, was

But then he

larger than Cope's.

lived a larger

house to Yale for thirty thousand twenty-four years

Hatcher was

dollars,

life.

and

Marsh mortgaged

for the

first

the university, he was forced to ask for a

at

time in

He

his

out searching for Ceratopsian dinosaurs, but Marsh

still

ordered

his

salary.

could no longer afford to ship huge quantities of bones back to

Haven.

still

New

study the distribution of the dinosaur

his collector to

beds instead.

The

situation

would grow worse

to attacking Powell

and

his survey,

as

the year

moved

to a close. In addition,

Congress had been busy passing laws

that

were seriously destabilizing the nation's economy. Since 1890, the country had been laboring under the

stiff tariffs

shep-

herded through Congress by Ohio congressman William McKinley. The

movement had

tariff

their markets to

gotten

on manufactured goods

just

would be

as

get, as

a

when Germany and

boost

American meat. But

felt in

the city

import duties

France closed off

in the tit-for-tat trade war, high tariffs

added to

inflation, so the

well as the country.

— an important source of — plummeted.

economic squeeze

also hurt the federal

It

bud-

federal revenues in the days

before federal income taxes

A

on federal resources had come from the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which required the federal government to buy four and onehalf million ounces of silver each month and enabled the government to pay its

further strain

debts in either gold or

Western

mining

silver.

political interests

industry.

held

a large

gold.

The

But

it

pushed through the

chunk of American

they received

a jolt that sent

The Reading

Railroad,

leaves,

—

the

"Rope

And

calling their loans in

economy in a downward spiral. which had already passed through several

the entire

trust"

this crash

1869 or Jay Cooke's

—

With

a

few weeks, the National Cordage

collapsed.

also

fall

was

far

Like withered autumn

worse than Jay Gould's Black Friday

a

in

in 1873.

the end of the year, 642 banks

covering a

who

other railroads and corporations started to tumble, and the crash of

1893 was on.

By

and they began

debt,

investors,

were precarious, and on February 25, 1893,

receiverships, declared bankruptcy.

Company

among European

created anxiety

finances of the times

act to bail out the troubled

quarter of a million miles

quarter of heavy industry

would be closed; dozens of railroads, of track, would be in receivership; and

would be

idle.

Grain and cotton prices

also

plunged, and suddenly hundreds of thousands of men were jobless.

No

crash. "The convulsion of 1893 left its victims in While the country braced itself up Henry Adams wrote. ".

one escaped the

dead-water,"

.

.

M

346

to an effort

A

K

It

no one thought within

he could through the wreck.

.

.

A F F E

J

its

power, the individual crawled

And among

.

as best

the earliest wreckages had

been the fortune of Clarence King." 20

bounced out of the Anglo-Mexican Mining Company by Agassiz, King had returned to New York City and pursued a variety of busiAfter being

ness ventures.

Todd, in

Under an assumed name, he married

a secret

wedding held

in a

tenement. King

Negro woman, Ada up Todd and the five

a

set

children he had with her in an apartment in Brooklyn.

His friends were only dark skin. all

"He

the primitives,"

Century Club.

they

a little surprised, for

loved the Spaniard,

Adams

said

as

of

knew of his

"appetite" for

he loved the Negro, and the Indian and

his friend in a

memorial speech

Meanwhile the

real

a

loan

and exhausted, the brightest

against King's art collection, and, depressed

generation was admitted to the Bloomingdale's Asylum.

There were other put

the

wealth King sought always eluded him, and the crash

of 1893 wiped him out completely. His friend John Hay advanced

man of his

at

21

victims. Fred Endlich, sitting in a

head and pulled the

a pistol to his

limping along year

after year, the

and

trigger,

mines

eleven years, the Sierra Grande Mining

at

Tucson hotel room,

August of 1893,

in

Lake Valley closed

after

for good. In

Company produced between

and seven million ounces of silver but consistently

lost

five

money. 22

marked the end of an era. "Much that had made life pleasant between 1870 and 1890 perished in the ruins," Adams lamented. Ten days after the Reading Railroad collapsed, Grover Cleveland was

The

crash truly

inaugurated for a second term. chase Act and put America eral

on

government was desperate

Cleveland w

is

two

interests in

terms.

The

led to

bad

new bond

for a J.

P.

making

he had himself

that

—

at

crash had

now been

Marsh as

to float

America's misery

as a

mathematics pro-

a special train to

a site

near

Como

Museum of Wyoming to

Bluff.

in tight, if not dire, financial straits.

could no longer afford to keep Hatcher in the

Hatcher was hired

treasury.

bitten by the paleontologist's

expeditions — even sending

left

its

very advantageous

a profit off

appointment

bring back ninety tons of fossil bones from

The

Pur-

with the help of the Rothschilds'

dinosaur bug. In the 1890s, he helped finance the American

Natural History's

Silver

the suffering populace. But business was business.

Although Morgan had foregone fessor years ago,

issue to sustain

Europe, took over the bonds

among

Sherman

Morgan and August Belmont

financiers, along

spectacle of rich financiers

feelings

to repeal the

gold standard. But by 1894, the fed-

a single

forced to go to

the loan, and the

banking

He moved

field

and

By

finally let

curator of vertebrate paleontology

at

1893, he

him

go.

Princeton,

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

347

where he put together the Patagonia project, and with some more of J. Morgan's money, set off for South America.

The

days of collecting were over for Marsh.

P.

There would be no more

teams scouring the West. But there was plenty of material to sort through at

the Peabody. In truth, a century

to be chipped away from

"Much

.

.

.

," as

fossils.

Adams had

said,

later,

But

there

life,

for

would be matrix

still

waiting

Marsh had palpably changed.

"perished in the ruins."

Chapter Twenty- One

On

THE DAY CONGRESS HANDED Powell and Marsh their Cope was more than a thousand miles from Washington, watching an immense thunderstorm sweep

bitterest defeat,

across the

Dakota

plains,

down from heaven "black storm It

.

.

.

brilliant

luminescent fingers snaking

its

to prairie.

with lightning."

had been ten years since Cope had been

back thanks to

a

was,

It

Cope

told Julia, a

1

in the field, but

grant from the Texas Geological Survey.

now

He had

he was

dragged

old trunk from the closet under the stairway and dug out his gear

his

gum

dlebags,

do work

blanket, canteen

in Texas, but

— and headed

to

sad-

money was

west. True, the

Cope being Cope managed

—

end up

in the

to

Dakota

badlands. It

wasn't that he had ignored his assignment.

Texas survey, spending sic,

May and June

and Permian formations

named

Billy

in the

He

had happily obliged the

Texas panhandle. Riding

and carrying most of his

Staked Plains.

He

of 1892 searching the Pliocene, Trias-

kit in his saddlebags,

was accompanied by W.

Cummings,

F.

a

white

stallion

Cope rode a geologist

the

and

Cope collector from the old days, and following behind, in a mule-drawn wagon were Yancey, the cook, and "Black Bill," the teamster. Cummings's son and

a friend

Cope had straw hat,

ing

it

which he now

as well.

from the

tied

down

closet trunk an old

with

a

Once

his nose,

again,

he managed to get

he reveled

broad-brimmed

handkerchief under the chin, giv-

the look, he said, of "a sun bonnet."

of Vaseline on

make

tagged along,

also salvaged

Still,

a

even with that and

a

daub

good sunburn.

"The yuccas are in bloom and they North of the Brazos River, mesquite

in the country.

quite a show," he told Annie.

covered the land, offering "the general appearance

at a

distance of an inter-

minable peach orchard."

He watched

white swallows build their

nests,

and listened to the ever-

On

the parched prairie, animals

search for water wherever they could.

moths came

present song of the mockingbirds.

mouth

for a drink last evening,"

While the world was

"Two

he told Julia.

now coming undone 348

beautiful

would to

my

all

the

2

for

Marsh, Cope,

after

GILDED DINOSAUR

Til K

bad

years,

the rejection, frustration, and' penny-pinching, had finally

all

obtained

a

had died

at

349

measure of peace and

The previous year, Joseph Leidy and Cope was clearly his successor at the

security.

the age of sixty-eight,

university.

more than four

In a career spanning

decades, Leidy had explored not only

paleontology and geology but also zoology, parasitology, botany, mineralogy,

and helminthology

—

the study of worms.

not merely

naturalists,

plants but an explorer

He

had been one of the

vertebrate

a specialist in

of all things that

Marsh was one of his

lived.

last

great

protozoa, or vascular

fossils,

pallbear-

ers.

The loss of one more of the elder lights left open the presidency at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and the chair of zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania. By the 1890s, Cope had become almost

a

persona non grata

Leidy's zoology chair. tinction Leidy rity at

the academy, but he was quickly appointed to

at

was

It

a

had given the

promotion of sorts,

post.

It

was

also

if

only because the dis-

an affirmation of Cope's secu-

the university.

Cope was

also in the

midst of one of his most

fertile

periods of writing.

He had always been a facile and prolific writer, perhaps too much so for his own good. Surely, he could be brilliant. "Often with only a small amount of fossil

tion,

evidence before him,

where

a

man with

Cope could

full

documentation would fumble," Alfred Romer,

Harvard's great paleontologist,

But Cope was

see through to the true interpreta-

also forever

would write decades

peppering

later.

work with

his

3

errors

and odd

ideas,

which more thought and editing might have caught. Cope's most productive years, fueled

by the great dinosaur

enty-nine papers, monographs, and sixty- two.

But

articles,

and 1885, when he published

with

more

he would churn out an good chunk of this would be

life a bit

average of forty-three publications

a

as disparate as

Kedzie's Gravitation, Solar Heat

summing

time of a great scientific

He

settled,

A

a year.

popular pieces and reviews on topics

be

were 1884, when he wrote sev-

4

in the nineties,

men" and

finds,

& Sun

"the effeminization of

Spots. Still, this

would

also

up.

most notably over dinosaurs and fossil mammals, and this had consumed the greatest portion of his personal, financial, and intellectual life. He had, however, never given up his boyhood and Marsh had battled over

fascination for fish, amphibians, curiosity U

A

and

fossil life,

and

reptiles.

They had

really

been

his first

his first success.

good while ago

they are called here

I

caught

— one

a large

water snake or water

of the Colubers

—

in the

wampum

Brandywine and

as I

— MARK

350

brought

it

home,"

Edward had written

fourteen-year-old

a

A F F E

J

1855. "... Everybody almost about here thinks water nous,

&

indeed the way

struck at

it

me

vinced myself it was not by examining all

non venomous

have,

had 4 rows

it

me

scared

to his father in

wampums

a little,

but

mouth which wanted

its

are poiso-

soon con-

I

fangs

&

upper

if small teeth in its

& as

2 in

its

lower jaws." 3

Four years

later,

Cope

delivered his

Divisions of the Salamandridae."

Over

the years, whether

plains or

house,

write

Cope continued on

He ians,

on

titled

a

at

"On

weekly

the Primary

6

was examining rain puddles on the Colorado

it

his

to study fish, amphibians,

Washington boarding-

and

behind on the Kansas

left

He would

reptiles.

and using to good advantage

living fish species

those specimens Williston pieces

was

It

experimenting with salamander eggs in

fifty articles

paper

scientific

first

meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences.

prairies,

all

seventy-four

fossil fishes.

also

wrote

a total

of eighty-four

and more than three hundred on

of the those

reptile articles dealt

other forms of prehistoric

life.

on

articles

living

and

living

and

fossil

fossil reptiles.

amphib-

About

a third

with dinosaurs, pterodactyls, plesiosaurs, and

But Cope

also

wrote about the iguanas of the

Greater Antilles, crocodiles from West Africa, and

a

Central American boa

found wrapped around the stem of bunch of bananas imported to Chicago. 7 All the time

Cope was

chasing those congressional appropriation

bills,

he

was also working away on another major volume, which he finally published Batrachian of North America. It was the most detailed analysis and in 1889 organization of the continent's amphibians and frogs ever done.

While

it

was an extensive

listing

eighty-six plates, mostly Cope's

attempt placing

this

class

of

own

of animals

species, covering

illustrations, the

in

515 pages with

work

also

Batrachians are thus intermediate in characters, and therefore in

between

He

fish-like

forms and the

reptiles,"

Cope

wrote.

a position

8

even sketched the relationship between the species and environment

explaining that "in the history of vertebrates bers of that tions

began to

an evolutionary context. "The

kingdom which occupied

suitable

neo-Lamarckian

for

beliefs,

evolution in both the

Now, he was

air-breathing

at

Cope was

fossil

still

types."

.

[they were] the as

first

mem-

the advent of the condi-

Even

hobbled

by

his

so very close to seeing the process of

record and nature.

work on an

Cope had

.

the land

equally ambitious project Tlie Crocodilians,

Lizards and Snakes of North America. This thirty-six plates.

.

spent his

book would run 1,115

life

pages, with

trying to identify and sort the

ULPED DINOSAUR

THE stream of life, and in this

of that

vision

351

of his major works, he would give voice to

last

exercise.

"Taxonomy

science only so far as

is

that gradual evolution

exact definition,

it is exact," he wrote. "If it is alleged of characteristics must preclude the possibility of

answer that will only become practical truth

I

intermediate forms have been discovered." 9 There was to

his

a

when

all

the

world of work

still

be done.

These two extensive works, plus

Cope one of the

his

mass of shorter papers, would make

the study offish and reptiles, so

pillars in

foremost American scientific journal specializing in ichthyology would be In

Cope would

all,

papers

—

and American

est articles

on

studies

write

a

in his

a total

among

record

a

still

named

honor

When

scientists

— and hundreds more

Naturalist editorials.

He would

so

much

came

it

Dakotas

for the

since.

How

I

suspect that

I

con-

great masters he covered

and

Texas sojourn. "This

am on

Gill

that

no one

years ago, and

the track of

it,"

why he

is

region from

a

is

he wrote to

has

Julia in

'

Cope and

times had changed.

Hotchkiss, the son of

"At

he produced so

error seems inseparable

lost his taste for dinosaurs,

after his

a

Basil's,

I

his guide, a fellow

Philadelphia doctor

traveled the prairies completely alone ity.

Still,

and colleague Theodore

which Dr. Hayden brought some good things early July.

generate reams of

was valuable.

that

to mistakes, friend

Cope, however, had not

it

scientific

general inter-

theory of evolution that was really more prayer than science and

make many. But from investigation, and if he made more than other more ground and did more work." 10

found

herpetology and

of more than twelve hundred

ceded, "unquestionably he did

headed

so that the

Copeia.

fashioned an anthropology that was marred by racism.

much, and

much

was thoroughly

who

named Oscar

married "a squaw,"

now

and depended upon Sioux hospital-

in the

hands of the Sioux.

.

.

.

Five pure

bloods were there, three of whom belonged to the police and wore belts and pistols

.

.

waiting. toes,

.

,"

he wrote.

to Annie.

a civilized

supper

at a table,

the

women

12

surface.

safe, as

"The

bad blood and resentment

trip involved

"The Sioux have been angered

who

have stolen their horses and

of white people stray

rabbit."

land wasn't completely

mered beneath the vation

had

We had tea, jerked beef fried, boiled bacon, fried eggs, boiled pota-

and boiled jack

The

"We

people

who want

whom

go on they don't know." to

lately cattle,

some by

risk,"

sim-

Cope conceded

trespassers

and they

their land.

still

on

their reser-

are very suspicious

They have

a

way of killing

— MARK

352

A F F E

J

had been only nineteen months since

It

several

hundred Lakota Sioux

were massacred on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek

The army had

the south.

raked

a

—

just

180 miles to

Sioux camp with small cannons, called

Hotchkiss guns, emphatically and cruelly ending the campaign against tribes

of the

plains.

While there might be danger, were covered by

prairies

flowers fect

.

.

.

on

there was also beauty

the plains.

many

verdant carpet "spangled with

a

and birds abound and

Cope

sing,"

reported. "All

The

beautiful

would be per-

except for the mosquitoes."

Cope stopped tality

at

where he enjoyed the hospi-

the Little Eagle settlement

who

of a missionary, Miss Collins,

ran

YMCA

prayer meeting and

a

Her house had "mosquito bars," or screens, which Cope said Cope found Miss Collins and her assistant Miss both "good New England types," and it was from them that he

for the tribes.

"made Pratt

life

endurable."

learned the Sioux legend of the big bones.

Once, powerful

giant monsters

evil,

shafts

roamed the

of lightning to destroy the

would

fear that a similar fate

ment knew just where and the next

day,

a great

rote,

Their bones were

befall

many of these

them. But

Cope

a

boy

at

flats,

the settle-

spot.

to a rich boneyard.

was,

It

"covered with fragments of dinosaurs, small and large ...

on banks and

left scat-

not touch the

big bones were to be found,

he led Cope across the prairie to the

Sure enough, the boy brought %

beasts.

the Great Spirit sent

The Sioux would

tered across the prairies and badlands.

bones for

Then

land.

all

Cope

around

bones every where. This was our destination." The great-

est prize was a nearly complete skull of a dinosaur similar to a Hadrosaurus.

They had reached

down

to

as evening and its summer thundermaking camp and supper, Cope said he lay

boneyard

this

storms approached. So,

after

"dream of Dinosaurs except when the thunder and mosquitoes

woke me." He crawled out of his sweeping the plains on three

sides,

nest

of canvass and

crates to see storms

with "lightning ... in forked streams"

playing across the sky or descending to Earth in "blinding bolts." Black skies,

low

pale

cliffs, alkali

in the flickering light.

pools,

It

was,

and the bone

Cope

mound

looking

like a grave

thought, an eerie scene.

He

could

almost believe the Sioux legend.

The storms never reached Cope's camp, and about 4:30 A.M.

— he was up and working

which turned out

to clean

the

first

and

hint of

excavate

would one day stand

a

dawn

free his great skull,

to belong to a Trachodon mirabilis. Leidy had

fied the dinosaur species in

Cope would

at

first

identi-

1856 based on teeth collected by Hayden. But

head and skeleton of the duck-bill dinosaur, which

in the

American Museum of Natural

History. In three

THE ULDED DINOSAUR days,

Cope

other

reptiles.

By July

collected twenry-one

species, primarily dinosaurs

and

31, he was back in Philadelphia, having shipped twenty boxes of

from Texas and

fossils

fossil

353

a similar

number from

the Dakotas.

It

was

like

old

times.

The

following season,

he was

Cope was out

Fort Yates, in

at

once more. In July of 1893, North Dakota, searching the Laramie formation and collecting

finding dinosaurs of the Hardosaurus, Cerotopsian, and Carnosaurus orders.

Cope moved tle

south, stopping once

in the

Grand River and

sit

on

more

were not

Eagle. This year mosquitoes

a

to visit

with Miss Collins

at Lit-

problem, so he was able to swim

the porch sipping

lemonade and chatting with

At Little Eagle, Cope also met Miss Pingree, the young, lady doctor from Maine, who was in charge of the mission hospital. "She is the missionary.

about the best of her kind that

by

tainly actuated

Cope

Again,

Eagle, amassing

eted the most.

a

searched the fossils,

By

tosaurus,

Among

bluffs, riverbanks,

east. It

a

cer-

large,

and badlands around complete

Cope had

skulls that

fifteen

Little

he cov-

hundred pounds

represented, he estimated, about fifteen

the dinosaur

and

is

13

the middle of August,

Triceraptops,

a

have seen," he wrote to Annie, "and spirit.**

but not finding the

of material ready to send back reptilian species.

I

missionary

fossils

Tlicscebsaurus.

were bones of an Edmon-

Cope wrapped

the bones in

pages of the Fargo Forum and the Sioux County Herald for shipment to Philadelphia.

14

Cope took a steamer down the Missouri and then continued across Oklahoma by train until he reached Dickens County, Texas, once more. This year Cope would spend barely two weeks exploring the Triassic red beds, which Cummings had named after the nearby town of Dockum. But even in such a brief visit, Cope was to make another key discovery. The Dockum formation was "a major source" of Triassic amphibKansas and

Cope, himself, would never get back to the beds, but over the next century, paleontologists from the University of Michigan, the University of Texas, and Texas Tech would work Cope's Dockum beds ians

and

reptile fossils.

with great success. lD

On

his

way home, Cope stopped

Oklahoma's Cherokee Wellington,

as all

Strip

in Wellington, Kansas. In a

was going

to

the towns bordering the

few

days,

be opened for settlement.

strip,

was packed with home-

steaders hoping to stake a claim in the bar of land 226 miles long and 58

MARK

354

A F F E

J

miles wide.

The

government was preparing

federal

— an and Delaware combined — homa's northern border

to

for settlement at

were to race offices set

an

entire tract

Rhode

Island,

up by the federal government to pay

on Okla-

Connecticut,

noon on September

16. Settlers

and get to one of the land

across the strip, stake their claims,

a filing fee

of $1.00 to $2.50

acre.

The Department of Interior had the strip with land offices.

the day.

More

But

it

already designated four county seats in

keeping out "sooners" before the

"Everybody U.S.

in this

Strip,"

where

man

a

wagons and camp there will be

They

get the land.

home." 16 On September

set,

country

is

Cope wrote can get

a

The army

outfits, are

patrolled the perimeter

noon.

pistol shot at

intensely excited about the opening of the

to Annie. "It

homestead.

.

.

is

one of the few

when

the time comes.

are practicing horses

.

16, the pistols fired at

.

.

The

By

Cope was

then,

grander,

and

more

in

Chicago

its

visiting the

Buffalo Bill was appearing

wanted to wheel

titillated

see,

that

one

the

at

Columbian Exposition, in Philadelphia

a

seventeen

a

dreamy

air

about

it.

the exposition, and the exotic dancer, Little

town with her Danse du

however, was the massive, bigger than

had been designed to eclipse

Ventre. a

Paris's Eiffel

What everyone

building, rotating iron

Tower. There was no

question that George W. Ferris's wheel was the hit of the

Munching

settled.

domes, colonnades, and sparkling lagoons dotted with

gondolas, the exposition certainly had

Egypt, had

run for

wrapped around the

could be said that the West had been

it

a

noon, and the race was on. By sun-

fanciful world's fair than the

With

years earlier.

fastest riders will

preparatory to making

tent cities dotted the strip, seemingly endless lines

federal land offices,

of the

parts

.Thousands of poor people, with

waiting on the border for the opening day, and

great scramble

a

offices in tentsjust for

hopes of claiming one of the estimated

strip in

forty-two thousand quarter sections.

Cherokee

up makeshift

also set

than one hundred thousand homesteaders had gathered

along the borders of the

a

open the

area bigger than

on chocolates and strolling the fairgrounds,

fair.

Cope

indulged in

would have been little easier. That summer, in fact, while Annie and Julia had even gone to the

the sorts of luxury that a few years earlier he simply

forced to forgo. But

life

had grown

Cope was camping on the exposition

a

prairies,

—by

"I haven't

themselves. This left Cope in a tizzy. much opinion of women traveling alone

especially to such an attractive center

Cope wrote

to

for rascals

Annie from the Dakotas.

"When

for long distances,

of the World all

as

Chicago,"

goes well no bad

results

THE ULDKD DINOSAUR

shall

not

The

Now

easy until

rest

entire

came

a

Cope

you

family

women

happen and then

follow, but accidents often

are safely back."

made

it

home

355

have

poor chance.

a

I

17

to Philadelphia without incident.

time of great changes in the personal and financial

life

of the

Cope and Julia discussed in their letters was love and marriage. "The proper man to marry all other things being equal is the man one loves," Cope once told his daughter. But he advised, Copes. For years one of the subjects

be based on

"let love

a

knowledge of

manners or accomplishments.

real character

Nevertheless, through the hardest years,

most

Julia's

eligible, there

and not appearances,

" ,H

were no

nuptials.

which

also

happened

to be

But on May 22, 1894,

Julia

Cope married William H. Collins, an astronomy professor at Haverford College. The bride was just a few weeks shy of her twenty-eighth birthday, and the groom was thirty-five. Both were past the conventional ages for proper marriage in Victorian society. Did that signal that tionship of convenience, resignation, or perhaps

this

was

a rela-

one of genuine respect and

love?

Mr. and Mrs. Collins spent their honeymoon Haverford

in the

fall.

in

Europe and returned

to

Soon, Annie Cope followed her daughter to Haver-

ford.

Cope

city

and town, and, according to Osborn, "spending whatever nights

commuting

did not. In theory, he was

involved late lectures or engagements

at

the twelve miles

the Pine Street house."

19

between That was

the official line.

But

correspondence Osborn conceded that after thirty years of Edward and Annie had separated. "There are plenty of scandalous attached to Cope you know," Osborn wrote to a book editor years

in private

marriage, stories later.

"His wife

left

him, but largely for financial reasons

Cope

left

I

judge, and of

There is also a story that Mrs. made talk in the nineties. him because she found one snake too many in her shoe. They

course that

.

.

.

continued on amicable terms however."

Osborn couldn't help but suspect with Cope, and vention

vs.

disparity,

gave

him

that

and the usual is

Annie simply wasn't up

the "idea that

unconvention, orthodoxy

Of course, it tal

this

difficulties

vs.

a lot

to

coping

of the trouble was con-

unorthodoxy, physical and mental

of keeping house with

distinctly possible that after

a

genius."

20

being put through the mari-

wringer by her brash, willful, self-absorbed, cavorting husband, Annie had

simply had had enough. Besides Cope's ideas about marriage, like every-

— MARK JAFFE

356

thing

were increasingly

else,

He had titled

shaped

peculiar.

his singular

thoughts into

a

"The Marriage Problem." The problem,

"Marriage

is

an agreement between

But sometimes

passion."

Then marriage

— or

"So long

other,

has

life

to an honorable

been worth

Society's aim, he

monogamy," but one

Cope saw

living,"

that

What

Cope

life.

The

a practicable

and protected

for less than five years. If after that time

parties

a

woman

both

second contract would be drawn for ten to

past her

To

flexible than currently existed.

continue,

would make the if

of

he contended.

was more

As the length of the marriage

result

argued, was prostitution

would be

woman, even

of

natural relations to each

its

The

to the

this:

then? 21

end, he proposed a series of "renewal marriage contracts."

that, a third contract

was

it

for the satisfaction

and virtuous

should be "securing

said,

turned pamphlet,

the tradition-bound Victorian marriage

at least

each sex has maintained

as

as

men and women

"compulsory marriage" and limited divorce, vice.

article,

that passion flags or disappears.

becomes an impediment and

long

first

that

contract

wanted

relationship permanent.

man

increased, so did the obligations of the

Cope

the contract was not renewed.

prime would have trouble

system," he explained, "would offer

to

fifteen years. After

a safe

felt

attracting another mate.

that a

"Such

a

opportunity for the correction of

matrimonial error." 22

"Laws," Cope believed, "should not separate unnecessarily keep If Annie

them

us," the

Copes had and

follies

In any case,

a

woman

nor

vow

be

placed her fidelity in the simple Quaker marriage

still

"loving and faithful

with the

man and

a

together."

.

a

.

.

until

it

shall please the

much more fundamental

foibles

of life with

a

to

Lord by death to separate

dispute than simply dealing

madcap

genius.

Annie moved to Haverford, and Edward,

for the

most

part,

They might have been separated, but they did not appear to be estranged. Cope did visit Haverford and requested Annie to visit him in Philadelphia. Cope, Annie, and Julia made a trip took up residence on Pine

Street.

together to the American

Museum

Certainly, these at

long

last,

new

of Natural History

arrangements were made

of significant

parts

of Cope's

agreed in 1895 to purchase Cone's

thousand

dollars.

New

financially easier

Museum

fossil

mammals

fifty

thousand

as to

sale,

dollars,

for thirty-two

his material

consisted of about ten thousand specimens representing 463

Morris K. Jessup, held firm

City.

of Natural History

This represented auout 40 percent of

asking price had been

York by the

fossil collection.

After a year of negotiations, the American finally

in

species.

and

Cope's

but the museum's president,

what he would

pay.

To

finance the purchase,

THE GILDED DINOSAUR the

museum took up

York society

much

the blue bloods

Vanderbilt, and

would pay

biggest

Dodge. There was,

names

after

New

only so

for old bones.

explained that since collection techniques had improved so

last

in

all,

Cope, Obsorn, showing himself a friend but no sentimen-

In a letter to talist,

the

some of the

subscription from

a

— Morgan,

357

two decades,

The money could

it

would be

foolish to pay too

much

better be invested in expeditions that

the collections of both

much

in

for the material.

would soon

surpass

Cope and Marsh.

Museum

President Pepper also urged the University of Pennsylvania

of

Archaeology and Anthropology to purchase some of Cope's ethnological artifacts,

which

did for about fifty-five-hundred dollars. 23 Absent from the

it

bidding on Cope's treasures was Philadelphia's foremost museum, the

Academy of Natural Sciences. The enmity between Cope and the academy's leading members was enough to keep them from even inquiring. As a result, Cope's major finds would eventually leave the city that had once been the nation's paleontology

Cope had warned Leidy

capital.

that if Philadelphia didn't

sociable science of the gentlemen's society, the city as a

center for science.

make

Cope had been

Philadelphia science

his prediction

New

was holding

more

and

long sought

He

after.

Cope was

also

gained

a

elected, yes elected, president

connected to their

scientific

"The I

and position.

measure of the public honor, so

Advancement of Science.

mentor's behalf.

the

place

and he had been rebuffed. But

in fortunes

Association for the

spoke to nobody

its

his collection leaving Philadelphia for

York was one symbol of the change

In August of 1895,

lose

brash and caustic in his attempts to

professional,

true,

move away from

would be

of the American

Scott and Osborn, both better

brethren than Cope, had worked hard in their

you sowed was elected on the seeds

.

.

.

brought forth

fruit.

1st ballot," a grateful

Although

Cope

I

told

Osborn. 24

Although

had become more mellow, Cope himself remained the

life

who had irritated and incited so many over the At one meeting of the American Philosophical Society in March of 1892, Cope repeatedly interrupted a fellow member, William Bonwill, who was trying to deliver a paper. Bonwill protested to the secretary about

same cantankerous soul years.

Cope's behavior and declared,

"I shall read

it

if it

takes

all

Summer."

At the end of 1895, Cope was once again battling with the academy to defeat a front-runner in the election of officers. Urging Osborn to send in his

proxy vote,

knave

A

Cope

called the offending candidate "the

compound of

& ignoramus."

few months

later,

Cope

delivered a paper

on paleontology and evolu-

— MARK

358

American Philosophical Society symposium. But when the symposium papers, Cope objected, saying there

tion as part of an

society

went

A F F E

J

to publish the

wasn't anything

new

in his piece.

When

the society officers said they were

Cope "exploded and informed the society he was consulting a lawyer." The symposium proceedings were eventually published with a note stating that Cope had been "unwilling to furnish the going to publish

anyway,

it

Society with the text of his remarks." 25

One

of the other benefits of Cope's

new

infusion of cash was that, after a

more than a decade, he was able to hire his old fossil collector, Cope sent Sternberg to Texas to continue the hunt in

hiatus of

Charles Sternberg.

the Permian formations. Sternberg explored the Wichita Brakes,

a

section of

north Texas that 250 million years ago had been an almost tropical bayou

with

filled

five

and amphibians. Sternberg was able to send back forty-

reptiles

complete or near complete

ranging in

size

from

times once more.

less

of Permian

skulls

lizards

than half an inch to two

and batrachians

feet. It really

was

like old

26

Sternberg went out again for

Cope

in early 1896.

But without the same

employer directed him to search

success, in part because his

a

region that

was devoid of fossils. To make matters worse, the weather was cold and wet.

A

despondent Sternberg asked Cope

Cope wrote back ter"

and

tried to

expressing concern over his collector's "very blue let-

buck him

"Few men pursue

end the expedition.

for permission to

a

up. Science, he said,

more

useful

was

a hard, difficult road.

than yourself, and

life

when

the final

have no occasion to be ashamed of

account comes to be recorded you

shall

your record," Cope told Sternberg.

"I personally

have the highest respect to

your devotion to science." 27

The

letter displayed

would never have

a

sensitivity

received.

It

and

of

a close,

this

Cope was

Sternberg

fossil fishes,

I

I

was

decided to

said.

discussing the sale of another portion

American Museum of Natural

time were the Pampean

collection of

collectors

spurred him on. "Although

in those barren fields,"

his collection to the

block

it

up from exhaustion and homesickness,

remain another month

As 1896 came to

that Marsh's

was, Sternberg thought, an example of "the

very best side of Cope's character," and just ready to give

largess

fossils

he had bought

and some Miocene

fossils

History.

On

the

in Paris in 1878, his

from Europe. Once

Cope thought that they were worth about fifty thousand dollars. The museum, on the other hand, thought they were worth about half that figagain

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

359

ure.

—

a new project a complete bibliography of Cope's works "to stand beside those of Marsh and Leidy." Osborn told Cope he was certain the National Museum would publish it. "Please do not

Osborn

to let

fail

had the idea for

also

me know

about

this

soon," he wrote in

a letter

on February

20,

1897.

But the letter arrived to find Cope ill with a severe gastrointestinal ail-* ment he called cystitis. Cope had suffered a bout of the same ailment the previous spring, and he was now laid low once more. "I must remain quiet now until certain troubles have are well," he wrote to Annie on February 26. Cope asked Annie to come to town to see him, but she was ailing herI

self.

28

Five days

am

later,

he was

still

sick

and pretty much confined

much work," he wrote

not doing

to

Osborn, "but

soon." Osborn wrote that he would try to

A

few days

university

later,

Cope

a little better.

it."

He

The

said, "Julia

Cope had

it

at

the

next day, he skipped one of

told Annie, "I

we

full

go backward

easily

should both be sick

to rely for his care

upon

suffering from the grippe,

with at

Wm & thee."

his doctor.

Between

seemed

making no

progress toward recovering.

fits

It

was, he

the same time."

his part-time secretary,

Brown, and to be

at

possible."

must have her hands

thought, "too bad that

"I

for a visit.

Annie and Julia's husband, William, were both and Cope

room.

going

got out of bed to give his course lecture

and ended up "the worse for

two lectures and felt and must keep as still as his

come

to his

feel like

of pain, he

tried to

Osborn

Miss

Anna

work, but he pressed

him

to

think about surgery.

"My Cope

trouble will probably finish

told his wife, "but

will probably have to

me

in the course

of time

goes on,"

if it

can be eradicated by a surgical operation, that

it

under go sooner or

But going under the knife was

still

later."

seen

as a

I

29

highly risky exercise, even

though there had been tremendous advances since the days of the Garfield shooting.

Cope

started getting visit.

delayed. Besides his condition

around town

Charles Knight, the

a bit.

artist

He

seemed

to be improving.

delivered his lectures. Julia

of prehistoric

life,

came and spent

came

for a

few

days,

a

working with Cope on sketches of some of his prized discoveries Elasmosaurus, Camarasaums,

But the health problems stationary,"

he told Annie.

would happen

come

again.

this difficulty."

"My 30

He

Laclaps,

and Nanosauurs. lingered. "I Still,

do not seem

to get well, but remain

he had bounced back

Dr. says

my general

health

is

last

spring,

good,

I

maybe

it

should over-

MARKJAFFE

360

He went as far York City about the case and

Osborn, however, continued to urge Cope as

speaking to

a

prominent surgeon

to have surgery.

New

in

hospital arrangements. Still, Cope hesitated. "Many thanks for your kind attention to the hospital question & the details," Cope wrote to Osborn at the end of March. "I will probably

making

undertake the operation, but the time

my

explained, and was

much weakened.

going into any surgery,

Always

I

uncertain

as yet

is

Cope had endured

advice."

physician's

must recover

"I

will

depend on

my

strength before

suspect."

Cope

great believer in patent medicines,

a

&

another acute attack, he

morphia, belladonna, and formalin in an effort to ease his pain.

The

(a

self-administered

tormaldehyde and methanol solution)

drugs,

which Cope described

nation that makes even the strongest constitutions stagger," depressed, so that that "nothing in

in

life is

as a

left

"combi-

him deeply

any degree enjoyable, except an

occasional draught of water."

Osborn wanted Cope

to

come

to

New

York immediately and check a week

himself into the hospital, where he could "try to build himself up for

with good food and care."

were

On

into his words.

I

am

now

March

and courage

fading,

and

a

tone of resignation was creeping

27, he wrote his last-known letter to his wife.

A—

had a good night

weak. I

swimmy.

good

realized that his old friend's will

only he could get him to the hospital.

failing. If

Cope, however, was

Dear

He

am

last night,

recovering a

little

& am feeling pretty well excepting that I my

appetite, but

Tlie crushed strawberry cushion

is

my

head

is

somewhat

doing nicely and gets crushed a

deal.

The sky

looks beautiful out of the window,

days the country will be charming, I

am

and

anxious

to

I dare say that in a few

get out, but cannot yet

awhile.

With

love to all

Tliy husband

Edward'

On

the

last

day of March,

1

Cope managed

a

three-page letter to his

Aunt

He had been more or less bedridden for five weeks at and had been worn down by bad nights and strong drugs. "To be well now seems to me to be something extraordinarily fortunate," he

Jane for her birthday. that time

wrote. "I

know

that

many

suffer

more than

I

do,

&

so

I

am

thankful," he said.

THE GILDED DINOSAUR "I

do not expect to

time comes with

The

relation

belief that

a full

He

"Cope was

still

Cope seemed more

old and weary

of battle and wanted to

He

I

do so when the

shall

change greatly for the

a

and the chances of moving him to

if

we

32

hoping to get Cope into

had

better.

of Father to children, and

resigned to his fate that his

at fifty-six,"

rest."

be

that

is

will not fail."

Osborn was

In early April,

while, but

a

will

it

man

of the Supreme to

keep the relation true.

hospital, but

world yet

leave the

361

Osborn

also

New

said.

been

hit

a

New

young

"He had borne

York

friend.

the heat

by another severe

attack,

York had vanished.

On 5, Osborn made his last visit. Cope was lying on his cot in the second-floor front room surrounded by towers of paper boxes holding Permian vertebrates. The skull of a giant amphibian sat on the floor. Sunday April

Osborn asked

Cope's pain, but

after

all

the elder scientist wanted to talk

about was Osborn's views on the origin of mammals.

As word of Cope's condition spread, leagues. Persifor Frazer ous. Frazer listened

delivered a lecture

On

Scott that

on

Cope was

Whatever the

prostate.

a

The

suffering

were made by friends and col-

Cope

deliri-

wild condition,

Cope

Osborn

after

flushed and

Felidae, cats, that

died.

visits

few days

while, in that

Cope

April 12,

came

to find

was charming and complete.

exact cause

is

not known. Osborn told

from uremic poisoning and an enlarged

cause, the career

of Edward Drinker Cope ended

six-

teen weeks short of his fifty-seventh birthday.

That

spring, Sternberg

beds of Texas. a

He

was

was once again working for Cope

sleeping in his tent at his

liveryman rode up and roused him.

him

since the day before,

Annie saying before,

that

son, but

I

The man, who had been

handed Sternberg

Cope had

and had known what

a

died three days

it

in the

was to bury

Permian

camp on Indian Creek when searching for

It

was

earlier. "I

had

message.

my own

had never sorrowed more deeply than

dead, even I

a

note from

lost friends

my

firstborn

did over the news,"

Sternberg wrote in his memoirs.

The same day

that Sternberg

Osborn walked up entered the hallway, went

plains,

and climbed the Cope's

coffin,

stairs to

was mourning for Cope on the Texas

the steps of 2102 Pine Street for the past the parlor

still

Cope's study. There

draped with

a

dark cloth,

last

time.

He

stocked with dinosaur bones, sitting

a spray

on two study

tables

was

of magnolia blossoms and

green leaves on top. Chairs for six mourners were arranged around the coffin. Osborn, Scott, Frazer,

Harrison Allen, Horatio

Collins, each took a chair.

seemed

to

"We

Wood all sat

and Cope's son-in-law, William in perfect Quaker silence for what

be an interminable length of time," Osborn

said.

The

only

MARK JAFFE

362

sound was the scraping on the

floor of

Cope's tortoise

as

it

moved around

the room. Osborn's gaze wandered to the Gila monster endlessly circling in its

bowl, and he could not help but think of how

glass

Cope had

of

a habit

scratching the lizard's head.

As was the way of the Quakers, no one would by the

Book of Job, which

Where

wast thou

and the

anticipating that,

had brought along

intolerable,

the

Osborn

spirit."

a Bible.

He

rose

say anything until fact the silence

and read

a

"moved

might be

long excerpt from

began:

when

I

foundations of the earth? declare

laid the

if

thou hast understanding.

And

ended:

Behold now behemoth which

I

made with

thee;

he eateth grass

as

an ox.

Lo now, his

strength

is

in his loins,

and

his force

is

in the navel

of his

belly.

He moveth

his tail like a cedar; the

sinews of his stone are wrapped

together.

His bones are strong

as

pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.

Then Job answered the Lord, and said, know that thou canst do everything, and I

withholden from

Who have

I

which

no thought can be

thee.

thee that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore

is

uttered that I

that

knew

Then Osborn

understood not; things too wonderful for me,

I

not.

said,

"These

are the

problems to which our friend devoted

his

life."

The coffin was loaded on a hearse, and the men followed in carriages as Cope was carried on a final trip to his father's home, Fairfield, where a large gathering of family and friends waited.

The

"spirit"

large assembly tribute.

"By

was

was

this

also

slow in arriving

silent.

time,"

Then

a single

Osborn

at Fairfield,

and

for a long time, the

person rose and said

said, "I

a

few words of

was thoroughly exhausted with

suppressed emotion." close of the long, silent service, the coffin was removed. Cope's and family mingled and talked. Frazer was struck by how differently each side remembered the man. "Few men," he concluded, "succeeded so

At the

friends

THE GILDED DINOSAUR of his multiform character.

were amazed at the prowhich he had always exhibited to nearest relatives, the broad views of social problems which he imbued his inter-

found religious and these

at

His

363

.

.

.

scientific friends

feelings,

33 course with the world."

Frazer was certain

it

Cope's character," he ence. ... In his

Osborn was

wasn't duplicity by Cope. said,

"was reverence

view these occupied

a

said softly, "Friend, in the next

be

Osborn followed him

into the

small gathering was getting ready to read Cope's will.

Osborn and Cope's brother-in-law, John to

sci-

getting ready to follow the coffin to the grave, but William

thee will learn something of interest."

room, where

and pure

totally difFerent fields."

Collins touched him on the shoulder and

room

'The dominant motive of

for pure religion

Cope

his executors.

gave family

Garrett,

members

were named by Cope

the

first

selection of his

books, with the remainder to go to the University of Pennsylvania or to be sold.

Cope left small bequests to Jacob Geismar (twenty-five hundred dollars) and Anna Brown (five thousand dollars). Julia also received five thousand dollars. The remainder of Cope's estate went to Once

debts were taken care of,

Annie. In July 1897,

a

notary put the total value of the estate

That was considerably

less

than the quarter of

inherited from his father, but considerably

mouth

a

at

$75,326.95.

Cope had

million dollars

more than

the family's hand-to-

days in the 1880s.

Soon

that figure

was to be enlarged with two more

fossil sales.

The Pam-

Museum the museum

pean and European collections were purchased by the American of Natural History in 1902 for $28,550, and in

bought Cope's North American

fish,

a third sale,

amphibian, and

$18,550. Altogether, Cope's collections were sold for pretty

much justifying

As the

will

his estimates

a total

of $84,600,

of their worth.

continued to be read, Osborn learned that there would be no

graveside service and

no

my

shall

funeral

reptile fossils for

my body

that an autopsy shall

be presented to the Anthropometric Society and

be performed on

collection of brains, and

collection in a

burial, for the final codicil stated, "I direct that after

my skeleton

it.

My brain shall be preserved in their

shall

be prepared and preserved

locked case or drawer, and shall not be placed

on

in their

exhibition,

but shall be open to the inspection of students of anthropology."

Morton and Broca of measuring skulls and brains in an effort to glean some insight to intelligence, eminent men of the time were urged to donate their brains for study. The belief still haunted sciIn the tradition started by

ence that by weighing brains, and counting convolutions something could be proved about intelligence.

MARK

364

The Mutal Autopsy

J

A F F E

Society in Paris and the Anthropometric Society in

Philadelphia were leaders in this research. Although field,

a

newcomer

to the

the Cornell Brain Association had gathered seventy brains of "edu-

cated, orderly persons."

The poet Walt Whitman donated

his brain, as did

John Wesley Powell,

F. Gauss, and the German electrical engineer Werner Seimans. Joseph Leidy and William Pepper had

the brilliant mathematician K.

and

industrialist

donated their brains In 1906,

Edward

College, read brains of six

a

as well.

Sptizka, a professor

of anatomy

at

the Jefferson Medical

paper before the Philosophical Society on

emnu m

dentists

and scholars

his

study of the

— including Ltiuy and Cope.

Cope's brain had weighed 1,545 grams, making

it

34

larger than the brains

of John Wesley Powell (1,488 grams) and the American statesman, Daniel Webster (1,518 grams). That probably would not have come as any surprise to

Cope.

But Sptizka announced, "Joseph Leidy's brain

is

even larger than that of

Cope." Leidy had beaten Cope in the brain derby by five grams. One brain Cope wasn't matched against was that of Walt Whitman. A clumsy laboratory assistant had dropped the poet's brain, and

As

of Cope, the codicil

for the rest

der of

my

body,

same place

I

as shall

direct, shall

it

had splattered on the

in his will concluded,

be burned and

my

floor.

"The remain-

ashes be preserved in the

contain the ashes of my esteemed friends, Dr. Jos. Leidy

and Dr. Jno Ryder." (Ryder and Leidy 's ashes were kept in a bronze urn at the Wistar Institute, a research organization affiliated with the university.)

And

so, to

the very end,

Cope was

a

man of science, although one

suspect that Leidy might have viewed the idea of being in Cope's for eternity

with some dismay, even

if

he had the bigger brain.

has to

company

Chapter TWenty-TWo

Wolcott

harvard's emeritus Rumford Professor of Chemistry and a Marsh confidant, was now old, sick, and GIBBS,

unable by his

own hand

Haven. So he dictated

have just heard from Chandler in Cambridge of the

"I

member whom

death of Cope, that makes the sixth prominent

emy

has lost within the year," Gibbs said.

seen so

many men

New

to write to his friend in

a letter to his niece.

pass

— Bache,

the Acad-

At seventy-five, Gibbs had already

the elder Agassiz, the elder Silliman, the

younger Silliman, Henry, Leidy, Baird, Hayden. So many. "It will be my duty to appoint someone to write his obituary notice can you suggest the proper person?" Gibbs asked. "Whatever you and I may think of his personal character Cope was I suppose a distinguished man in his

own

science.

am

I

sure that

you

will act impartially in the matter."

made much of two-page memoriam by Frazer in

As one might have expected, the America Cope's passing.

It

ran four photographs, a

1

which he

called his friend "a great master

uary by J.

S.

Kingsley, a the journal's editor.

Naturalist

of science," and

Cope, Kingsley

a

six-page obit-

was "a man

said,

of quick decision and strong conviction. There were with him only two conclusions:

The later,

a

2 thing was either right or wrong."

National

Academy of

it,

Osborn could not help but compare

Cope with Leidy and Marsh. "In Leidy we had type, Cope was a man who loved speculation noted both

men were

"Marsh, with

tologist

3 of a very high order," Osborn granted.

In

its

May 1897

issue,

less ability,

at

.

It

at his death.

said.

But he

broad net over biological nevertheless was a paleon-

a

described

the University of Pennsylvania.

wrong, saying was forty-six

exact observer

Osborn

,"

the American Journal of Science ran

uary for Cope, comprising six paragraphs.

medical student"

.

.

true naturalists, casting a

breadth and

man of the

a

inquiry.

less

memoir, submitted years

Sciences' official

was written by Osborn. In

It

bare-bones obit-

him

as

"former

also got his age

4

That was the end of it. There was no more posturing, no more backbiting to be done. Marsh's long war with Edward Drinker Cope was over. That first

week of May

also

brought Marsh another 365

letter

from the

past.

"Dear

MARK JAFFE

366

friend," that

Chief Red Cloud began,

visit

I

"I presume you will be surprised to hear Washington once more. As you may know that I have not been

on account of my eyes, and believe me to travel such a distance." Yes, they were all getting old. Marsh himself, now gray and portly, had been having circulatory sometime

for

now

even

it

able to

come

to this city

I

was unwise for

problems that sometimes made walking never forget

"I shall

my troubles

difficult.

during the

Your kind assistance rendered at thai time said. "The events associated with those arrived here and wished to write to

you

I

earlier days

shall

days

a

few

of reservation

never forget,"

came back lines."

to

'

life.

Red Cloud me when I

3

The note was, however, more than just a bit of sentiment. Red Cloud had come to Washington for his "last appeal to the government to fulfill all the promises of the

were made." Perhaps, the old chief suggested,

treaties that

Marsh might be

able to help

once more.

But the Dakotas were now so very or

money

ical

to finish his work.

He

Survey or afford to pay for

far away,

and Marsh had so

could no longer

rely

and

his longer,

when

you think

papers to run

that the Journal of Science should pay for

they are inserted

.

.

.

,"

he curtly told Marsh.

to keep the journal afloat if we did so."

Dana never tions

ever, help

when Marsh

his

He

orchid has outlived In 1895,

National

all

Marsh had

Academy

dinner invita-

sent him, in the dead of winter, a

"Your beauti-

other birthday flowers," he wrote in thanks. 7

finally

after

your papers

could not, how-

luscious orchid from his hothouse for his eightieth birthday. ful

as

am

6

there was an English earl at the table.

but be enthused

cost. "I

would be impossible

Marsh very much and declined

did like

— even when

"I

time

on the U.S. Geolog-

tardier,

appendices in Silliman's journal, and Dana refused to assume the sorry that

little

down from the presidency of in the chair. The following May,

stepped

twelve years

Yale Corporation voted to give him

a

the

the

thirty-five-hundred-dollar annual

Marsh still taught no classes and devoted himself to the Peabody. Although not teaching, Marsh had begun to invite small groups of to Sunday luncheons at the mansion, fresh-faced boys undergraduates

salary.

—

—

where he would expound upon

science, but mainly retell his western

adventures.

After lunch, the group

would gather

peace pipe and Brigham Young's Bible

would

drift

from reverie to

reverie.

gings, or a frontiersman's pistol

sat

"Here

would

wigwam, where Red Cloud's on the big pedestal table. Marsh

in the

a scalp

recall

or a pair of buckskin leg-

some

incident of the west and

the Yale seniors became small boys again, listening to tales of Indian savagery 8 or of hairbreadth escapes from stampeding buffalo," one student recalled.

THE GILDED DINOSAUR To

new

this

367

generation of Yalies, Marsh was not the brilliant

scientist,

the

To them, he was just a gentleman, who hunted buffalo in the dim past."

wily political operative, or the steely autocrat.

"pompous, but kindly old But Marsh's

allusions to his

western explorations

Hatcher and Williston bemused and stated or left fields

little

irritated. "Prof.

both

Marsh

has

to be inferred that his personal exploration in this as in other

it

were extensive and

were the

a

in his papers left

result

of the

that the larger part

described by

fossils

of these explorations," Williston wrote

him

in 1897.

"The actual fact is that since 1875, when my personal relations with Professor Marsh began, he himself did no fieldwork, his knowledge of the fronbeing derived from

tiers

a

few transient

&

hasty

visits.

.

.

the personal dangers encountered by hostile Indians

extreme to

all

those

who know

the

facts.

any greater danger from Indians than

New

Haven."

I

.

amusing

is

think that Prof.

when he

His references to in the

Marsh never ran

entertained

Red Cloud

in

9

That was harsh, perhaps too harsh. Williston hadn't been there when the

when

into

armed braves blocked the way the Dakota badlands. But Marsh remembered. He had those memories

and

his old bones.

prairies

were

There was

set ablaze

little

or

new

Sitting Bull's

material

great flurry of acquisition

coming

into the

was the purchase of

ancient palmlike plants called cycads.

museum now. The

fossil

Marsh wasn't

so

last

impressions of the

much

interested in

the plants themselves but in a geological dispute over whether the strata in

which they were found were the puzzle

work of trying Marsh spent

Earth's history.

imens from the Black For

a

Hills

Jurassic or Cretaceous.

was another part of

to piece together that long, deep picture of fifteen

hundred

dollars in

1897 on cycad spec-

of South Dakota.

brief time, the Peabody had been the center of America's paleon-

community, but no more. In

tology

It

Museum

New

York

City,

the

American

of Natural History under Osborn was vigorously pushing explo-

ration, as well as purchasing large quantities

of specimens from Cope's col-

Osborn had also hired Jacob Wortman, one of Cope's most value men, and sent him out west.

lection. field

man in town, was backing a Museum would also launch expe-

In Chicago, Marshall Field, the wealthiest

new

natural history

museum. The

Field

major discoveries. Soon, Williston would arrive at the University of Chicago as a professor of paleontology, and he would recom-

ditions that led to

mend

that

Osborn

hire

one of his prize

students, a fellow

named Barnum

Brown.

Brown

did go to

work

for the

American Museum of Natural

History,

and

MARKJAFFE

368

he would become one of the most famous dinosaur hunters of the tury. It

who

was Brown

twenty-six years after

Cope had

first

identified

as a

it

just as

J.

Morgan had caught dinosaur

P.

Marshall Field had gotten Pittsburgh.

$50,000 a

He

was

it

in

rex.

New

fever in

York, and

Andrew Carnegie in new Carnegie Museum. "I have

Chicago, so too had

lavishly financing his

Marsh

year to spend forever, " Carnegie told

a

cen-

promising stratum, and

discovered the dinosaur of dinosaurs, the Tyrannosaurus

And

new

returned to the Hell Creek formation in Montana,

in a letter,

"which

in

few hundreds of years or so must give Pittsburgh something noble." The

Carnegie Museum,

officially

founded

was

in 1895,

now

receiving a ten-million-dollar infusion of money from

Carnegie knew what he wanted tee

with the Brontosaurus

the

first

But

excelsus,

thing that went into the

efforts to

buy

museum was or

flat

— every

that,"

at least part

of

namesake.

its

straight away. "I astonished the

knocked them

a Brontosaurus,

in the midst

committhem

one. Told

he wrote Marsh. 10

of one, were unsuccess-

The museum was going to have to find its own dinosaurs. Carnegie's new curator, J. B. Hatcher, immediately launched a series of western expe-

ful.

One

ditions.

Carnegie expedition uncovered

of the Bridger Basin. Perhaps those Indians

in Utah, just south

had heard back

One

1870 had been true

in

dinosaur boneyard

a fantastic

thing was clear, however, the

after

attic

tales

Marsh

all.

had been unlocked and thrown

wide open. Marsh could no longer control the flow of bones. The world of dinosaurs was growing bigger every day.

Marsh's

own

discoveries.

scientific

work now was focused more on

He, too, was trying to sum things up.

had proposed to Powell back and

in 1882, only two, the

the past than

ten

new

monographs he

infamous Odontornithes

were completed.

Dinocerata,

The

Of the

on sauropods, brontotheres, and such were in various states of He could never finish everything, so Marsh turned his back on all

others

progress.

but his dinosaurs.

he had written

What was

a survey

really

known about

the great beasts? In 1892,

paper on the certopsians entitled, "The gigantic

Certopsidae, or horned dinosaurians of North America," with ten plates.

Four years ence,

"On

later,

he had

a

sixteen-page paper in the American Journal of Sci-

the Affinities and Classification of the Dinosaurian Reptiles,"

with plates showing the restoration of "the twelve best known Dinosaurs" in the world. tosaurus,

The

eight

American dinosaurs included

Camptosaurus, Loasaurus, Stegosaurus,

Triceratops,

Anchisaurus, BronCertosaurus,

and

THE GILDED DINOSAUR They were

Claosaurus.

all

Marsh

369

dinosaurs. Apparently, not a single

Cope

dinosaur was famous. Well, perhaps the feud wasn't completely dead. (The four

European dinosaurs included the celebrated,

nathus,

little,

Mantell's Iguanodon, Huxley's Hypsilophodoti, and

dosaurus.

A

politic, if

"Many new

not comprehensive

discoveries have

Marsh

tried to

do just

Marsh

said.

that in his

1896 Dinosaurs of North America and

nearly fifty-five papers already written

new

genera of

had eighty-five plates In this

last

noted that by

a

This required

fossil

text figures.

monograph published by this

and named seventy-six

the U.S. Geological Survey,

time dinosaurs had been found on that their

matter of much discussion."

Marsh observed

Ver-

summed up new species

animals. Ditwsaurs of North America also

and numerous

of the world and

a

11

[Denver Basin]. In these two thick quartos, Marsh

and thirty-five

Sceli-

list.)

reassessment and reclassification of the ancient animals.

tebrate Fossils

Owen's

been made, and some very strange forms

have been brought to light in America,"

tinents

birdlike Compsog-

"placement

in the

Marsh

the inhabited con-

all

animal kingdom [was]

12

"some of the large earlier forms are apparently some of the later small, specialized ones have

that

related to the crocodiles, while

points of resemblence to birds. difficult to classify

Marsh

still

dinosaurs

These

among

diversified characteristics have

made

it

themselves." 13

had not accepted Seeley's designation

which would have

for bird-hipped

and

some of his confusion. Over time, future generations of paleontologists would reorder, simplify, and elucidate Marsh's work, and some of the species and genera named in Ditwsaurs of North America would disappear. But Marsh's volume would be the foundation upon which American paleontology was built. It would be the first, best reference. It would also be the last major scientific work in

lizard-hipped dinosaurs,

clarified

Marsh's lifetime.

While

his

papers continued to be studded with excellent plates and

detailed dinosaurs restorations,

dinosaur skeleton for display sonian wanted to build

bones were for the other at

the

a

scientists,

as

Marsh remained

as reluctant to

he had been back in 1876

when

mount

Hadrosaurus for the Centennial Exhibition.

not to be ogled and gawked

museums were doing just

that,

and there was

a

the Smith-

The

at

by the public. But

a

push among some

Peabody to do the same. Marsh, however, was immovable.

"The Dinosaurs seem

much from both their enemies "Many of them were destroyed

... to have suffered

and their friends," Marsh once remarked.

and dismembered long ago by their natural enemies, but more their friends have

done them

recently,

further injustice in putting together their scat-

— M

370

tered remains,

A R K

J

A F F E

and restoring them to supposed

can judge there

nothing

is

unto them

like

lifelike

forms. ... So far as

in the heavens, or

on the

I

earth,

or in the waters under the Earth."

But the

desire for a dinosaur in

Alumni Weekly would run Methinks

I

hear

a

a

poem

New

Haven was

great and the Yale

years later:

chorus,

The Ajax Apatosaurus Each Triceratop, each Saurian, each Spoon-bill Dinosaur, Crying out in desperation: 4

Oh

respect our age Cretacian

Gives us

Of

room

to live our lives out! Can't

moment,

course, at the

you

there wasn't even a

set us

room

up once more? big enough

at

the

Peabody to hold the biggest of the animals, and Marsh fixed himself once again

on

raising the

had been on the

Marsh

for the never-built

campaigned

earnestly

alumni dinner in son "Yale gets so

enough

money

architects original plans

New York little

for the

City,

money

is

first

some twenty-five

new

years ago.

wing. Speaking before

a

Yale

he explained to the old boys that the reamainly theological. She

to secure the saints, nor

Princeton gets the

second wing; the wing that

is

not quite good

wicked enough to catch the

and Harvard the second, while Yale's

left

sinners.

between

upper and nether mill stones." 14

But friends in

it

did not have to be that way. "I hope," Marsh concluded, "the

of Yale

now come

will

forward and complete the

museum

building

time for our bicentennial celebration in 1901." All that

was

left

of Marsh's

scientific career

was

fifteen short papers over

no more than a couple of months' production for Cope. output would be 270 publications or a fifth of Cope's bibliography. Nevertheless, they included three comprehensive monographs and

three years,

Marsh's

total

provided

vital

material to the understanding of both paleontology and evo-

lution.

Marsh would win the dinosaur race, naming eighty-six species to Cope's fifty-six. 15 Even in the months before his death, Marsh named two Besides,

more dinosaurs

—

a

bipedal, Hadrosaums-like Prosaurolophus brevkeps

and

a

(These names, however, would,

like so

continued matching, merging, and

reclas-

In the ten years he was associated with the U.S. Geological Survey,

Marsh

massive sauropod, Barosaurus

many, disappear

afftnis.

as paleontologists

sifying species.)

wrote only forty papers, and eventually

his

remaining unfinished work

TIIK

two hundred lithographic manuscripts

GILDED DINOSAUR

plates,

dozens of drawings and engravings, but no

— would be turned over

to the survey's

Osborn. Osborn would parcel

tologist,

researchers in the hopes of completing the

work was

the

still

After stepping

down

vertebrate paleon-

among

material

Two

monographs.

several

decades

Academy of

president of the National

as

traveling.

He went

Zoology

International Congress of

ing.

this

new

later,

going on.

Marsh spent more time

Moscow

371

to

Europe

Sciences,

1895 to attend the

in

Leyden. In 1897, he went again to

at

for the International Geological Congress.

It

was

grand gather-

a

Haeckel was there from Germany, Albert Gaudry from France,

Archibald Geikie from England. eighty-six, but as

animated

Among the Americans was James

as ever.

Ural excursion, and everything

Marsh reported

else,

Banquets, Ball,

etc.,

Hall,

"took

that Hall

now

in the

without injury." 16

Marsh, even though he was twenty years younger than Hall, was nowhere near

as spry,

with

his

poor circulation and aching

leg.

At the end of 1897, Marsh received the Cuvier Prize from the French Academy. Awarded every three years

for the

"most remarkable work either

on the Animal Kingdom or on Geology," Marsh was just the can

—

preceded by Louis Agassiz and Joseph Leidy

Marsh had

already received the Biggsby

—

third

Ameri-

to receive this honor.

Medal from the Geological

Society of London and honorary degrees from Harvard and the University

of Heidelberg. But the Cuvier Prize,

was

As 1898 began, Marsh Yale, as a

gift, all his

only for the company

it

put him

in,

modern

animals.

his student days in

up his accounts. He deeded to These included not only bones of dinosaurs

truly started settling

collections.

and other extinct animals, but rare

if

special.

also the skeletons

There were

Nova

Scotia,

also

of a

gorilla

mineral samples,

and archaeological

America and Mexico, including those he

spirited

his generosity."

away from

Dwight went on

several other

some going back

gift

to

from Central

artifacts

Yale President Timothy Dwight accepted Marsh's

acknowledgment of

and

P.

Barnum.

T.

with "grateful

to praise

Marsh

for

the "unselfish devotion of his time, his talents and his energies" to science

and to Yale. Still,

Dwight found Marsh

a

puzzling fellow, one with

never strike an easy attitude. Every time Marsh would

even on the most mundane of errands, Dwight

been two ministers of state having

little

whom

come

said, "It

was

he could

to his office, as if

we had

acquaintance with each other,

who

MARK

372

had met

of some great public question." Marsh imposed

for the settlement

such formality that "one could not

Down

in

were

still at

him on

his

The government come to get them out

capital.

announcement of the bequest

days after the

caused some

gift

the U.S. Geological Survey.

at

cott, Powell's successor as chief

ing

ordinary manner." 17

Yale, but the time had clearly

of the Peabody and to the nation's

Nine

talk after the

Washington, the announcement of Marsh's

consternation and worry collections

A F F K

J

to Yale, Charles

Wal-

of the survey, wrote to Marsh congratulat-

donation and suggesting that the professor

"how, in

clarify

the event of your death, government collections could be readily distin-

guished and taken charge by some one connected with the Survey."

Walcott and Marsh met in

wanted

memorandum

a

Haven and wrote

New

a detailed history

pamphlet form. The

gist

York City of

his

place.

first

He

Marsh returned

it

was

really at the

in collecting for the

New

behest of

government

Baird and Powell had

also intimated that

to

involvement with the survey in

of this history was that

Spencer Baird that Marsh got involved the

to discuss the issue. Walcott

outlining the collections.

in

made conces-

sions to him.

When him not

Walcott saw the pamphlet, he immediately wired Marsh to distribute

All Walcott

it

or have

wanted was

a

it

simple

shipment of twelve Ceratopsian

telling

printed in the American Journal of Science. list,

no

skulls to

history.

That spring, Marsh sent

Washington,

as a

peace offering.

a

(It

represented Marsh's fourth shipment to Washington since 1886. But the

bulk of the government collection remained in It

would not be

until after

Museum

A. Lucas, from the National lection.

It

would

road freight

to sort

fossils,

Haven.) a

F.

and pack the government col-

take Lucas, with the help of

organize and crate the

New

Marsh's death that the survey would send

two

preparers, six

which weighed eighty tons and

months

to

filled five rail-

cars.

Riding the

train

from

New

Haven

to

twenty-one dinosaurs, including the Hadrosaurus, and Camarasaurus.

upward of $150,000. The four

Washington were the remains of Allosaurus,

Triceratops,

Stegosaurus,

Lucas estimated the shipment's value

earlier

as

shipments were thought to be worth

So Hilary Herbert would have been happy to know that the government got better than dollar for dollar on its $150,000 investment in Marsh, although, doubtless, he would have about forty-three thousand

remained In the

distressed that

they had gotten for the

summer of 1898, Marsh

ber of the American

meeting

all

dollars.

in

again

went

money were

old bones.

to Europe, as a leading

mem-

delegation to the International Congress of Zoology,

Cambridge, England.

He

then attended the annual meeting of

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

373

Advancement of Science in Norwich. invited to visit young Walter Rothschild's museum and park in Tnng, just outside London. Marsh and his Walter Smith Woodward were met by Rothschild, who gave

the British Association for the

While

in England,

zoological friend Sir

them

Marsh was

tour of the collections.

a

Then

they were then invited by Lord and Lady Rothschild to join

cheon party at the family estate, Tring Park. found themselves among English mainly of country sports and

Marsh or of the ibly

his great dinosaurs.

Smith

erratic son,"

and society where the

aristocrats

None of them had

politics.

"We

were treated merely

Woodward

said.

lun-

a

Marsh and Smith Woodward

Marsh

left

as

talk

was

ever heard of

the erratic friends

for the return trip, vis-

disappointed by the aristocrats' lack of interest in him, but he couldn't

help but remark to his friend dessert service was.

how

To those who knew him, it was was he had been

spectacular the Rothschilds' solid-gold

18

clear that

poor health since

in

Marsh was

his

Russian

in decline. trip.

Lydekker, whose 1888 paper on the Elasemosaurus had

set

The

When

truth

Richard

both Cope and

Leidy stewing, encountered Marsh in Norwich, he couldn't help but notice

how much Back

trouble the older

in the States,

man was

having getting around.

Walcott was continuing to press Marsh to

finish

up

his

monographs and send the government collections to the SmithsonIn late February of 1899, Marsh was summoned to Washington by

survey ian.

Walcott to discuss the issue one more time. 19

On a

the

way back

to

New

Haven, Marsh stopped

in

New

dinner honoring Carl Schurz, the former interior secretary, the

helped engineer the merging of the surveys into one and

King the

first

director.

morning with

He a

York City

a

Marsh's hotel

returned to

New Haven on

heavy storm. For some reason

tion

— Marsh

room was

bad cold, so bad he just stayed

chilly,

in

that day. its

way through

perhaps there were no cabs

walked through the storm to the

man who

made Clarence

and he awoke the next

bed

Sunday, the train making

—

for

New

at

the sta-

Haven House. He

arrived at the hotel soaked and chilled. His closest aide, Bostwick, fetched

him from there and brought him home. a bad cold, insisted on going Peabody each morning, driving around to the back door in a cab and

For the next week, Marsh, although nursing to the

having

staffers take

him up

to his office in the freight elevator.

Saturday afternoon, Bostwick went into Marsh's office and found

slouched over in

his chair.

He

down to the basement workshop and Hugh Gibb, a preparer at the museum

hurried

announced, "The Professor's sick." for seventeen years

him

and one of Marsh's

stalwarts,

dashed up to the

office.

M

374

"I'm

Gibb," Marsh

sick,

A R k

J

A F F E

said, stretching a

same moment, he touched

hand toward him. But

at

the

a finger to his lips, as if to say the "secret's

Gibb and Bostwick took the professor down the freight elehim into a cab. Marsh lay back on the seat. Gibb got in after him, but Marsh wanted no one to take him home. Gibb pleaded. Marsh was absolutely firm. He shook the man's hand and said, "Good-bye, Gibb." That night, the doctor feared it was pneumonia. The following morning, there was no doubt. Bostwick spent most of the next week at the mansion.

between

us."

vator and got

Marsh seemed

to rally

on Monday, but by Wednesday he had

slipped into a

semiconscious delirium. Bostwick said Marsh was "more or

flighty

less

although he did have some sane moments." Thursday, the doctor ordered an oxygen tent to ease Marsh's breathing. little else to do. Near dawn on Saturday, Timothy Dwight came and spent some time at Marsh's bedside, but Marsh did not recognize him. There were only a few hours left. At five minutes to ten on the morning of March 19, 1899, Othniel

But there was

He

Charles Marsh, in Bostwick's words, "simply stopped breathing."

surrounded

wick lids,

—

at

all staff.

the

last

was

by two nurses, two maids, the doctor, and Bost-

Bostwick reached over and gently touched Marsh on the

closing the dead man's eyes.

The American Journal

of Science ran a sixteen-page obituary by Beecher,

which praised Marsh's science and

making an estimate of his

tried to explain his icy persona. "In

character,"

Beecher wrote,

"it

must not be for-

home

gotten that he developed wholly without the influence of family and ties."

20

But even

his critics

and enemies had to concede

that

Marsh made

a great

contribution to his science. Osborn said that he had "a genius for what

might be called the important things in science. explore,

where

He

always

knew where

to

to seek transitional stages."

man of extraordinary detail, with proHe made many important discoveries in formulated a single broad generalization. He was just

Marsh, Williston allowed, was "a

found visualization powers. ... science, but he never

the opposite of Prof. Cope."

The most

21

telling epitaph for

Marsh, however, came from

the battles and science of paleontology.

"He

lived apart

him," reflected Timothy Dwight. "I doubt whether even

a

man

far

from those about his

most intimate

friends penetrated the recesses, or really in any measure understood that central region of the soul where

it

turns toward unseen things.

whether he had intimate friends known by men whose inner life opens

from

him I

in

ques-

of intimacy

tion, indeed,

in the fullness

which

itself with greater readiness.

is

THE GILDED DINOSAUR ".

.

.

There was

a solitariness

of

this

character in Professor Marsh's

nothwithstanding the abundance of outward with other men, which

me

as

I

375

and

activities

its

life,

intercourse

observed or thought of him, was very suggestive

Dwight continued. "For himself, I think, this characteristic of his nature lessened to some degree the happiness of his life, and gave him sometimes the feeling that he was a lonely man." 22 to

.

.

,"

.

When Marsh

just

$186

in his

bank account. But under the

will,

Marsh was

able to give through family

had

died, he

terms of George Peabody's

thousand dollars to the Peabody Museum, to be used

trusts thirty

lishing the results

the National

of

in

pub-

western explorations, and ten thousand dollars to

his

Academy of Sciences

to

promote research

in the natural sci-

ences.

His house and

its

contents he gave to Yale.

on the

held a mortgage

carted off for auction in filled a

The

university,

which

already

property, had the rugs, paintings, and art objects

New

York

City.

The

contents of Marsh's mansion

thick catalog and took three days to

sell

off.

The

auction

made

$18,694.

Although he was survived by

a half brother

time and did not attend the funeral) and bequests to his family.

A nephew

a

(who was half

tried to break the

in California at the

sister,

Marsh made no

will,

arguing that Yale

had deluded the elderly Marsh into believing that there was no hereafter and could be obtained by

that immortality

human

agencies, such as gifts to

Though novel, the courts found the argument unpersuasive. The mansion would become the home of the Yale School of Forestry. In 1926, when the Peabody trust investments improved and debts and mort-

institutions.

gages were finally paid off, Yale cleared another ten thousand dollars from the

Marsh

estate.

Marsh's memorial service was held in the Yale's Battelle Memorial Chapel, and he was buried in the college plot in the Grove Street Cemetery. His death notice listed three survivors:

Chicago;

a

half

sister,

private secretary,

Now,

long

last

Or was

it?

as

P.

Marsh of

York; and

his

an explorer, collector, and investigator in

his collections, his services,

the feud,

of the old Philadelphia the Elasmosaums

New

Thomas Atwater Bostwick.

"To Yale he gave at

half brother, James

Mrs. Edward Walker of Batavia,

His gravestone read: Eminent science.

a

begun

laid

his estate."

three decades before in the

Academy of Natural

had been

and

Sciences,

workshop

where the bones of

out not quite the correctly, was

finally over.

M

376

By

first

new

decade of the

A R K

A F F E

J

were going up

ce? rury, big dinosaurs

museums almost as fast as skyscrapers were Model Ts were being turned out in Detroit. can

rising in

Ameri-

in

New

York or

Even at Yale, dinosaurs were now being built. Beecher, who succeeded his mentor at the Peabody, immediately set about mounting a specimen of

A member

Marsh's Claosaurus.

of the Hadrosaurids, Beecher mounted the

animal in 1901, in an upright and running pose.

Although Andrew Carnegie had not been his

museum, once

found

the Carnegie

a beast that surpassed

Carnegie team discovered J.

B. Hjtt

which showed It

was

that

distinctive

was

it

a

enough

got

able to its

own

buy

began

its

On July

4,

field,

it

1899, the

Sheep Creek, Wyoming. 23

paper restoration of the dinosaur,

a

most enormous beast

to be

a Brontosaurus for

crews into the

Marsh's biggest dinosaur.

gigantic Diplodocus at

a

iiimediately

"

Museum

own

species

—

eighty-seven feet long.

and was named Diplodocus

camegii.

But Carnegie wanted more than

just a drawing.

He wanted

a solid,

standing dinosaur. So Hatcher began putting together the millionaire's

When Marsh

namesake. legs

under the

phant. Similarly, that as it

reconstructed his Brontosaurus, he had tucked the

torso, giving

these animals, and that

an erect stance and vertical

how Cope imagined

it is

ambled grazing on

it

treetops.

how

is

stride, like

his giraffelike Camarasaurus,

That was the way the masters had divined

Hatcher began with

his beast as well.

Hatcher never got the chance to complete the Diplodocus cut short in 1904 after directorship for the

bout of typhoid

a

an ele-

museum and

fever, at

camegii, his life

age forty-three.

the job of completing the dinosaur

The

fell

to

William J. Holland.

When

Holland had finished It

perched twenty

feet in the

ever

known

Diplodocus,

British

might be home

more than

the shoulder, and

and away the

its

eighty-

head was

largest land

animal

hear.

He

to

absolutely

awed when he saw

Carnegie that perhaps one day the

to such a magnificent dinosaur. That's

asked Holland

had taken two quarries and

enough bones

far

was

and expressed the hope

Carnegie had to It

This was

King Edward VII

Museum

the king.

air.

at

walk the planet.

to

England's

Diplodocus camegii was

it

stood twelve feet high

seven feet long.

if a

all

skeleton could be provided for

several years' excavation to provide

for the great dinosaur standing in Pittsburgh.

The

chances of

doing that again, at least on demand, were slim. But Holland suggested that they could manufacture a dinosaur. It seemed an appropriate exercise for an industrial

town

like Pittsburgh.

In early 1905, a complete set

of plaster

replicas

of the Diplodocus bones

THE ULDED DINOSAUR arrived in

A

London.

the assembly, and

in

Carnegie

Museum

May, there was

of the dinosaur. Lord Avebury Carnegie. Great

377

preparer soon followed to oversee

formal ceremony for the presentation

a

officially

accepted the dinosaur from

and peers of the realm

scientists

Museum's Gallery of Reptiles.

(Diplodocus

the

filled

was too big to

fit

British

into the Hall of

Paleontology.)

pomp and prestige

So delighted was Carnegie with the

Clemenceau. Soon everyone was clamoring for the Diplodocus arrived in

La

that

St.

a

copy, and in short order,

This created an unprecedented phenomenon, for the tologists

Mexico

Petersburg, Vienna, Bologna,

City,

all

over the world could look

at

first

time paleon-

the same bones, the same

mount-

They looked, and, of course, they immediately disagreed.

paleontologists thought that Hatcher

before

and

Argentina.

Plata,

ing.

he made pre-

of Diplodocus to Kaiser Wilhem and French Premier Georges

sents

them

— had made

The most tion earlier

strident

Marsh,

as

a

do

so, if

—

Cope and Marsh

like

mistake in putting together the bones.

and vocal of these

critics

were

Germany.

in

A

genera-

other young Americans aspiring to careers in science,

had made the pilgrimage to study necessary to

and Holland

Some

one wanted

have thought that the

German

at

to

the great

be

German

universities. It

a legitimate scientist.

criticism

would

was

So one might

blow

strike a serious

to

American confidence. Berlin's

Gustav Tornier argued that since dinosaurs were

pose was doubtlessly more

reptilian.

contended, stuck out from the

The

sides, like

reptiles, their

limbs of the Diplodocus, Tornier those of an alligator.

The model

Carnegie gave to Frankfurt was even dismantled and reconstructed with the legs

sprawling out from the

Affairs,

dicted. science.

Other German paleontologists followed American colleagues.

sides.

Tornier's lead and belittled their

however, had changed, just

America had become

The United

States

as

Werner von Seiman's had

increasingly confident in

now had

its

had 514 Ph.D. candidates and had 184 doctoral graduates teach-

ing in colleges and universities around the country. 24 Yale, four

and

museums 1899, Johns Hop-

several large, well-financed

and dozens of universities awarding doctoral degrees. In kins alone

institutions

pre-

members on

nearly seventy.

its

science faculty

when Marsh was

which had only

a student,

now had

No, the Americans were not cowed by the German

critics.

Besides this spat wasn't simply about Holland's Pittsburgh Diplodocus. In

Chicago, Elmer Riggs was mounting for the Field

he discovered

Museum

at

Grand Junction, Colorado. In

Museum

New

of Natural History had just mounted

its

a Brachiosaurus

York, the American first

Brontosaurus. All

MARKJAFFE

378

these sauropod dinosaurs, like elephants, had their legs beneath their bodies.

That

is

the

way the Americans saw

dinosaurs.

Tornier had sketched the Diplodocus in

a

crocodile pose.

It

The Germans were working on

crous to the Americans.

looked luditheory, but

Hatcher, Holland, Osborn, Williston, and the other young American paleontologists

had handled many dinosaur bones. They had

a tactile,

perhaps

almost visceral sense about these animals.

"Hatcher had handled scores of fossil joints," wrote, Robert Bakker, one America's most provocative modern-day paleontologists.

"He knew

that

Diplodocus 's thigh had a cylindrical surface at the joint that faced predomi-

upward and forward.

nantly

the joint,

whose

Diplodocus's

hipbone contained

surface correspondingly faced mostly

a

deep socket

ward. Put the thighbone into the hip socket, and only one correct possible: the

hind leg stood

The Americans

vertically,

as

Holland ridiculed Tornier's crocodile sketch literature

of caricature." As

a

fit

was

with the knee facing forward."

Germans

attacked the

at

downward and back-

being "closet-naturalists" and as at best

"a contribution to the

piece of paleontology, he snapped,

it

was

a

"skeletal monstrosity."

In 1910, the

Germans

finally

East Africa at Tendaguru.

got their

was

It

filled

own

great dinosaur graveyard in

with Brachiosaurus bones, and soon

paleontologists back in Berlin could see, touch, and feel

what the Americans

had already known.

But just

in case there

were any remaining any doubters, or

if any

scent of

1930 by Roland T. Bird, American Museum of Natural History. Bird had been working near the town of Glen Rose, Texas, when he found a remarkable set of dinosaur tracks. There in the bed of the Paluxy River, in what had once been Cretaceous mud, was the complete trail of a sixty-foot dissent

still

lingered, the case was firmly settled in

another paleontologist

at

the

Brontosaurus.

The

beast's stride

six feet. If the

was twelve

been much wider. Once again, sil

feet long,

to prove the point.

but the width of the

trail

was just

would have had to have the American West had offered up the fos-

animal had had sprawled

legs, the trail

There was no doubt now

that the

Americans had been

correct.

The them.

great dinosaurs

It

walked Earth

was an outcome

to

just as

one more

Marsh probably would have delighted everything

else.

Cope and Marsh had pictured both Cope and

scientific battle that in,

even

if

they disagreed about

Afterword

Exactly

thirty

minutes

Thomas Bostwick

— and

one hundred years

—

after

leaned over O. C. Marsh's deathbed and

closed the old man's eyes, six-year-old Katie Lisk walked

the

Museum

Peabody

into the

Holy Family School

This March day was not cold and Katie was wearing her gray

sweatpants

—

that

J.

class

B.

but

rainy,

Holy Family

won

and blue Holy Family

— and with each

hall.

Here was the

unearthed by Charles Sternberg. There was also Kansas days. But dominating the

bones of Como Bluff, the

The nameplate Lisk turned her

for the

little

fruit

huge

from

of the coming spring, and

Wyoming, and

in

class

step her

little

Triceratops

head

lights.

entered the museum's great

Hatcher had

full

sweatshirt

the school's kindergarten garb

white running shoes sparked with red

The

with her kindergarten

in Fairfield, Connecticut.

room was

a a

Chasmosaurus skull Mosasarus from the

the huge skeleton

made from

the

of Bill Reed's hard work. beast read "Brontosaurus excelsus. "

But Katie

blond head upward and regarded the beast with her

pale blue eyes. "It's an Apatosaurus," she

"Very good," the tour guide

said.

announced.

"Does anyone know what the

Apatosaurus ate?" "Plants," piped

with

a

up

Katie's classmate

Hayden

Collins, a bold

little

boy

neo-Buster Brown haircut.

"That's right," the guide said.

The skulls

children

moved from

fossil

to fossil

mesmerized by the massive

with their spooky, vacant eye sockets and menacing sharp teeth.

"How

did they put

"Is that

all

the pieces together?

blood on those teeth?

They came those spikes

to Marsh's Stegosaurus utigulatus.

on

its

"Does anyone know what

back were for?" the guide asked.

Katie Lisk's hand shot up. "For cooling," she said.

When were

asked

why

less certain.

couldn't find

the dinosaurs disappeared, Katie and her classmates

"Buried in an avalanche," Katie offered. "Maybe they

enough

befuddlement was only

to

eat,"

Hayden proposed. The

slightly greater

379

kindergartners'

than the most distinguished paleon-

MARK

380

tologists, for

A F F E

J

while science has been able to rule out avalanches, no one

knows what happened

really

That mystery remains part of their

to the dinosaurs.

allure.

The

next

mache

also the

filled

mammal

with

fossils

including Marsh's papier-

and ancient

bones an oreodont and the

But the children walked

ciene. all,

room was

uintathere, a titantothere,

little

Irish elk skeleton. There were Eocene horse Hyracotherium vaseic-

past these hard- won treasures quickly. After'

they were not dinosaurs.

The

next room, however, held

Sinosauropteryx

— and

the children

specimen

small, provocative

a

—

the

crowded around. Discovered by Chinese

paleontologists in a quarry in Liaoning Province, the Cretaceous rock slab

had preserved not only bone but some of the surrounding

Those

tissues clearly

covered with

a

show what looks

dense coat of "protofeathers."

was

It

The

children buzzed

"Did dinosaurs

fly?"

The

idea of feathered dinosaurs has also sent a

hum

at

the idea.

soft tissue as well.

like quill points. Sinosauropteryx

community, and while the children imagined

a

was

feathered dinosaur.

through the science

John Ostrom, one of the prime proponents of the feathered dinosaur theory, and emeritus Yale professor and Peabody curator of paleontology, was puttering around

in his upstairs office.

Ostrom had come fessor. "I

to Yale in 1961, as a thirty-three-year-old junior pro-

was nervous.

I

was stepping into could do

I wondered if I Did Marsh's ghost and legacy haunt

opportunity.

new

it,"

a great tradition

"I did

By

the 1960s,

reptilian,

it

it

the guy was an

a

great

the Peabody? (Actually this was a

down and

not sense the presence of Marsh," Ostrom

here. Let's face

and

he remembers.

Peabody. Marsh's building and been torn

been

their flying dinosaurs,

said,

replaced in 1924.)

"but

I

knew he had

SOB."

was thought, once again, that dinosaurs had been mainly

mainly cold-blooded and mainly slow moving. Then in 1969,

Ostrom found

a

relatively

small

Cloverly sandstone of Montana.

bipedal

dinosaur in

He named

it

the

Cretaceous

Deinonychus, or "terrible

Ostrom explained, "was just built for action." Like Cope imagining his Laelaps, Ostrom could see his Deinonychus as a leaping, agile predator, and it became the model for the dangerous and clever dinosaur that stalked the humans in Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. claw." Deinonychus,

Deinonychus led Ostrom to revive the idea, casually posited by Sir

Richard

Owen more

than a century earlier that dinosaurs were, like

mam-

THE GILDED DINOSAUR mals,

warm

Bakker and

blooded.

—

It

was

a

and one

controversial proposal

undergraduate

just a Yale

3H1

at

the time

Robert

that

— would pursue

relentlessly

artfully.

One

of the main arguments against warm-bloodedness for dinosaurs was

that unlike

mammals

or birds, the ancient beasts didn't have coverings of fur

or feathers to insulate and hold in body heat.

Or

did they? This

Ostrom on twenty-year search for the feathered dinosaur. ended for the elderly Yale professor in 1998 at quarry

resuscitated another old idea

between theropod dinosaurs and specimen

birds.

By examining

is

a

what

— Huxley's

Dcinonychus),

Ostrom was

able to detail a large

link

every archaeopteryx

the world and comparing them to dromaesurid dinosaurs

in

sent

search that

hundred miles

six

northeast of Beijing.

Along the way, Ostrom

was

It

number

a

(like

shared similarities,

similarities that birds did not share with thecodonts or crocodiles, the

two

other reptile families from which birds might have come.

Ostrom

one

has gained his share of critics over the idea and

veritable

nemesis in Alan Feduccia of the University of North Carolina. Rather than seeing the

as

fossils

reptiles

believes they are the remains flight

on

way

their

becoming

to

of ancient birds that had

my

and had come to resemble theropods. "In

Feduccia

birds,

lost the

power of

opinion," Feduccia has

predicted, "the theropod origin of birds will be the greatest embarrassment

of paleontology in the 20th Century." Shades of Cope and Marsh. Well, "I think

Ostrom

how

does Marsh hold up in the eyes of his modern-day successor?

Marsh was said.

a lot

"He knew

right questions.

.

.

.

smarter than most people give

Marsh acted

as if

Marsh's names for dinosaur groups

pods

—

are

still

him

credit for,"

paleontology was going to be big and he asked the science were a big business."

— sauropods, theropods, and ornitho-

used today, Ostrom pointed out. Marsh remains the preemi-

nent namer of dinosaurs with nineteen genera to his credit. That's better than

anyone

else.

Even more important, Ostrom

said,

Marsh was one of the most eloquent

and important defenders of Darwinian evolution. still

needs defending. "You

know

It is,

this university hasn't

he

said,

taken

Ostorm

an idea that

a position

evolution since the Scopes

trial

about time

being cowed by the Creationists today."

it

did. Science

One hundred sity

seventy miles to the south of

equally cluttered, office.

is

is

in the 1920s,"

New

said. "I

Haven,

as

Although he

is

a

Yale

Penn's premier dinosaur paleontologist,

the inheritor of Cope's mantle.

man and it

think

on it's

the Univer-

at

of Pennsylvania, Peter Dodson could be found working in

Ostrom,

five

a smaller, a

but

protege of

could be said that he

MARK

382

J

A F F E

"When

it came to dinosaurs, Cope was always a day late and a dollar Dodson said. A dollar short, indeed. Marsh's ability to collect vast

short,"

amounts of material ultimately ensured

Of

his

the twenty-six dinosaur genera that

chances of being more accurate.

Cope named

only three survive

today: Camarasaurus, Motwclonious, and Coelophysis. Coelophysis

had

Jurassic Park. It

featured role in Tlie Lost World, the

a

was the friendly

little

movie sequel

dinosaur that was repeatedly hit with

an electric cattle prod to amusement of one of the bad guys. But very bad guy

lost his

way he was

to

attacked and killed by

when

that

whole pack of

a

Coelophysis.

Hard to

times, however,

hang on

said.

still

seem

to

dog Cope, and he may not even be

is a move to rename Dodson Cope made his claim and named his name

name. "There

to this

Why? The same

old story.

based on scant material, and

able

Coelophysis, "

now

paleontologists are debating

whether

it

might not be better to rename the animal Rioarribasaums.

number of grown from roughly one hundred in the days of Cope more than 336. Dodson calculates that there are potentially

Even with the

erasing and retooling of dinosaur names, the

dinosaur genera has

and Marsh to

another one thousand genera waiting to be discovered.

By

—

number of dinosaur discoveries sixtyfour have been made in America. "The United States is a large country and we have geological formations that span the entire Mesozoic," Dodson far

and away the

largest

—

explained. "It's really the only place you find that and

it still

makes the U.S.

prime dinosaur hunting country."

The

single

most

fertile

geological vein in

River formation, which Cope Bull and his braves

— back

first

explored

America

—

at

has

been the Judith

the risk of meeting Sitting

in 1876. Thirty different dinosaurs have

been

pulled from the Judith.

"Cope was really quite a good scientist and clearly a high order intellect," Dodson said. "His 1,400 published scientific papers is still a record number." And while Marsh may have found and named more dinosaurs, Dodson said, "there are no ideas associated with Marsh."

On

the other

hand Cope's concept of archosaurs and his "law" that over become bigger are still used by and debate among sci-

time species tend to entists.

For decades, Cope's law has been one of the organizing precepts of

paleontology. it is

used and

"Each a

man

Dodson

has said,

"While we now know

it

isn't absolute,

said,

"and each was

that

regularly discussed in the literature. in his

own

right has

distinguished researcher. But

without the other.

left a

really

it

legacy,"

Dodson

seems impossible to

Cope and Marsh. Bonnie and

Clyde.

say

Adam

one name

and Eve.

It's

TIIK

GILDED DINOSAUR

383

like that."

Katie Lisk's class had just about finished their

dren were crowded into the

models and dinosaur key nothing very nice. But

gift

rings.

Cope

visit to

the

museum. The

shop to buy dinosaur post

What would Marsh

likely

chil-

cards, dinosaur

have thought? Probably

would have been

delighted.

He

certainly

would have found Katie Lisk adorable and perhaps would have taught her "Je suis

But girls

un prince," the song he sang

how was

sometimes

away and

say,

it

that Katie

are,

knew

was shy with

ever so

softly,

so

to his Julia

much

strangers,

"Our

when

she was

a little girl.

about dinosaurs? Katie,

as little

and could only manage to look

teachers taught us."

But her classmate

Hayden promptly and loudly exclaimed, "I watch a lot of dinosaur stuff." As the Holy Family kindergartners were preparing to leave the Peabody, a small band of museum staffers also left and made its to the Prospect Street Cemetery. The group ambled to the back corner plot where O. C. Marsh's tombstone a squat, red-granite stone on a black base stood in the shade of a yew tree. But on this near spring day, the group was more in the mood for festivity than a somber marking of the hundredth anniversary of Marsh's passing. So they picnicked at the graveside and laid a small bouquet of flowers on the stone. Then they scattered a few kernels of popcorn for any dinosaurs, which might also stop by to pay their respects.

—

—

Notes

Chapter One Hall's letter

1.

is

reproduced on

p.

21 of the 1869 pamphlet

Goliath," which was printed in Syracuse and sold

Henry James,

"The American

the Cardiff Giant's pavilion.

among Marsh's papers. Washington Square (New York: Penguin Books,

copy of the pamphlet 2.

at

A

is

1986), 27; origi-

nally published in 1880.

Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian

3.

(New

York: Penguin Books,

1992), 9-21.

(Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 1983),

4.

David Hull, DaniHn and His

5.

John M. Chikejamcs Hall of Albany

Critics

37.

—

Geologist

& Paleontologist

(Albany: 1921),

412. 6.

Marsh correspondence,

7.

"The Cardiff Giant," New York Sun, 9

among Marsh's 8.

Haven 9.

April 1899.

A

copy of the

article

is

Prof.

Marsh, Yale

Man

of Cardiff Giant Episode,"

Tells Story

New

26 December 1897.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 6,

frame 1012. 5

May

frames 1,10,25. 13 Feb. 1873, 19

10.

Ibid., reel 7,

1 1

Charles Schuchert and Clara

(New

frame 185, Nov. 30, 1869.

papers.

"Exposed by Register,

reel 1,

Mae

1871

March 1873,23 Apr. 1873

LeVene, O. C. Marsh, Pioneer

in Paleontology

York: Arno Press, 1978), 349; originally published in 1940 by Yale University

Press.

Chapter Two 1.

Dorothy Gordon Beers, "The Centennial City 1865-1876,"

300-Year 2.

History, ed. Russell

E. D.

K. Weigly

York:

W W. Norton, 1983),

Cope, "Remarks on Laelaps aquilunguis,"

ural Sciences of Philadelphia

4.

Cope correspondence, letter

New

p.

427.

Academy of Nat-

(1868): 304.

Proceedings of the

History Archives,

Proceedings of the

A

18 (1866): 275-79.

ANSP 10

3.

5.

(New

in Philadelphia,

52, 4 January 1863.

American

Museum

of Natural

York City

Marsh correspondence,

reel 3, frames

837-50; Feb. 28, 1870. E. D. Cope Papers

385

MARK

386

collection, 6.

J

A F F E

Quaker Collection, Haverford College,

O. C. Marsh, "Notice of Some

New

collection 956, Haverford, Pa.

Mosauroid Reptiles from the Green Sands

of New Jersey," American Journal of Science and Arts 48 (November 1869). 7.

Leidy correspondence,

8.

Proceedings of the

9.

Cope

ANSP,

ANSP 20

correspondence,

March 1868.

4

(1868): 92.

2 April 1868.

letter 96,

Adrian J. Desmond, The Hot Blooded Dinosaurs

10.

(London: Blond

—A

Revolution in Paleontology

Briggs, 1975), 10.

&c

11. Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, Being an Attempt

Changes of the Earth's

Surface, vol.

to

James Dwight Dana, Manual of Geology (New York:

12.

Explain the Former

3 (London: John Murray, 1833), 389-93. Ivison,

Blakeman

&

Co.,

1880), 833, 391.

Hugh

13.

Torrens, "Politics and Paleontology: Richard

Dinosaurs," in Tlie Complete Dinosaur, ed. James O. Farlow,

Owen et

al.

and the Invention of

(Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 1997), 175-90. 14.

Marsh correspondence,

15.

Proceedings of the

reel 25,

ANSP 22

frame 427, 1864.

(1870): 9.

9-11.

16.

Ibid.,

17.

Marsh correspondence,

18.

Ibid., reel 3,

reel 1,

frame 822, 20 March 1870.

frame 866, 28 February 1870.

Chapter Three 1.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 2,

frame 194, 30 April 1870.

frame 584, 23 September 1864, and

reel 9,

2.

Ibid., reel 9,

3.

George Bird Grinnell, Leading American Men of Science

Henry Holt

&

May (New

frame 610, 22

—

O.

G Marsh

1870.

York:

Co., 1910), 286.

frame 684, 15 October 1861.

4.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 21,

5.

Schuchert and LeVene,

O C. Marsh, 75. Charles Schuchert and Clara Mae

LaVene, O.C. Marsh Pioneer

in Paleontology

(New

York: Arno Press, 1978), 75.

6.

March correspondence,

7.

Ibid., reel 15,

frame 48, 3 June 1873.

8.

Ibid., reel 26,

frames 547-51, chapter from Marsh's unpublished autobiography,

"Fossil

Hunting

raphy are 9.

10.

in the

among

his

reel 22,

Rocky Mountains." Three

of Marsh's autobiog-

Stegner, Hundredth Meridian, 119.

Marsh correspondence,

"My

reel 26,

First Visit to

frames 311-14, chapter from Marsh's unpubthe

Rocky Mountains."

frame 851, 4 June 1870.

11.

Ibid., reel 3,

12.

Schuchert and LeVene, O.

13.

Don

14.

draft chapters

correspondence and papers.

lished autobiography,

homa

frame 471, 12 July 1868.

G Marsh,

37-38.

Russell, Tlie Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill

Press, 1960), 167.

Robert M. Udey,

Frontier Regulars

—

(Norman: University of Okla-

Tlie United States

Army and

the Indians,

GILDED DINOSAUR

Til K

387

1866- 1890 (New York: Macmillan, 1973), 157. 15.

William E Cody, "The Great West That Was, Buffalo

Bill's Life

Story," Hearst's

Magazine (April 1917). 16.

Charles Wyllys Betts,

"The Yale College Expedition of 1870,"

Harper's

New

Monthly Magazine 43, no. 257 (October 1871): 664. 665.

17.

Ibid.,

18.

Ibid, 666.

19.

George Bird Grinnell, "An Old-Time Bone Hunt," Natural History

23, no. 4

(July-August 1923): 334. 20.

Marsh correspondence,

21. "Professor Marsh's

&Arts

reel 3,

frame 151, 30 July 1870.

Rocky Mountain

Expedition," American Journal of Sciences

50, no. 149 (September 1870): 292.

22. Ibid., 335.

23.

Harry Zeigler, "The Rocky Mountains

— Results of the Yale College Expedi-

tion to the Far West," Neiv York Weekly Herald, 24 24. Betts,

25. James Hall, 346.

26.

Mike

December 1870,

p.

422.

"The Yale College Expedition," 671.

Foster, Strange Genius

—

Tlie Life of Ferdinand Vandevecr

Hayden (Niwot,

Colo.: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1994) 158-59. 27. Joseph Leidy correspondence, 11

September 1870.

28. Ferdinand

Hayden correspondence, ANSP,

29. Ferdinand

Hayden correspondence,

8 September 1870.

Fryxeil Collection 1638,

Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wy., 16 30. Joseph Leidy correspondence, 31.

At Home

in Ellis

ANSP, 12 November

County Kansas, 1867-1992,

vol. 1.

box

November

American

44,

1870.

1870.

Hays, Kans:

Ellis

County

Historical Society.

32.

"From Kansas

33.

P.

T.

Barnum,

to Denver," Ottawa (Kans.) Journal, Struggles

and Triumphs (1869; reprint,

29 September 1870.

New

York: Viking Penguin,

1981), 393. 34. Blaine Burket, Wild Bill

County 35.

Marsh correspondence,

lished autobiography,

36. File

Hickok—The Law

in

Hays City (Hays, Kans.:

"My

First

reel 26,

frames 253-60, chapter from Marsh's unpub-

Buffalo Hunt."

Fossil Collecting in Cretaceous Niobrara Chalk.

Report 97-62,

Kansas Geological Survey,

"Rocky Mountains,"

Zeigler,

38.

Marsh correspondence,

422.

reel 26,

frames 260-68, unpublished chapter from

Marsh autobiography, "A Thanksgiving Dinner on the 39. Ibid., frames

Pterodactyl."

Open-

(1997).

37.

First

Ellis

Historical Society, 1996), 9.

Plains."

269-75, chapter from Marsh's unpublished autobiography,

"My

MARK

388

A F F E

J

Chapter Four 1.

Cope correspondence, letter

2.

Ibid., letter 45,

16 September 1860. 1

30,

January 1856.

1

February 1861.

3.

Ibid., letter 49,

4.

Schuchert, and LeVene, O. C. Marsh, 47

5.

Marsh correspondence,

6.

Cope correspondence, letter

7.

Pamela M. Henson, "Spencer Baird's Vision

reel 21,

Megatherium Club," Smithsonian

May

frame 672, 4

1862.

53, 10 January 1863. for a National

Museum

—The

Research Reports (winter 1996);

http://www.150.si.edu/chp3/club.htm 8.

Cope correspondence, letter

9.

W H. Ballou, "Marsh Hurls Azoic

whole

54, 12

March Facts,"

1863.

New York

Herald, 19 January 1890,

no. 19058, edition 11.

10.

Cope correspondence, letter

11.

Charles Yarnall Papers collection, Quaker Collection, collection 910, Haverford

70, 11 February 1864.

College, Haverford, Pa., 13 July 1864. 12.

Cope correspondence, letter 71,23 December

13.

E.

14.

Presifor Frazer,

R. Dunn, "Edward Drinker Cope,"

"The

Life

1864.

Havcrfordian 59, no. 2

(May

1940): 16.

and Letters of Edward Drinker Cope," American

Geologist 26, no. 2 (August 1900): 126. 15.

Edward C. Carter

sophical Society's First

Society, 1993), 16.

Henry

250

II,

Otic Grand Pursuit:

1743-1993

Years,

A

Brief History of the American Philo-

(Philadelphia:

American Philosophical

34-35. Fairfield

Osborn, "Biographical Memoir of Edward Drinker Cope,"

National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs, 13 (1929): 170. 17.

Thomas Holmes, "The Haddonfield Home of Edward Drinker Cope." Mono-

graph of the Historical Society of Haddonfield, 18.

Cope correspondence,

19.

Ibid., letter 91, 17

letter 93,

March

1868.

20. William B. Gallagher, IVJicn Dinosaurs N.J.:

Rutgers

21.

N.J., 1992.

22 March 1868.

Roamed New Jersey (New Brunswick,

University Press. 1997), 35.

Cope correspondence, letter 102,2 February

1869.

22. Ibid., letter 103,7 April 1869. 23. Marsh, "First Pterodactyl."

24.

Marsh correspondence,

25. O. C. Marsh,

reel 2,

frame 270, 27

"Notice of Some

Note on

a

New

can Journal of Science and Arts, vol.

1

(June 1871): 472.

tiary

Formations with

26.

a

Marsh correspondence,

reel 21

May

Fossil Reptiles

,

1871.

From

the Cretaceous and Ter-

and Gigantic Species of Pterodactyl," Ameri-

frames 781 823, 867. There are ,

from Elizabeth Dixon covering the years 1858 to 1867. 27.

Ibid., reel 21,

frame 792, 29 June 1859.

28.

Ibid., reel 21,

frame 801, 20 July 1859.

29.

Ibid., reel 21,

frame 810,27 September 1859.

fifty-six letters

THE GILDED DINOSAUR

389

30.

Ibid., reel 21,

frame 842, 10 January 1861.

31.

Ibid., reel 21,

frames 78 1,82 1,29 June 1859 and June 1860.

32.

Ibid, reel 22, frame 175,25 August 1861; and reel 22, frame 185, 9 January

1862. 33.

Ibid., reel 21,

frames 894,904,9 January 1863 and 16

34.

Ibid., reel 22,

frame 579, 12 December 1866.

December

1864.

George Bird Grinnell.

35. Ibid., reel 26, frame 353, address by 36.

Ibid., reel 5,

frame 319, 18 April 1879.

37.

Ibid., reel 2,

frame 939, 31 March 1871.

38. "The Yale Expedition of 1871," College Courant,

February 1872),

10, no. 5 (3

49.

Chapter Five 1.

Cope correspondence, letter 115,6 September

2.

Ibid., letter

3.

E. D.

1871.

116,7 September 1871.

Cope, "The Vertebrata of the Cretaceous Formations of the West," Report

of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the

Territories, vol.

2 (1875),

42-50. Ibid., 42.

4. 5.

Ibid, 46-48.

6.

Cope correspondence, letter

7.

E. D.

Cope,

sophical Society (1

"On Two New

March

1872): 420.

Richard Zakrzewski,y4 Brief History of Vertebrate Paleontology

8.

Department of Earth Sciences, Hays

Museum, Hays,

11.

WE. Webb, Buffalo &

Scientific

Land:

Co., 1872).

the trip with

An

Authentic Narrative of the Adventures and Misadven-

and Sporting Party upon

Webb's account

twenty-five days from early

made

November

Webb. The

is

the Great Plains (Cincinnati

problematic. There

to early

train ride

narrative are fictionalized.

Hickok had

left

cally possible,

town by

but not

letters it is

from Kansas clear that

For example, the party meets Wild

the

likely.

fall

On

of 1871. They the other hand,

also

Cope

credits

Land

is

Webb

a true narrative

dressed

up with

is still

a

few

Bill

Chicago: E.

Bill,

Webb

his

way Webb

points in

Webb's

in Hays.

which

is

But

histori-

in several reports

Cope.

own. At

historical characters.

valuable for the

Cope's corre-

Hickok

a lot like

could construct such monologues on

impressionistic pastiche, but

in

some

meet Buffalo

with helping him, and Webb's Professor Paleozoic sounds to imagine that

&

period of about

December when Cope might have

time period. Furthermore,

this

a

is

from Philadelphia to Leavenworth, Kansas,

took just twenty-seven hours. But there are no

spondence during

1871.

13 September 1871.

Ibid., letter 117.

Hannaford

Memorial

Ka. 124.

10.

of a Late

Western Kansas,

in

State University and the Sternberg

Cope correspondence, letter 116,7 September

9.

tures

October 1871.

119, 19

Ornithosaunans," Proceedings of the American Philo-

It is difficult

best, Buffalo

At wont,

it is

an

describes his friend Pro-

8

MARK JAFFE

390

fessor Paleozoic, a.k.a. E. D.

Cope.

12.

Ibid.. 36.

13.

"Hays By Moonlight," Manhattan

County

(Kans.) Standard, 8

May

1869,

of Ellis

files

Historical Society.

18-19.

14.

Burkct, Wild

15.

Webb, Buffalo Land,

16.

Ibid., 108.

17.

Ibid., 208.

18.

Ibid.,

19.

R.

Museum

Bill,

142.

244-45.

—A

Ellison, Fort Bridgcr

S.

Brief History (Cheyenne:

Wyoming

State Archives,

and History Department, 1931).

box

20. William A. Carter Collection 3535,

2, legal

documents, American Heritage

Center, University of Wyoming. 21. "Yale Expedition," College Courant, 50.

22.

"The Yale

October 1 87 1 23.

Mary

,

Party

vol. 2

1

,

— Return of the Expedition

Faith Pusey,

"The Yale

(spring 1876): 97-105. This article students, 24.

Scientific

Expedition of 1871," Manuscripts

upon

based largely

is

the diaries of one of the Yale

George G. Lobdell Jr.

Robert M. West, "Vertebrate Paleontology of the Green River, Wyoming

1840-1910," Earth

Sciences History 9, no.

ANSP,

25. Leidy correspondence,

26.

to Salt Lake," Nctv York Tunes, 17

no. 6236, edition 2.

Marsh correspondence,

November

reel 3,

2

1

(1990): 46.

November

1870.

frame 781, 20 April 1872, and frame 783,

1890.

Chapter Six 1.

Cope

2.

Marsh correspondence,

3.

Ibid., reel 3,

4.

Ibid, reel 4, frame 219,

5.

Cope

6.

Ferdinand Hayden correspondence, Fryxeil Collection 1638,

correspondence,

letter 117,

reel 3,

22 June 1872.

frame 166, 6 July 1872.

frame 163, 2 June 1872.

correspondence,

1 1

July 1872.

letter 119,

27 July 1872.

Box

51,

American

Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wy., 14 July 1872. 7.

Cope

8.

Marsh correspondence,

9.

Cope

10.

correspondence,

correspondence,

letter

#118, 17 July 1872.

reel 4,

letter

frame 169, 23 July 1872.

101,30 December 1868.

Osborn, Cope Master Naturalist Correspondence, American

New

NY,

Museum

file.

This

file

copies of two letters about H's review, provided by Leidy's family.

One

letter

ural History Archives,

Newberry

to Leidy,

York,

1935 correspondence

20 January 1869; the other

is

of Nat-

includes is

from

from Leidy to Joseph Henry, 14 Feb-

ruary 1869. 11.

E. D.

Cope, "The Geological Age of the Wyoming Coal," American

Naturalist

THE GILDED DINOSAUR 6. no. 11

Agthaumas

12. call a

(November

1872): 670.

no longer used to

is

identify the animal.

nomina dubia, based on fragmentary material.

kind of

Triccratops.

Cope,

E. D.

Wyoming,"

It is

The animal

what paleontologists is

now

thought to be

a

See Brent H. Briethaupt, "Lance Formation," in Encyclopedia of

Dinosaurs, ed. Philip Currie 13.

391

"On

and Kevin Padian

(New

York: Academic Press, 1997), 394.

the Existence of Dinosauria in the Transition Beds of

Transactions of the

American Philosophical Society 12 (19 September 1872):

483. 14.

Marsh correspondence,

15.

Ibid., reel 3,

16.

Ibid.,reel3,frame294,25July 1872.

17.

Ibid., reel 15.

18.

E. D.

reel 3,

frame 384, 16 July 1872.

frame 169, 23 July 1872.

frame 393, 21 July 1872.

Cope, "Descriptions of Some

New

From

Vertebrae

the Bridger

Group of

the Eocene," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 12 (29 July 1872): 460-65. 19.

E. D.

Group," 20.

21. Adrian Press, 1982),

"A Ride

reel 26,

From

the Bridger

frames 276-84, chapter from Marsh's unpub-

for Life in a

Desmond, Archetypes and

124-31, 144-45,

offers

Marsh correspondence,

Berryman

23. William

Vertebrae

American Philosophical Society 12 (3 August 1872): 466-68.

Marsh correspondence,

lished autobiography,

22.

New

Cope, "Second Account of the

Tiansactions of the

Herd of Buffalo.

Ancestors (Chicago: University of

an excellent discussion of the

reel 15,

Chicago

issue.

frame 397,28 August 1872.

Scott, Memories of a Paleontologist (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press, 1939), 231. 24.

Cope

25.

James Manley correspondence,

Museum, 26.

by

correspondence,

letter

120,8 September 1872. vertical file Fort

Bridger State Historic Site

Fort Bridger, Wy., 23 September 1872.

Cope correspondence, unnumbered,

Anne Cope

21 September 1872. This

is

the only letter

in the entire collection.

27. Ferdinand

Hayden correspondence,

Fryxell Collection 1638,

Box

51,

American

Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wy., 21 July 1872. 28.

Ibid.,

20 September 1872.

29. Ibid., 10

30.

October 1872.

Cope correspondence, letter

31. Ibid., letter 123, 13 32. E. D. tiary

Cope,

"On

a

122, 12

October 1872.

October 1872.

New

Vertebrate

Genus from the Northern

Part of the Ter-

Basin of the Green River," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 12 (12

October 1872): 554-55. 33.

Cope correspondence, letter

34.

T A. Larson, History of Wyoming (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,

124, 19

October 1872. 1978),

115.

35.

Thurman

Wilkins, Clarence King, a Biography

(New

York: Macmillan, 1958),

183. 36.

Hayden correspondence,

Fryxell Collection 1638,

Box

51,

American Heritage

MARK

392

J

A F F E

Center, University of Wyoming, 30 October 1872.

ANSP, 29 November

37. Leidy correspondence,

1872.

Chapter Seven Laurence H. Skelton, "Kansas Skirmishes

1.

History

O. C. Marsh,

2.

in the

—-Journal of the History of Earth Science Society "On

a

New

Cope-Marsh War,"

3, no.

2 (1984):

1

Earth Science

19.

Class of Fossil Birds," American Journal of Science and

Arts 5, no. 2 (February 1873): 3.

Sankar Chatterjee, Vic Rise of Birds (Baltimore:

3.

Press, 1997), 4.

Marsh correspondence,

5.

Ibid., reel 2,

6.

Cope correspondence, letter

7.

Marsh correspondence,

8.

Ibid., reel 3,

frame 886, 27 January 1873.

9.

Ibid., reel 2,

frame 888, 30 January 1873.

frame 236, 30 August 1872. 125,

reel 3,

January 1873.

1

frame 885, 20 January 1873.

frame 891,3 February 1873.

Ibid., reel 3,

11.

Cope correspondence, letter 120,5 February

12.

O. C. Marsh,

7, no.

"The

Fossil

1873.

Mammals of the Order

Dinocerata," American Natu-

3 (March 1873): 151.

13.

Ibid., 153.

14.

E. D.

ralist

University

frame 235, 22 August 1872.

reel 2,

10.

ralist

The Johns Hopkins

9-10, 109-12,229-30.

Cope, "The Gigantic Mammals of the Genus Eobasileus," American Natu-

1 no. 3 (March 1873): 157. ,

15.

Ferdinand Hayden correspondence, Fryxell Collection 1638, box 51, American

Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laranue, Wy., 18 February 1873. 16.

ence

O. C. Marsh, "Supplementary Note on the Dinocerata," American Journal of Sci-

and Arts 5 (April 1873):

1.

17.

Cope correspondence, letter

18.

Ibid., letter

19.

Hayden correspondence,

131, 12

May

1873.

129,6 April 1873. Fryxell collection 1638,

20. Ibid., Fryxell Collection, 1638 letter 207,

"On

21. O. C. Marsh,

the

box 51,5 April 1873.

box 44, 26 April 1873.

Genus Tinoceras and

Its

Allies," American Naturalist 7,

no. 4 (April 1873): 216.

22.

Marsh correspondence,

23. Ibid., reel 24.

(May

E. D.

1,

Cope,

reel 1,

frame 78,2 February 1873.

frame 85, 7 June 1873.

"On Some

of Prof. Marsh's Criticism," American Naturalist

7, no. 5

1873): 294.

25. O. C. Marsh,

"On

Tinoceras and

Its

Allies," American Naturalist 7, no. 5

(May

1873): 306. 26.

Marsh correspondence,

27.

Cope correspondence, E.

reel 7,

D.

Haverford College, collection 956,

frame 751, 23 June 1873.

Cope

file

Papers collection, Quaker Collection,

folder 17, Haverford, Pa., 3

June 1873.

THE GILDED DINOSAUR 28.

Editorial, American Naturalist 7, no.

29.

O. C. Marsh, "Reply

to Professor

no. 6 (June 1873): appendix, page

30. E. D. (July 1873):

31.

Cope,

"On

393

6 (June 1873): 384.

Cope's Explanation," American

Naturalist 7,

v.

Professor Marsh's Criticisms," American Naturalist 7, no. 7

appendix.

Hayden correspondence,

Fryxell Collection 1638,

box 44, American Heritage

Center, University of Wyoming, 8 September 1872. 32.

Leidy correspondence, ANSP, 13 April 1873.

33. Leidy correspondence,

ANSP, 16

April 1873.

34. Leidy correspondence,

ANSP, 18

April 1873.

35. vol.

Henry

Fairfield

Osborn, "Joseph Leidy," National Academy

Biographical

Memoirs

7 (1913): 365.

36. Walter

H. Wheeler, "The Uintatheres and the Cope-Marsh War,"

Science 131

(22 April 1960): 1171-76. 37. vol. 10.

O. C. Marsh, Dinoccrata, (Washington,

A

monograph of an Extinct Order of Gigantic Mammals,

DC: U.S. Geological

Survey, 1884), 189-90.

38.

Cope correspondence, letter 132,26 May

39.

Hayden correspondence,

Cope correspondence, letter

41. E. D.

Cope,

box 51, American Heritage Cen-

of Wyoming, 21 December 1873.

ter Archives, University

40.

1873.

Fryxell Collection,

"On

the

134, 6 July 1873.

Zoology of a Temporary Pool on the

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 14 (June 1874):

42.

Cope correspondence, letter

43.

"The Yale Expedition," Nciv

178,

Plains of Colorado,"

139-40.

135, 18 July 1873.

York Tribune, 7

November

1873, vol. 33, no. 10,

p. 3.

44.

Cope correspondence, letter 137,3 October

45.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 3,

46. Ibid., reel 3, frames 184-85, 5 47.

Hayden correspondence,

1873.

frame 179, 13 August 1873.

November

1873.

Fryxell Collection 1638,

box 44, American Heritage

Center, University of Wyoming, 27 September 1873. 48. Ellis phia:

Paxon Oberholtzer.Jay Cooke

George W.Jacobs

&

—

Financier of the Civil War, vol. 3. (Philadel-

Co., 1907), 447.

49.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 4,

frame 224, 19 September 1873.

50.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 2,

frame 619, 26 November 1873.

51.

Hayden correspondence,

Fryxell Collection 1638,

Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wy., 3 52.

Marsh correspondence,

53.

Hayden correspondence,

reel 9,

box 54, American Heritage

December

1873.

frame 34, 8 December 1873.

Fryxell Collection 1638,

box 40, American Heritage

Center, University of Wyoming, 29 October 1873.

November

1873.

54.

Ibid., 12

55.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 4,

56. Ibid., reel 4, frame 668, 15

frame 663, 12 December 1873.

December

1873.

.

.

MARK JAFFE

394

Chapt er Eight Robert K. Bruce, Vic Launching of Modern American

1

Science

(New

York: Alfred

A. Knopf, 1987)220. Letters

2.

The

letters

from Joseph Leidy to Ferdinand Hayden, 28 April 1863 and 7 June 1863.

appear in Nathan Reingold's Science

umentary History

(New

York: Hill

A. Hunter Dupree, Science

3.

versity Press, 1957),

&:

Wang,

Nineteenth Century American;

in

A

Doc-

1964), 209.

in the Federal

Government (Cambridge: Harvard Uni-

204-05.

4.

Marsh correspondence,

5.

Testimony of Dr. H. C. Yarrow. H.R. Rep. No. 612. 62, 43rd Cong.,

6.

Marsh correspondence,

7.

Ferdinand Hayden correspondence, Fryxell Collection 1638, box 44,

frame 37, 20 April 1874.

reel 9,

frame 38, no

reel 9,

1st sess.

date. letter

221,

American Heritage Collection, University of Wyoming, 15 May 1874. 8.

Ibid., Fryxell

9.

Cope

Collection 1638, box 44, letter 223, 30

10.

Marsh correspondence,

1 1

Ibid., reel 12,

12.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 13,

13.

"A

— Professor Marsh's

14.

1874.

reel 26,

frame 744, 9 June 1873.

frame 300, 6 April 1874, and frame 337, 2 October 1874.

Perilous Fossil

York Tribune,

May

correspondence, letter 145, 22 July 1874.

March 1875,

Hunt

no. 27,

frame 20, 6

November

1874.

Last Trip to the

Tribune Extras, Lecture and Letter

Sitting Bull's testimony before Indian

Bad Lands," New Series, p. 48.

Commission, Marsh correspondence,

reel

26, frames 6-7. 15.

George

E.

Hyde, Red Cloud's

University of Oklahoma Press, 16.

Folk,

A

History of the Ogalala Sioux

(Norman:

1937), 224-28.

James McLaird and Lester

V.

Turchen, "Exploring The Black

Reports of the Government Expeditions," South Dakota History

Hills,

4, no.

1855-1875:

3 (summer

1974): 303-17; and C. C. O'Hara, "Custer's Black Hills Expedition of 1874," Vie

Black Hills Engineer 18, no. 4 17.

(November

Under

Exploration of the Black Hills Custer," Senate Executive 18.

G.

P.

1929),

p.

46.

U.S. Senate, letter from the secretary of war, transmitting

John D. Bergammi,

the

Document Tlic

Command

32, 43rd Cong.,

—

Hundredth Year

a

"Report of the

of Bvt. Maj. General George A.

2d

sess.

(1875): 6-8.

Ttic United States in

1876 (New York:

Putnam's Sons, 1976), 47.

19.

George

Dakota History 20.

Phillips, 2, no. 4

"The

(fall

Evidence Before

a

Indian

Ring

in the

Dakota Territory, 1870-1890," South

1972): 349-96.

Committee of the House of Representatives Charged with

the Investigation of Misconduct in the Indian Office (1871): 67. 21.

Report of the Commissioners Appointed by the Secretary of the

Interior to

Examine the Red Cloud and Whetstone Indian Agencies. (Washington, DC.

Government Printing

22. J.J. Saville, "First Collections

396-97.

U.S.

Office, April 23, 1874), 16.

Annual Report

— South Dakota Department

— Red Cloud Agency,"

of History, vol. 29,

1958

(31

Report and Historical

August 1874):

GILDED DINOSAUR

Til K

Cleophas C. O'Hara.

23.

Tlie Wliite River Badlands.

395

South Dakota School of Mines

Bulletin no. 13 (November 1920): 36-48. 24. Richard A. Bartlett, Great Surveys of the American West

Oklahoma

(Norman: University of

Press, 1962), 333.

25.

Cope correspondence, letter 149,6 August

26.

Ibid, letter 150, 15

27.

Ibid., letter 151, 17

August 1874.

28.

Ibid., letter 156, 14

September 1874.

29. E. D.

Cope, "Part

II

1874.

August 1874.

— Report upon Extinct

New Mex-

Vertebrata Obtained in

ico by the Expedition of 1874," Report upon the United States Geographical Survey West of

One Hundredth

the

Meridian, vol. 4, Paleontology (Washington,

DC, U.S. Government

Printing Office, 1877), 72. 30.

Cope correspondence, letter 149,6 August

31.

Ibid., letter 150,

1874.

17 August 1874.

148,6 August 1874.

32.

Ibid., letter

33.

Utley, Frontier Regulars, 219-21.

Chapter Nine Mark Twain and

1.

USA,

1994), 178.

Allan Nevins, Hamilton Fishillie Inner History of the Grant Administration

2.

New

Charles Dudley Warner, Tlie Gilded Age (1873; reprint,

York: Meridian-Penguin

(New

York: Dodd, Mead, 1936),

Constance McLaughlin Greer, Washington:

3.

N.J.:

A

History of the Capitol (Princeton,

l'nnceton University Press, 1962), 375.

4.

Robert Bruce, Modern American

5.

William

S.

Science,

317.

McFeely, Grant—A Biography

(New

York:

W W. Norton,

1981),

305-18.

"The

6.

Indian Bureau

26 April 1875.

—The Complaints of Chief Red Cloud," New York

vol. 35, no. 10,629, p.

Harry J. Brown and Frederick Williams, eds.,The Diary ofJames A.

7.

Tribune,

1.

Garfteld, vol.

3 (East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press, 1967-73), 243-44.

Henry Adams,

8.

USA,

"A

9.

Statement of Affairs

United States" by

12,

Tlie Education of Henry

Adams

(1907; reprint

New

York: Penguin

1995), 266. at

the

Red Cloud Agency Made

to the President of the

Prof. O. C. Marsh.

10.

Marsh correspondence,

11.

Ibid., reel 12,

reel 12,

frame 362, 15 March 1875.

frame 380, 4 July 1875.

The

total bill for the

expedition

is

on

reel

frame 415. frame 413, 5 October 1875.

12.

Ibid., reel 12,

13.

Cope

14.

Marsh correspondence,

ment

correspondence,

covers frames 394-415.

letter

164,29 August 1875.

reel 27,

frame 413, 9 September 1875. Marsh's

state-

MARK

396

15.

A F F E

J

Ibid, reel 27, frames 419-21, 10 September 1875. This

Marsh's pencil

is

account of the exchange with Delano. 16.

Marsh correspondence,

17.

Frazer, "E. D.

reel 3,

frame 58, 4 October 1874.

Cope," 125.

Chapter Ten 1.

Marsh correspondence,

2.

Ibid., reel 12,

3.

Ibid., reel 1,

4.

David

1973),

reel 12,

frame 455,

May

frame 444, 14

Darwin and His

Critics

Marsh correspondence, Francis

Darwin ed.The

reel 13,

frame 63, 19 March 1875.

and Letters of Charles Darwin,

Life

Books 1959) 2:64-65, Charles Darwin

Cynthia E. Russett, Darwin

Francisco:

to

J.

New

York: Boyle

Murray, 1860, quoted in Hull, Darwin and

248.

Critics,

W. H. Freeman,

E. D.

8.

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

6.

6.

7.

June 1876.

frame 362, 7 July 1876.

L. Hull,

5.

His

1

1876.

Cope, Primary

1976),

in

America: Tlic Intellectual Response,

1865-1912 (San

4.

Factors of Organic Evolution

Open Court

(Chicago:

Press,

1896), 474. Ibid., 1.

9.

10.

Ibid., 175.

11.

For an excellent discussion of the British reaction to Darwin and the emerging

fossil

record see Adrian Desmond's Archetypes and Ancestors, Paleontology

England, 12. 1

in

3.

1850-1875 (Chicago: University of Chicago

Marsh correspondence,

reel 1,

Edward Danford Eddy Jr.,

American Education

(New

in Victorian

Press, 1982).

frame 269, 8 June 1877.

Colleges for

York: Harper

&

Our Land and Time: Tlte Land Grant

Brothers, 1956), 8.

14.

Beers, Centennial City, 448.

15.

Charles Frederick Holder, "Spencer Fullerton Baird," in Leading

can Science, ed. 16.

Idea

Men

of Ameri-

David Starr Jordan (Henry Holt, 1910), 278.

Spencer Baird correspondence, record unit 7002, box

Institution Archives,

Washington,

DC,

1

frame 261, 22

November

17.

Marsh correspondence,

18.

Baird correspondence, record unit 7002, box 18,

reel 2,

18, file 5,

Smithsonian

September 1875.

file 5,

1876.

23 November 1875.

Chapter Eleven 1.

Charles H. Sternberg, Tlte

Life of a Fossil

Hunter (1909; reprint, Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 1990), 33. 2.

Oscar Osburn Winther, Vie

Winston, 1964), 122-23.

Transportation Frontier

(New

York: Holt Rinehart

&

THE GILDED DINOSAUR 3.

Cope correspondence, letter #165,

4.

Dan Cushinan, "Monsters of the Judith

397

14 August 1876.

— Dinosaur Diggings of the West Pro— Magazine of Western

vided Competitive Arena for Fossil Discoveries," Montana History 7, no. 4

(autumn 1962): 18-36.

"Geological Expedition," Helena (Mont.) Daily Herald, 15 August 1876, vol. 19,

5.

no. 12, edition

1.

& The

6.

"Montana

7.

"The Custer Massacre," Helena

tion

Tlic

Indians," Daily Independent, 23 July 1876, vol. 5, no. 98.

Daily Herald, 5 July 1876, vol. 18, no. 122, edi-

1.

Rex

8.

C. Myers, ed., Lizzie

—

Tlie Letters of Elizabeth Chester Fiskc (Missoula,

Mont.: Mountain Press Publishing Co., 1989), 101. Merrill G. Burlingame, Tlie Montana Frontier (Helena, Mont.: State Publishing

9.

Co. 1942); and Michael

P.

Malone and Richard Roeder, Montana

Centennial View (Bozeman, Mt.:

an excellent overview of the

Montana

life

State University, 1975).

and times of the

10. Joel Overholser, World's Inner

1

good

(Chicago: Warner, Beers

"The Northern

12.

Was: 1876,

A

Most Port (Fort Benton, Mont.: River files

Montana

Press,

Historical

deal of information about Fort Benton.

A

1739-1885,

History of Montana

1.

It

territory.

1980), 11. Overholser's personal communications, vertical Society, also hold a

as

These both provide

History of Its Discovery and Settlement

Co., 1885), 730.

&:

Indians,

What

a

Fort Benton Correspondent Thinks of the Sit-

uation," Helena Daily Herald, 29 July 1876, vol. 18, no. 141 edition 3. 13.

Fort Benton Record, 14 July 1876, vol. 2, no. 12,

14.

"Billy Jackson's Recollection of the

Monroe

Jack Burton

1.

Batde of the Litde Big Horn,"

as told to

(unpublished manuscript, Montana Historical Society, Helena,

Mont. 15.

The

Jane and

Brown,

the

tale

of Madame Moustache can be found in Duncan Aikman, Calamity

Lady Wildcats (Lincoln: University of Nebraska

Tlie Gentle Tamers:

Women

of the

Press, 1987),

and Dee

Wild Old West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska

Press, 1981). 16.

Cope correspondence, letter 166,20

17.

Cope correspondence, letter 167,27 August

18.

Cope correspondence, letter

dental bridge rather than a his letters to

full set

ache" in 1884

(letter

1876.

168, 2 September 1876.

of false

toothaches and dentist

August, 1876.

visits.

It

teeth, since there are repeated references in

250) and waxes about the "delightful sense of intoxication" from

19.

Cushman, "Monsters of the Judith,"

20.

Cope correspondence, letter

21

Ibid. , letter

Ibid., letter

30.

169, 10 September 1876.

#171,3 October 1 876.

22. Ibid., letter 170, 17 23.

a

For example, he writes of a "neuralgic tooth

the dentist's nitrous oxide in 1889 (letter 362).

.

seems that Cope had

September 1876.

#172,8 October 1876.

MARK

39U

A F F E

J

Chapter Twelve Michael

1.

Kohl and John Mcintosh,

F.

Tlie Field Journals of Arthur

eds., Discovering Dinosaurs in the

Old West

—

Lakes (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,

1997), 12. 2.

Marsh correspondence,

3.

Ibid., reel 10,

June

reel 10,

frames 357-60, 2 April 1877.

frames 348-56, 15 June 1877. Note: This letter

15, 1876, but based

on

content,

its

it

4.

Marsh correspondence,

5.

Ibid., reel 10,

6.

"The Bones of Monsters, Wonderful

Colorado,"

reel 10,

New York

Sun, 27

Kohl and Mcintosh,

8.

Marsh correspondence,

9.

Ibid., reel 2,

May

frame 517, 27 June 1877.

frame 520, 30 June 1877.

O. C. Marsh, "Notice of a

ence 14, no. 7 (1 July 1877):

Marsh correspondence,

13.

Kohl and Mcintosh,

14.

Marsh correspondence,

15.

Ibid., reel 21,

16.

E. D.

a

Palcontological Bulletin, no.

reel 12,

reel 12,

frames 542-43, 4 August 1877.

Gigantic Saurian from the Dakota

26 (26 August 1877): 5-10;

Epoch of Colorado,"

also Proceedings of the American

82-84.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 12,

frame 554, 12 August 1877.

frame 460, 29 June 1878.

18.

Ibid., reel

19.

W A. Helm, "The Gate of

,

frame 522, 8 July 1877.

Discovering Dinosaurs, 29.

Philosophical Society 15 (1877):

1

gigantic dinosaur," American Journal of Sci-

frame 550, 9 August 1877.

"On

Cope,

new and

87-88.

12.

Anson

Colorado Historical

S.

the Mountains" (manuscript no. 438, Colorado His-

Rudd, "Early

Marsh correspondence,

reel 12,

Canon City"

Affairs in

Society, Denver, 6.) Denver,

(manuscript no. 409,

Co.

frame 560, 15 August 1877.

12, frame 568, 21 August 1877.

22.

Ibid, reel 12, frame 574,24 August 1877.

23.

Ibid., reel 12,

frames 569-71, 21 August 1877.

24. Ibid., reel 12, frame 575,

26 August 1877.

25. Charles Sternberg, F0551/ Hunter, 99. 26.

Rocks of

1877, reprinted from the Colorado Springs Gazette.

reel 12,

Ibid., reel 12,

21. Ibid., reel

Discoveries in the Sandstone

frame 78, 8 August 1877.

10.

20.

date.

frame 403. 20 June 1877.

Discovering Dinosaurs, 24.

11.

torical Society),

actually dated

frames 419-24, 27 June 1877.

7.

17.

is

seems clear that Lakes miswrote the

Marsh correspondence,

reel 18,

27. Ibid., reel 18, frame 570, 28.

Cope correspondence,

29.

Marsh correspondence,

frame 533,22 April 1877.

26 July 1877.

letter 180, 17 reel 18,

30. Ibid., reel 12, frame 610, 8

September 1877.

frame 598,21 September 1877.

October 1877.

Discovering Dinosaurs, 65.

31.

Kohl and Mcintosh,

32.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 3,

33. Ibid., reel 3, frame 271, 16

frame 273, 27 June 1877.

June 1877.

THE GILDED DINOSAUR 34. fossils,

Edwin Barbour, became

the Peabody assistant given the order by

a distinguished

this story to his student,

399

paleontologist

Edwin

Colbert,

bert included the story in his book,

A

at

who

Marsh

to cover the

the University of Nebraska.

also

became

a

Notebook

Fossil Hunter's

He

told

noted paleontologist. Col-

(New

York: E.

P.

Dut-

ton, 1980), 49. 35.

Marsh correspondence,

36.

George Olshevsky, "Dinosaur Genera,"

reel 10,

frame 515, 11

November

1878.

in Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, ed. Philip

Currie and Kevin Padian, (San Diego: Academic Press, 1997) 797-804; and

J.

in 77ic

David Weishampel, Peter Dodson, and Halszka Osmolska (Berkeley:

Dinosauria, ed.

University of California Press, 1990).

Cope,

37. E. D.

"On

the Vertebrata of the Dakota

Proceedings

17 (21 December, 1877): 219-47.

of the American Philosophical Society 38.

Epoch of Colorado,"

Leidy correspondence, ANSP, 14

December

1877.

39. O. C. Marsh, "Principal Characters of American Jurassic Dinosaurs," American

Journal of Science 16

(November

of American Jurassic Dinosaurs

1878): 411-12, and O. C. Marsh, "Principal Characters

—

Part II," American Journal of Science 17 (January 1879):

514-22.

Chapter Thirteen 1.

"Joseph Henry," Nation, no. 672 (16

2.

Marsh correspondence,

3.

Cope correspondence,

4.

Marsh correspondence,

5.

Cope

6.

Henry

reel 3,

letter 190, 14

reel 11,

1878): 3-4.

May

May

1878.

1878.

frame 187, 9 January 1878.

correspondence, letter 191,21 Fairfield

May

frame 615, 14

May

Osborn, Cope: Master

1878.

Naturalist (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1931), 29. 7.

Ibid., 12.

8.

Dupree,

9.

Stegner, Hundredth Meridian, 221.

10. at

Lt.

Venice,"

Science in the Federal

Government, 94-95.

George Wheeler, "Report

Upon

Third Geographical Congress and Exhibit

House Executive Document 270, 48th Cong., 2d

1 1

Foster, Strange Genius, 262.

12.

Wilkins, Clarence King, 233.

13.

Gnnnell,

14.

Marsh correspondence,

15.

Powell Survey

16.

Cope

17.

Ibid., letter

18.

Ibid, letter 196, 8 September 1878.

19.

Ibid., letter 198, 14

sess.

(1881): 84.

Q C. Marsh, 286-87. reel 3,

frame 617, 9 August 1878.

letters received, vol. 8, nos.

268-71.

correspondence, letter 193, 18 August 1878.

20. Ibid.,letter

194,25 August 1878.

September 1878.

199,29 September 1878.

21. Dinobase, University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K., paleo.gly.bris.ac.uk/dinobase

MARK

400

22.

Cope correspondence, letter

23.

Amwal

24.

Congressional Record, 45th Cong.,

25. E. D.

A F F E

J

200, 12 October 1878.

Report of the National Academy of Sciences (1878-79): appendix D, 19-22.

3d

3 (1877,

sess., pt.

Cope, "Letter from O. C. Marsh,

p.

2361)

American Naturalist 13, no.

etc.,"

1

(1879): 36. 26.

Marsh correspondence,

27.

Congressional Record, 45th Cong.,

reel 6,

frame 517, 16 December 1878.

3d

sess., pt.

3 (1877):

The

debate

is

on

pp.

1558-69. 28.

Adams, Henry Adams, 311.

29.

A

Report on the Surveys of the

1861) 45th Cong., 3d

sess.

House Miscellaneous Document

Territories,

5

(ser.

1878.

30. Wilkins, Clarence Ktng, 207.

31.

Marsh correspondence,

32.

Ibid., reel 13.

reel 10,

frame 21

2 January 1879.

1,

frame 474, 20 February 1879.

33. Ibid., reel 12, frame 787, 14

March 1879.

Chapter Fourteen November

1.

Marsh correspondence,

2.

Ibid., reel 18,

frame 623, 14 November 1877.

3.

Ibid., reel 18,

frame 625, 16 November 1877.

4.

Ibid., reel 18,

frame 645, 24 November 1877.

5.

Brent H. Breithaupt,

reel 18,

"Como

frame 620,7

Bluff,

Wyoming Territory, 1868-1877: An

Glimpse of One of the World's Premier Dinosaur ings,

1877.

Initial

Sites," Dinofest International Proceed-

(1997): 19-29.

6.

Marsh correspondence,

7.

Ibid., reel 2.

frame 57, 24 December 1877.

8.

Ibid., reel 2,

frame 59, 26 December 1877.

9.

Ibid., reel 13,

10.

reel 2,

frame 55, 17

November

1877.

frame 206, 22 December 1877.

Ibid., reel 18,

frame 638, 30

November

1877.

John H.Ostrom and John S. Mcintosh, Marsh's Dinosaurs :Tlic Collection from Como Bluff (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1966), 56. The book contains 11.

complete index of all the specunens found 12.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 13,

at

Como

frame 736,

1

frame 740. 4 April 1878.

13.

Ibid., reel 13,

14.

Ibid., reel 2,

frame 68, 23 March 1878.

15.

Ibid., reel 2,

frame 74,

16.

Ibid., reel 18,

frame 692, 19 April 1878. frame 695, 19 April 1878.

1

April 1878.

17.

Ibid., reel 18,

18.

Ostrom and Mcintosh,

Marsh's Dinosaurs, 19.

19.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 2,

20. Ibid., reel 13, frame 763, 29 21. E.

D

Bluff by quarry number.

March 1878.

The

authors offer this analysis.

frame 79, 19 September 1878.

November

1878.

Cope, "Synopsis of Extinct Batrachia, Reptiha and Aves from North

a

THE GILDED DINOSAUR America,"

Transactions of the

401

American Philosophical Society 13 (1869): 30.

The

paper in two parts on 18 September 1868 and 12 April 1869.

this

Cope

delivered

entire paper

is

251 pages. 22.

Marsh correspondence,

23.

Ibid., reel 13,

frame 776,24 February 1879.

24.

Ibid., reel 13,

frame 782, 3 March 1879.

Noble Shor,

25. Elizabeth

frame 772, 12 February 1879.

reel 13,

Fossils

and

Comptcat

Flics:Tlic Life of a

Scientist,

Samuel

Wendell Williston (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), 118. 26.

Marsh correspondence,

27.

Ibid., reel 13,

28.

Kohl and Mcintosh,

29.

Ibid., 107.

30.

Marsh correspondence,

31.

Ibid., reel

frame 784,

reel 13,

1 1

March 1879.

frames 794-97, 16 April 1879. Discovering Dinosaurs, 84.

frame 816, 30 June 1879.

reel 13,

lO.frame 574,23,June 1879.

32. Ibid., reel 8, frame 359, 5 Carlin's father-in-law

September 1878. This

and an attorney

who

is

is

a letter

trying to get

from

Marsh

S.

F.

Hubbell,

to pay his son-in-

law.

33.

Kohl and Mcintosh, Discovery

34.

Marsh correspondence,

35.

Cope

36. E. D.

New

correspondence,

Cope, 1879

Dinosaurs, 99.

reel 13,

frame 817, 6 July 1879.

letter 202,

field journal.

28 July 1879.

American Museum of Natural History Archives,

York.

37.

Cope correspondence, letter 203,8 August

38.

Marsh correspondence,

39.

Ibid., reel 13,

frame 837, 9 August 1878.

40.

Ibid., reel 13,

frame 843, 19 August 1879.

41.

Ibid., reel 13,

frame 846, 20 August 1879.

42.

Ibid., reel 10,

frame 629,22 August 1879.

reel 10,

43. Ibid., reel 13, frame 864, 6

1879.

frame 611,11 August 1879.

September 1879.

Ibid., reel 13,

frame 891, 29 October 1879.

45.

Ibid., reel 10,

frame 744, 12 December 1879.

46.

Kohl and Mcintosh,

47.

Marsh correspondence,

48.

Ibid., reel 14,

frame 24, 30

49.

Ibid., reel 18,

frame 421, 15 September 1880.

50.

Ibid, reel 14, frame 118,25

51.

Ibid., reel 14,

52.

Ibid, reel 14, frame 224, "Historical Notes,"

53.

Ibid., reel 14,

frame 238, 30

frame 678,21 October 1880.

44.

Discovering Dinosaurs, 148.

54.

Ibid., reel 13,

Osborn, Cope, Master

56.

David

S.

May

frame 27, 5 June 1880. 1880.

November

1880.

frame 125, 11 December 1880.

55.

57. Peter

reel 14,

November

1

November

1881.

1881.

Naturalist, 258.

Berman and John

Dodson and Susan

S.

Mcintosh,

D. Dawson,

Tlte Recapitation of Apatosaurs, 83.

"Making

the Fossil

Record of Dinosaurs,"

MARK JAFFE

402

Modern Geology 16 (1991): 3-15.

David

58. Jurassic

S.

Berman and John

Sauropod Apatosaurus,"

S.

Mcintosh, "Skull and Relationships of the Upper

Bulletin of Carnegie

Museum

of Natural History, no. 8

(1978): 7.

Chapter Fifteen 1.

Schuchert and LeVene, O. C. Marsh, 281.

2.

Marsh correspondence,

from Powell

to

reel 13,

frames 495, 512, 519, 528. These are

Marsh concerning funding

levels,

all

letters

between 5 June 1883 and 16 August

1886. 3.

Ibid., reel 3,

4.

E. D.

frame 1009, 17 April 1885,and frame 1010, 13July 1885.

Cope, "The Vertebrata of the Tertiary Formations of the West," Report of

the United States Geological Survey of the Territories 3 (1884): xxviii.

Cope," 127.

5.

Frazer, "E. D.

6.

Cope

7.

Robert W. Eveleth, "Lake

correspondence, letter 213a, 11 August 1881.

ico:

New

8.

Mexico Geological

Paul

Rodman, Mining

Famed

Valley's

and Solid Looking Streak," Nctv Mexico

Bridal

Chamber

—A

Beautifully Large

Geological Society Guidebook Socorro,

Society, 1980): Frontiers of the

N. Mex-

293-96.

Far

West— 1848-1880 (New

York: Holt,

Rinehardt, Winston, 1993), 112.

Olney Newell, "Good Things

9.

Aplenty There," Denver Republican,

at

1 1

Red

10.

Cope correspondence, unnumber,

11.

Angie Debo,A History of the

Oklahoma 12.

River, Eastern

Mining Companies Are

July 1897.

15 August 1881.

Indians of the United States

(Norman,: University of

Press, 1970).

James Haley, Apaches,

a History

and Cultural

Portrait

(New

York: Doubleday,

1981), 396. 13.

Ibid, 366.

14.

Cope correspondence, letter

213, 13 August 1881.

15.

Ibid.Jett^ 225

16.

Ibid., letter

17.

Ibid., letter

227, 14 June 1882.

18.

"The Lake

Valley Mines," Tlic (Las Cruces,

f

June 1882.

226, 10 June 1882.

N Mex.) Republican,

vol. 3, no. 6,

30

June 1883. 19.

E. D.

Cope, "The Vertebrata of the Tertiary Formations of the West," Report of

the United States Geological Survey of the Territories 3, bk.

20.

Cope correspondence, letter

21.

"Minutes

Philadelphia 13

236,

1 1

for July 17th, 1883," Minutes of the

(December 1876

to

1

(1884): 561-62.

February 1883.

December

Academy of Natural

Sciences of

1885): 659. Also see Rough Minutes, the

extemporaneous notes of the meeting, 10 July 1883 and 17 July 1883,548-50. 22.

Cope correspondence, letter

23. Ibid., letter 240,

238, 18 July 1883.

25 July 1883.

THE GILDED DINOSAUR 24.

Ibid., letter

241,5 August 1883.

25.

Ibid., letter

249,24 September 1883. Mine,"

26. "Lake Valley

Tltc (Las Cruccs,

403

N Mex.) Republican,

vol. 3, no. 20, edition

16 October 1883. 27.

Cope

28.

Ibid., letter

29.

"The

correspondence,

letter

250,

1

October 1883.

252, 10 October 1883.

Sierra Grande,

& Mining Journal 35

Mining Company, Lake

Valley,

New

Mexico," Engineering

(14 April 1883): 205.

30.

Cope correspondence, letter

31.

W.

236, 16

from Old Timers

L. Park, "Tales

March 1883.

— No.

3," Tlic Union Pacific

Magazine (May

1923): 13. 32.

Cope correspondence, letter

33.

Ibid.,

260, 10 April 1884.

34.

Ibid.,

281, 24 February 1885.

35. Frazer, "E. D.

Cope

36.

258, 29

March

1884.

Cope," 127.

correspondence,

letter

289,

1

August 1885.

37. Spencer Baird correspondence, record unit 7002, Institution Archives,

Box

29,

file

23, Smithsonian

Washington, D.C., 18 July 1884.

38.

Cope correspondence, letter

39.

Ibid., letter

256, 24 January 1884.

293, 18 September 1885.

Chapter Sixteen 1.

Marsh correspondence,

2.

Ibid., reel 1,

frame 160,31 October 1882.

3.

Ibid., reel 1,

frame 169, 18 March 18, no year noted.

4.

A. H. Saxon, "Barnum, Nineteenth Century Science and

reel 9,

frame 279, 19 July 1882.

tory," Discovery

—

1988): 30, also,

Marsh correspondence,

77»e

Magazine of the Yale Pcabody Museum 21, no.

5.

Marsh correspondence,

6.

James Dwight Dana,

Conn.: Tutde, Morehouse and

&

Shor,

Ibid., 105.

9.

Marsh correspondence,

Flies,

the

reel 1,

frame 682, 3

frame 669,21

Four Rocks of the

May

1

(1

'Unnatural' His-

November

1880.

May 1883. New Haven Region (New

Haven,

Taylor, 1891).

8.

10.

reel 13,

On

7.

Fossils

Some

102.

reel 18,

frame 754, 17 February 1885.

Samuel Wendell Williston, "Oscar Harger,"

Tlie

American Naturalist 21, no. 12

(December 1887): 1133-34. 11. Scott, 12.

Memories,

58.

Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasurc of Man

(New

York: W.

W Norton,

1981),

114. 13.

Alfred

Convention, 14.

pt.

S.

Romer, "Teaching Vertebrate Paleontology," American

A

(September 1969): 43-44.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 1,

frame 735, 13 December 1884.

Paleontological

.

M

404

15.

Osborn, Cope, Master

16.

Charles H. Sternberg,

Academy of Science

X F F E

J

380

Naturalist,

"The Loup Fork Miocene of Western

Transactions 20, pt.

Marsh correspondence,

17.

A R K

frames 933-86. This correspondence includes

reel 7,

Long

twelve letters from Hatcher in

Kansas," Kansas

(1905): 72.

1

Island, Kansas, to

Marsh, starting July 10 and end-

ing 25 October 1884.

frame 945,

18.

Ibid., reel 7,

19.

Ibid., reel 15,

1 1

August 1884.

frame 943, 12 August 1884.

20. Martin O. Riser, Tlie Sternberg Family of Fossil- Hunters (Lewiston/Queenstown:

Edwin Mellen

Press, 1995), 176.

Marsh correspondence,

21.

reel 7,

frame 1003,9 February 1885.

22. Ibid., reel 8, frame 256, 25 June 1888.

frame 984, 16 December 1889.

23.

Ibid., reel 14,

24.

Ibid., reel 8,

25.

Department of Vertebrate Paleontology correspondence, record

frame 151, 27 June 1887.

Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington,

Brown 26.

DC,

16

November

file 2,

to Marsh.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 8,

27. Ibid., reel 8, frame 690, 20 28. Ibid., reel

1,

29. Schuchert

frame 281, 22 October 1888.

June 1891.

frame 638, 3 February 1886.

and LeVene,

Q C. Marsh,

310.

30. For a discussion of the history of classifying dinosaurs, see

Men and 1968),

unit 248,

1886. Letter from

Dinosaurs

91-1

1

1,

W.

— The

(New

E. Swinton, The Dinosaurs

Edwin H.

Colbert,

(New York:

E.

P.

York: John Wiley

&

Sons

Search in the Field and Laboratory

Dutton, Inc.,

1970) 107-17.

Chapter Seventeen 1.

The work of the

Allison

Commission

ence in the Federal Government, chap. the

1

1,

(pp.

is

Hundredth Meridian, "Spies and Whispers" 2.

Senate Miscellaneous

3.

Ibid.,

Document

well described in

Sci-

(pp.

283-93).

82, 49th Cong., 1st

sess., vol. 4,

2345 (1886):

Marsh correspondence,

5.

Thomas

reel 9,

frame

G. Manning, Government

1

16, 13 July 1886.

in Science

1867-1894 (Lexington,: University of Kentucky

—The

dated 27 October 1885.

Osborn, Cope, Master

7.

Reproduced

8.

Cope

9.

Leidy correspondence, ANSP, 15 August 1885.

in the

Naturalist, 380, letter

New York

correspondence,

Herald,

letter 258.

U.S. Geological Survey,

Press, 1967), 133.

6.

20 January 1890.

29 March 1884.

Ferdinand Hayden correspondence, Fryxell Collection 1638, box 40,

letter

301

American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wy, 26 August 1885. 1 1

8.

999.

4.

10.

Hunter Dupree's

215-31), and in Wallace Stegner's Beyond

Cope

correspondence,

letter

277, 26 January

1

885.

THE GILDED DINOSAUR 12.

Senate Miscellaneous

Document

82, 1014.

frame 879, 18 September 1885.

13.

Marsh correspondence,

14.

Senate Miscellaneous

15.

Ibid, 1014.

16.

Marsh correspondence,

17.

"Report from the National Academy

ment 153 44th Cong.,

Document

1st sess.

Senate Miscellaneous

18.

reel 12,

reel 12,

405

82, 1013.

frame 895,8 February 1886. for 1885," Senate Miscellaneous

Docu-

(1885): 65.

Document

W. Powell (26 February

82; Testimony of J.

1886): 1078. 19.

Marsh correspondence,

20.

Ibid., reel 7,

21.

Ibid.,

22.

Ibid., reel 7,

frame 309, 13

23.

Ibid., reel 9,

frame 113,5July 1886.

24.

Ibid, reel 12, frame 922, 15 July 1866.

reel 9,

frame 144, 3

May

frame 307, 5

Marsh correspondence,

May

1886.

1886.

reel 12,

May

frame 911, 10

May

1886.

1886.

Chapter Eighteen 1.

"Editor's Table," American Naturalist 21, no. 2 (February 1887): 164.

2.

Cope

3.

Ibid, letter 305, 9 June 1886.

4.

Ibid., letter

309, 26 June 1886.

5.

Ibid., letter

31 1,10 July 1886.

312, 18 July 1886.

correspondence,

letter

6.

Ibid., letter

7.

Osborn, Cope, Master

8.

Cope correspondence, letter

9.

Ibid., letter

10. 1

1.

304, 5 June 1886.

Naturalist, 384,

6 August 1886.

316, 23 August 1886.

321,24 November 1886.

Ibid, letter 322, 11

December

1886.

Ferdinand Hayden correspondence, Fryxell Collection 1638, box 40, American

Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wy. 26 August 1885. 12.

Christian Doctrine, Practice and Discipline (Dublin:

Depository of the Society of

Friends, 1864), 262. 13.

Cope correspondence, letter

14.

Ibid., letter

15.

Descriptions of 2102 Pine can be found in Osborn, Cope, Master Naturalist,

326, 14 February 1887.

324, 2 February 1887.

371; Scott, Memories, 232; Sylvia

M. Czerkas and Donald Glut, Dinosaurs, Mammoths and (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1982), 13-14; and in

Cavcmcn:Tlie Art of Charles Knight

Henry Fowler, "Cope 16.

in Retrospect," Copeia, no.

Cope correspondence, E.

D.

Haverford College, collection 956, 17.

Cope

file

1

(1963):

folder 3, Haverford, Pa.,

"Edward Drinker Cope," Catalogue of Scientific

comp. Royal

Scientific Society

1915), 342-46.

p.

12.

Papers collection, Quaker Collection,

Papers

26 April 1894.

—

Fourth

Series, vol. 14,

of London (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press,

JAFFE

l\1ARK

406

18.

Osborn, Cope, Master

19.

Hayden correspondence,

Naturalist, 585.

box 40,

Fryxell Collection 1638,

letter

504, American

Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, 23 August 1887. 20.

Cope correspondence,

21. Ibid., letter 22. E. D.

Association Monthly,

letter

Cope, Hie Relation of the Sexes

Opposed

October

1

December

338, 19

1887.

#339, 22 January 1888.

Woman

to

to

(New York: New York

Government

State

Suffrage, 1888; originally published in Popular Science

888.

23.

Gould, Mismeasure, 85.

24.

Cope correspondence, letter

325, 5 February 1887.

25. Charles Beard, 400. 26.

Gould, Mismeasure, 22.

27. E. D. pincott's

Cope,

Magazine

28. E. D.

"On

the Hypothesis of Evolution, Physical

&

Metaphysical." Lip-

(July 1870): 40.

Cope, Origin of the

(New

Fittest

York: D. Appleton, 1887), 287.

29. Ibid., 293.

30. E. D.

Cope, "Two

Perils

of the Indo-European," Open Court 3 (23 January

1890): 2054. 31. file

32. file

Cope correspondence, Quaker

folder 18,8

March 1893. Mars:,

Cope correspondence, Quaker

folder 5, 5

May

Dampier,

History of Science and

Cope correspondence, letter 341,26 February Ibid., letter

344, 20

353, 4 June 1888.

36.

Ibid., letter

Marsh correspondence,

38.

Cope correspondence,

39.

Ibid, letter 358, 19 September 1888.

40.

Frazer, "E. D.

reel 6,

1888.

letter

frame 614, 3 June 1888.

353, 4 June 1888.

ANSP, 7 October

1888.

Cope correspondence, letter 368, 13 May 1889. George Brown Goode correspondence, record unit Cope correspondence, Quaker

45.

Cope correspondence,

46.

Osborn, Cope, Master

47.

Reproduced

in

box

2, file 1,

Smithson-

Collection, Haverford College, collection 956,

letter 366,

Remson

to

Cope, 28 March 1889.

29 April 1889.

Naturalist, 391.

Nctv York Herald, 12 January 1890.

1889. Ibid, 19

54,

Washington, D.C., 7 February 1889.

folder 3. "confidential" letter from Ira

48.

Relations with Philosophy and

280-81.

Cope," 70-71. Frazer quotes from Cope's parody.

ian Institution Archives,

44.

1893.

March 1888.

37.

43.

Its

Press, 1966),

35.

41. Leidy correspondence,

file

A

(Cambridge: Cambridge University

34.

42.

March

Collection, Haverford College, collection 956,

1888.

33. William Cecil Religion

Collection, Haverford College, collection 956,

irespondence, reel 15, frame 733. 8

.,

December

1889.

letter

dated 24 October

T

II

GILDED DINOSAUR

K

407

Chapter Nineteen 1

Osborn, Cope, Master

2.

Elizabeth

Naturalist, 14

Noble Shor,

January 1890, 411.

Feud (Hicksville,

77ic Fossil

NY: Exposition

Press, 1970),

55. 3.

Osborn, Cope, Master

4.

Scott, Memories, 219.

5.

"Frocks

whole

Naturalist, 5

& Gowns From

January 1890, 409-10.

Pans Town,"

New

Scott, Memories, 219.

7.

William Hosea Ballou, "Volley for Volley

8.

"An Old Grievance

New

Charges," 9.

whole

in the

12 January 1890,

p. 8.

Great Scientific War,"

New York

no. 19,502 edition, 3.

Aired,

Why

Scientists

Make

Light of Professor Cope's

York Times, 13 January 1890. vol. 24, no.

"Scientists At

p.

of the Negro Exodus,"

no. 19,501 edition, 24; "Genesis

6.

Herald, 13 January 1890,

York Herald,

1 1

War, Cope Charges Mismanagement

,674, in the

p. 8.

Geological Survey,"

Philadelphia Inquirer, 13 January 1890, vol. 122, no. 13, p. 2. 10. p.

William Hosea Ballou, "Widening That Geological Chasm,"

14 January 1890, whole no. 19,503 edition,

New York

Herald,

4.

11.

Osborn, Cope, Master

12.

Ibid., 13

13.

William Hosea Ballou, "Marsh Hurls Azoic Facts," Ncu> York Herald, 19 Janu-

ary 1890,

whole

Naturalist, 12

January 1890,410.

January 1890,410-11.

no. 19508, 11.

14.

Osborn, Cope, Master

15.

Scott, Memories,

16.

George Baur, "A Review of the Charges Against the Paleontological Depart-

ment of the

Naturalist, 405.

219-20.

U.S. Geological Survey, and the Defense

made by

Prof. O. C.

Marsh,"

American Naturalist 24, no. 279 (March 1890): 303. 17.

States 18.

Edwin H. Barbour, "Notes on under Prof. Marsh," American

Marsh correspondence,

the Paleontological Laboratory of the United

Naturalist 24, no.

reel 7,

280 (April 1890): 389.

frame 755, 5 April 1890.

Chapter Twenty 1.

The

story of Powell's irrigation survey

295-344, and 2.

in

Dupree,

Science in the Federal

Marsh correspondence,

reel 13,

1892

3.

Congressional Record,

4.

Marsh correspondence,

5.

Ibid, reel 13, frame 56, 21

6.

Ibid., reel 7,

frame

7.

Ibid., reel 7,

frame

8.

Leidy correspondence,

9.

Marsh correspondence,

May 317, 19 May 321, 28 May

4389-96.

frame 55, 19

May

1892.

1892. 1892. 1892.

ANSP, 24 January reel 8,

covered in Stegner, Hundredth Meridian,

Government, 232-36.

frame 51,30 April 1892.

vol. 23, pt. 5,

reel 13,

is

1891.

frame 661, 27 April 1891.

.

M

408

A R k

frame 663, 16

May

J

A F F E

1891.

10.

Ibid., reel 8,

11.

Ibid., reel 13,

frame 559, 27 June 1892.

12.

Ibid., reel 16,

frame 685, 13 June 1892.

13.

Ibid., reel 1,

14.

Ibid., reel 13,

15.

Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, record unit 248, box

frame 110, 6 June 1892. frame 546, 3 March 1891. 1, file 2,

Smith-

sonian Institution Archives, 13 July 1890. 16.

Congressional Record, 1892 vol. 23, pt. 6,

17.

Marsh correspondence,

reel 12,

65151-6160.

frame 596, 20 July 1892.

frame 329, 20 July 1892.

18.

Ibid., reel 7,

19.

Schuchert and LeVene, O. C. Marsh, 323.

20.

Adams, Henry Adams, 330.

21.

Henry Adams,

&

City: Putnam's

et

Sons,

al.,

Tlic

Helmet of Mabrino— Clarence King Memoirs

King Memorial Committee of the Century

(New York

Association, 1904),

167. 22. Eveleth, "Bridal

Chamber," 296.

Chapter Twenty-One 1.

Cope correspondence, letter

2.

The

letters

392, 23 July 1892.

description of life on the Texas plains

378, 14

May

comes from Cope correspondence,

1892; 379, 22 May; 380, 29 May; 382, 7 June; 383, 10 June; and

384,21 June. 3.

Alfred

S.

Romer, "Cope

versus Marsh," Systematic* Zoology 8, no. 4 (30

Decem-

ber 1864): 202. 4.

Presifor Frazer, "Bibliography of E. D. Cope's articles."

5.

Cope

6.

E. D.

correspondence,

Cope,

"On

Academy of Natural 7.

E. D.

7 July 1855.

letter 23,

the Primary Division of the Salamandridae," Proceedings of the

Sciences of Philadelphia 11 (1859): 122.

Cope, "Snakes

in

Bananas Bunches," American Naturalist 24, no. 284

(August 1890): 781. 8.

E. D.

Cope, "The Batrachia of North America,"

Museum No.

34.

The Smithsonian

Institution,

United

Bulletin of the United States

States

Museum

serial no.

45

(1889): 13. 9.

E. D.

Cope, "The Crocodilians,

the U.S. National 10.

Museum for

Lizards,

Theodore GUI, "Address of Theodore

AAAS,"

and Snakes of North America," Report of

1989, 156. Gill, retiring president

before the

Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

46 (1897):

18. 1 1

Cope correspondence, letter

12.

Ibid, letter 388, 17 July 1892.

13.

Ibid., letter

14.

Edward Daeschler and Anthony

386, 5 July

1

892.

391. 15 July 1893. Fiorillo,

"Rediscovery of Fossil Material

at

the

ULDED DINOSAUR

TIIK

Academy of Natural

Sciences of Philadelphia from

Expedition to the Dakotas,"

Tlie

409

Edward Drinker Cope's 1893

Mosasaur no. 4 (1989): 143; and Fionllo and

Daeschler, "E. D. Cope's 1893 Expedition to the Dakotas Revisited," Earth Sciences History 9, no.

1

(1990): 57-61.

15.

Chatterjee, Birds, 31-33.

16.

Cope correspondence, letter

398,

17.

Ibid, letter 392, 23 July 1893.

18.

Ibid., letter

19.

Osborn, Cope, Master

20.

Henry

Museum 21

Fairfield

September 1893.

March 1888. Naturalist, 463.

Osborn, Cope Master Naturalist Correspondence, American

of Natural History, January-March 1930

E. D.

.

345, 27

1

Cope,

essay originally

file,

19 February 1930.

Tlie Marriage Problem (Philadelphia:

A. E. Foote, 1888),

1 1

appeared in two installments in Open Court magazine on 13

.

This

November

and 22 November 1888. 22.

Ibid., 25.

23.

Cope

correspondence, E. D.

Cope

Papers collection, Quaker Collection,

Haverford College, collection 956, Haverford, Pa. Pepper a letter

first

proposed the purchase

in

dated 29 September 1889.

24.

Osborn, Cope, Master

Naturalist, 457.

25.

Edward C. Carter

One Grand

sophical Society's First

250

II,

Pursuit:

Years (Philadelphia:

A

Brief History of the American Philo-

American Philosophical

Society, 1993),

34. 26. Sternberg, Fossil Hunter, 233. 27.

28.

Ibid., 238. The Cope letter is dated 16 February 1896. Cope correspondence, letter 406, 26 February 1897.

29. Ibid., letter 407, 10 March" 1897. 30. Ibid., letter 409, 18

March 1897.

31.

Ibid., letter

410,27 March 1897.

32.

Ibid., letter

413, 31

33. Frazer, "E. D. 34.

March 1897.

Cope," 68.

Edward Anthony

Spitzka,

Scholars Belonging to the

"A Study of the

Brains of Six

American Anthropometric

tion of the skull of Prof. E.D.

Cope,"

Eminent

Scientists

and

Society, together with a descrip-

Transactions of the

American Philosophical Society 21

(1908): 175-308.

Chapter Twenty-Two 1.

Marsh correspondence,

2. J. S. Kingsley,

reel 6,

frame 666, 14 April 1897.

"Edward Drinker Cope," American

Naturalist 31, no.

365 (May

1897): 418. 3.

Henry

Fairfield

Osborn, "Biographical Memoir of Edward Drinker Cope,"

National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs, vol. 13 (1929): 169-70. 4.

"Edward Drinker Cope," American Journal of Science, 4th

ser.; vol. 3,

no. 17

(May

MARK

410

J

A F F K

1897): 427. 5.

Marsh correspondence,

6.

Ibid., reel 4,

7.

Ibid., reel 4, letter

frame 672,

reel 13,

May

1

1897.

frame 262, 22 December 1892. 264, 19 February 1893 (Dana's birthday) and letter 284, 10

October 1893 (Dana declines dinner with the 8.

Schuchert and LeVene, O.

9.

S.

of Sheridan).

earl

G Marsh, 348.

W Willistown, "The Kansas Niobrara Cretaceous,"

Geological Survey of Kansas

2 (1897): 243-47. 10.

Marsh correspondence,

11.

O. C. Marsh,

tiles,"

12.

"On

reel 3,

May

frame 81,12

1890.

the Affinities and Classification of the Dinosaurian

Rep-

American Journal of Science 50, no. 12 (December 1895): 483-99.

O. C. Marsh, "The Dinosaurs of North American," Sixteenth Annual Report of

the V. S. Geological

Survey (1896): 144.

13.

Ibid., 143.

14.

O. C. Marsh, "Prof. Marsh's Address to Alumni Dinner," Yale Alumni Weekly

2,

no. 17 (24 February 1898): 7.

Men

and Dinosaurs, 93.

15.

Colbert,

16.

Schuchert and LeVene,

17.

Timothy Dwight, Memories

Q C. Marsh,

325.

of Yale Life

& Men (New

York: Dodd,

Mead &

Co.,

1903), 411. 18.

Schuchert and LeVene,

19.

The account of Marsh's

Q G Marsh, 342. final

Marsh, pp. 330-31 and a letter from

correspondence, reel

2,

days

is

to Marsh's half sister.

C.

Marsh

Marsh," American Journal of Science, 4th

ser.,

42 (June 1899): 403-19.

21. Shor, Fossils and 22.

upon Schuchert and LeVene, O.

frame 158, 20 March 1899.

20. Charles Beecher, "Othniel Charles vol. 7, no.

based

Thomas Bostwick

Dwight, Yale

Flies,

Life,

72.

410-13.

The story of Diplodocus carnegii is told in Robert T Bakker's, 77ic Dinosaur Here(New York: William Morrow, 1988), 201-5. and Desmond's 77ic Hot-Blooded

23. sies

Dinosaurs,

24.

1

13-21.

77»c President's Report,

1899 (Baltimoie: Johns Hopkins University, 1899), 392.

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The Gilded Dinosaur tells

the compelling story of

+

the

find

quest to

epic

the

\&

unimaginably ancient bones

now

that

J9

*.

¥

*

*

f

9

#>

stand on silent dis-

play in the world's natural history life

museums, and

it

brings to

one of the greatest

'

rivalries

in the history of science.

In

the mid- to

late-

19th

century, propelled by the theories of Charles ling science of paleontology attracted

and ambition

to

be the

and inspired of

this

others, the fledg-

young men with the

strength, drive,

unearth the hidden history of

first to

Othniel Charles Marsh and brilliant

Darwin and

life

Edward Drinker Cope were two

new

on

earth.

of the most

breed. For three decades, they scoured

govthe wildest parts of the western United States, braving hostile Indians,

ernment bureaucracies, skeptical fellow

scientists, boiling

summers,

freez-

ing winters, and the constant specter of failure and financial ruin. virtually nothing

While they agreed about

whenever

possible, they

made

the earth and that the world

and undercut one another

discoveries proving that giants once walked

is

indeed a more fascinating place than had

ever previously been imagined.

The Gilded Dinosaur

is

a riveting saga of science as rollicking

adventure.

Mark Jaffe

lives in

Wynnewood,

Pennsylvania, and writes

about science and the environment for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He the author

oiAnd No Birds

is

Sing.

National Publicity National Radio Campaign Author interviews out of Philadelphia Advertising in harper's National Public Radio Sponsorship

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