Fossil Wars Part 2 The feud heats up in the west

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Eric Gaskell, and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I didn't give you many
nails and joy and blunder and look I'm radling. I'm

(00:23):
not the brah A long struggle for freedom it then
he is a revolution. This week we continue our deep
dive into the so called Bone Wars that I called
the Fossil Wars as it's slightly less copy and paste

(00:45):
and more accurate. Regardless, this conflict was actually a few
between two men, Edward Drigger Cope and O. C. Marsh,
a conflict that would both shape and be shaped by
the changing world of American science. As we saw last time.
Copd grow up in a fairly well off Quaker family. Indeed,
his father wanted him to become a gentleman farmer in

(01:05):
the mould of Thomas Jefferson, just without the whole savory thing,
seeing as how they were Quakers. As such, Walcobe's father
did not necessarily discourage a son's fascination with science. He
also did not encourage it or support it as a
career path. If anything, his father likely would have preferred
that his son had pursued the path of a gentleman naturalist,
which Jefferson also was as a gentleman naturalist was a

(01:28):
wealthy gentleman who made their money through traditional means like
farming a business, but who would in their spare time
studying nature. The thing was the day of the gentleman
naturalist was coming to an end, as they were being
replaced by professional men, men whose job was to be scientists,
men who more often than not would have degrees from university. Thus,

(01:48):
men like Cope's rival O. C.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Marsh.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Marshusey, despite growing up significantly more impoverished than Cope, thanks
to his incredibly uncle Peabuddy, had been able to attend
and get degrees from Yelle Universe. Then afterwards he was
able to use the prospect of his uncle's wealth to
further secure himself a position as Yale's Professor Paleontology. As such,
Marsh would be much better positioned in the changing world

(02:11):
of science in America than his rival Cope, as it
would be men like him, with his degrees and his
connections to prominent institutions, that would be far better positioned.
As Pretty much as soon as he was named Yale's
Professor Paleontology, he was seen as one of if not
the most prominent man in his field. Regardless of these differences,
though both been war on what was the cutting edge
of a fairly untouched scientific field, they were both then

(02:34):
in a prime position to break new grounds, so to speak.
They were so positioned in part because there were some
of the first men in this field that was about
to enter an era of unparalleled discoveries, as they were
about to uncover not only new evidence of dinosaurs, but
also evidence that would support and expand our understanding of
how evolution works. You would think, then, that these two

(02:55):
men would have much in common and would see the
other an ally or at least a colleague, one of
the rare people in the world whom would fully appreciate
the revolutionary discoveries they were making. You would also think
that such men would benefit from working together and sharing
their knowledge. However, these men would let their petty issues
with one another create a feud that has since become legendary,

(03:17):
a feud that started in part because Mars should pointed
out that cope and mistakenly placed the skull of the
pleasias or he was reconstructing at the end of its
tail instead of on his neck. A major mistake on
COBE's part, and one that was especially cutting considering the
amount of work he'd put into the project, and because
unlike Marsh, he didn't have the kind of reputation and
thus a protection that multiple university degrees and ties to

(03:40):
Yell bought. You you can understand then why Cope was
a bit defensive and maybe took this personally when maybe
he didn't have to. On the other side of things,
Marsh up to rep up the early stages of their
feud when, after being shown some fossil fields in New
Jersey by Cope, he went behind the other man's back
and paid off the men working these sites to have
of the fossils sent to him and Yale. These were

(04:00):
fields where Cope and others had made significant discoveries. Now, however,
Cope would find himself cut off from the supply of
fossils simply because he had made the mistake of showing
them to a man he thought.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Was his friend.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yet, before I go any further into this already simmering
feud between these two men, first, like always, I want
to acknowledge my sources for this series, which include Mark
Jeaffe's The Gilded Dinosaur, The fossil War between Edy Cope
and oc Marsh and the rise of American science, Earl
Lanham's The Bonehunters and David Raine Wallace's The Bone Hunters
Revenged Dinosaurs, greed and the grainyt scientific feud of the

(04:35):
Gilded Age. And like always, these and any other sources
like websites that I used will be listed on this podcast,
Kofee and Blue Sky pages. Plus for any who don't
want to skip through commercials, there's an ad free feet
available to subscribers at patreon dot com slash Distorted History.
And with all that being said, let's begin. While fossils
could be found in states east of the Mississippi, the

(04:57):
Aforemen and discoveries of New Jersey and dinosaur being found
in the Connecticut Valley being proof of this, such discoveries
were exceedingly rare. This was because the lands east of
the Mississippi were generally fairly moist inverted with vegetation. This
environment made discoveries unlikely for multiple reasons. First, a vegetation
could hide or disguise fossils, making them simply harder to find.

(05:19):
Plusus environment was not good for the preservation of fossils,
as you see, the roots of plants could potentially destroy
those who were under the ground, while the area's frequent
rains threw into erode any that were exposed.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
It was then only.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
When white Americans started crossing the Mississippi heading into the
more arid lands of the west that huge treasure troves
of fossils were discovered. As you see, that environment was
much kinder to fossils and much less likely to destroy them.
The soil, for example, was less actic, while trees with
their powerful destructive roots were less prevalent, making it more
likely that fossils were preserved and not destroyed. Plus, the

(05:55):
land itself had unique features like the deeply eroded bad lands,
that made the discovery of fossils potentially easier. Which is
all to say that America's western territories were perfect for
fossils and fossil haunting. So while the more developed nations
of Europe had the superior educational facilities, America was a
place where discoveries in the field of paleontology were most

(06:15):
likely to be made, a reality that marsh had first
been made aware of back in his days studying in Europe,
when Professor Ferdinand Romer electrodym quote. The most inviting field
for paleontology in North America is in the unsettled regions
of the West. It was then Rummer's advice that paleontologists
should not quote spend time in the thickly settled regions,

(06:35):
advice at Marsh first attempted to follow in eighteen sixty eight.
That being said, it was no easy feat to just
go west and star looking for fossils, what with the
numerous hostile Native American bands who did not exactly appreciate
these white people just up and invading their lands. Indeed,
some of the richest potential fossil sites lay within lands
claimed by the Lakota Sioux, who, as illustrated in my

(06:58):
series on the Battle of the Little Bighorn Or a
series which really just pretty much covered the entirety of
the Lakota Sioux Wars, were among the most determined to
keep the Americans out of their territory. Indeed, that conflict
was still ongoing at this time, as just a year prior,
ad featured Custer's Great victory alone the banks of the
Washida Creek, where he and his men had attacked a
Shayan village, a village which as it turned out, belonged

(07:21):
to survivors of the Sand Creek Massacre. That being said,
eighteen sixty eight represented a bit of a law on
the action, as Red Cloud's War had just recently ended,
so for the time being, there were no active conflicts
taking place in that region. It has to be said, though,
too Marsha's credit. During his time in the region, he
would spend some time on Red Cloud's reservation, at which

(07:42):
point he was shown evidence of the corruption that ran
rapid throughout the government agency that was meant to supply
the Native Americans on their reservations with rations and various
supplies that they needed to survive and that had been
promised to them in exchange for giving up their land
and moving on to said reservations, something which I've covered
pretty much every time I've done an episode concerning the
Native Americans and their dealings with the American government. For example,

(08:06):
on the Lakota Reservation, marsh would describe the port they
were provided with as being quote unquote rusty, the coffee
beans as being green, the flower as being quote dark
in color and sticky to the touch, while the cattle
that were brought to the agency were visibly scrawny. Additionally,
the reservation had only received roughly half of the blank
as the government had promised them. Apparently shot by all this, Marsh,

(08:28):
as he had promised, Rayclott and his people brought these
complaints to the nation's capital. He even brought samples of
the supplies that Lakota had been given to show to
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs as proof of his accusations.
The commissioner, however, adged with excuses, which included blaming the
Lakota for the fact that their food was spoiled. Not
satisfied in the least with these excuses, Marsh looked to

(08:49):
set up a meeting with President Grahat himself now grant
for all of his flaws and his ultimate decision to
provoke a war with the Lakota, which I again covened
in more detail of my series only Battle the Little
Big Horn. The President had actually initially looked to take
a different approach with the country's original inhabitants. Granted, part
of this approach consisted of attempts to quote unquote civilize them,

(09:10):
which is a nice way of saying the goal was
to destroy their existing culture and way of life. So
as to make them Christian farmers. That being set in general,
Grant seemed to at least somewhat intend to deal fairly
with them, part of which included reforming the corrupt Commission
of Adian Affairs. Grant, then, upon being told that his
plans for fair treatment were apparently not working, suggested that

(09:30):
Mars should go speak with the Secretary of the Interior,
which Marsh did. However, after going through several meetings and
sensing that he was being given a bit of a
run around, the Yale professor decided to bring a reporter
from the New York Tribune to a meeting with the
Board of Indian Commissioners. This was, after all, the type
of story that the Tribune would very much be interested
in pursuing, as the paper opposed the Grand Administration. Marsh's

(09:54):
ongoing campaign, however, would soon be eclipsed by a series
of revelations concerning other scandals within the Grand Administration, like,
for example, the whiskey ring, which had affronted the government
of nearly as much money as was budgeted to all
the government's Indian programs, corruption in the Bureau of Indian
Affairs and was small potatoes compared to things like the
Whiskey Ring, which at Tyser reached all the way up

(10:15):
to Grant's assistant and friend, Orville Babcock. Marsh kept added, though,
as he assembled a thirty six page pamphlet that detailed
his charges of corruption and the evidence he had personally
witnessed and collected at the Red Cloud Agency, a pamphlet
that he then sent to Grant, five of his cabinet officers,
multiple newspapers, and fifteen hundred prominent citizens. Marsha's pamphlet then

(10:36):
caused quite a stir, but again, he wouldn't be met
by the government's attempts to whitewash the issue. They even
began attacking him personally through the press, which included a
suggestion that since he specialized in scientific research, he was
likely to be easily misled. Place A further asserted that
he had only raised these charges as a way of
getting in good with Red Cloud to gain access to

(10:57):
the nearby bad lands. Despite this, the song called Idian
Ring would be exposed and several members of Grant's administration
would be forced to resign, as with the Indian agent
who was operating on Red Cloud's reservation, as he was
likely employing the common tactic of using the government's funds
to pay full price for inferior and or run supplies,
and then splitting the difference in their actual value with

(11:20):
the people he was purchasing the goods from. Now this
likely did little to actually change the big picture, as
corruption and neglect would remain common themes in the government's
dealings with Native Americans, but it was more than enough
to earn Red Cloud's respect and gratitude. Indeed, the Chief
would send Marsha's pipe along with a message he had
given to an interpreter which read quote, I remember the

(11:42):
wise Chief. He came here, and I asked him to
tell the Great Father something. He promised to do so,
and I thought he would do like all white men
and forget me when he went away. But he did not.
He told a great Father everything, just as he promised
he would. And I think he is the best white
man I ever saw like him. I want you to
tell him this now. All that happened in eighteen seventy

(12:04):
four and seventy five, But before all of that, Marsh's
first excursion into the West was a part of an
expedition that had been set up, but the American Association
of the Advancement of Sciences, who in eighteen sixty eight
had held their annual meeting in Chicago. As part of
this meeting, these scientists taking part were offered the opportunity
to take a Union Pacific train to its endpoint, something

(12:26):
that was progressively moving westward in that era and which
was a point of contention for the Native American tribes
living in the region, but at that moment was in Benton, Wyoming.
For his part, Marsh was especially interested in this trip
after reading an article about how fossilized bones, including an
ancient human skeleton, had been discovered when digging a well
near the railroad station in Antelope Springs, Nebraska. Now Marsh

(12:48):
had's serious dots about these claims of an ancient human skeleton,
but if there were agent bones being discovered, he was interested.
In the end, Marsh was unable to spend much time
in Antelope Springs, as it were not really meant to
spend any time there. Marsh, however, managed to convince the
conductor to hold the train there long enough to do
a cursory investigation, which mainly consisted of a few minutes

(13:09):
examining the rock pile that set beside the aforementioned well.
As it turns out, though, this was enough time for
marshroll and cover multiple bone fragments, including what turned out
to be the bones and teeth of an extinct miniature horse.
This was all he found at the time, though, as
the train conductor was anxious to get under way, and
so Marsh instructed the station master to continue going through
the pile and to bring him any bones he found

(13:31):
when the train came back the other way on the
return trip. The station master would do as he was instructed,
and Marsh was rewarded with a quote hat full of bones, which,
as it turned out, represented these scattered remains of eleven
or so extinct animals, including ancient camels, pigs, and turtles.
In return, Marsh gay the station master a quote glittering
coin of the realm, and we parted good friends. The

(13:54):
following year would also prove to be eventful for oz Marsh,
as his wealth the uncle Peabody died, giving him a
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars inheritance that is roughly
three point five million dollars to day. Marsh, however, would
make no further expeditions into the West that year due
to an outbreak of violence involving the need of tribes.
In eighteen seventy, though, the young professor would manage to

(14:14):
organize an expedition complete with military protection thanks to the
likes of General Sherman and Sheridan, who he was in
communication with, connections with the highest ranks in the military
that he was likely afforded in no small part because
of his affiliation with y l. In fact, marsh would
get a letter from Sherman, which, since it came from
the head of the army, virtually guaranteed he would get

(14:35):
just about anything he needed for his expedition. This expedition
even garnered a fair amount of national attention, as it
was written about in the pages of the Harper's New
Monthly magazine as well as in the New York Herald.
Klaus Marsh also personally wrote bulletins that would appear in
the American journal Science so as to keep its reader
suppressed on their progress. Joining Marshall this expedition were eleven

(14:56):
Yale students who had been selected more for their physical
gifts and braver then for their skill or interest in science.
The Yale group's first stop would be at Fort McPherson,
which sat on the Platte River, as it was here
that they would pick up their military escort, something which
seemed fairly necessary seeing us out. On the same day
the Yale Men arrived at the fort, A trio of
Angelope hunters also arrived, one of whom still had an

(15:19):
arrow in his arm from when their group had been
attacked by a dozen or so Lakota warriors who had
forced the outnumber hunters to run for their lives. To
help protect the Yale boys from similar attacks, fame scout
Buffalo Bill Cody had been ordered to be a part
of their escort by General Sheridan himself. Cody, however, would
only stick with them for a day, as he had
also been ordered by the commander of Fort McPherson to

(15:40):
take part in hunting down the hostile Lakota who had
attacked the hunters. Replacing Cody, though, was another experienced scout,
Major Frank North, a man who Buffalo Bill considered to
be the best pistol shot from the saddle in the West.
In addition to North and six army wagons full of tents, ammunition,
and various provisions, the Yellmen would also be protected by
company of troops from the Fifth Cavalry, which bought the

(16:02):
total number of men taking part of this expedition up
to seventy, which goes to show you what money in
the prestige of yel.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Could buy you.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
As this group set off, heading north and west from
the fourth they planned to make a large circuit through Nebraska.
Now to be clear, this was not an easy journey,
as an addition to the risk of being attacked by
the Lakota Sioux whose land they were invading, the caravan
would spend five days traveling through unrelenting one hundred degree
heat until they reached the first site they intended to investigate,
a lonely Loop Fork River, an area which they soon

(16:32):
realized had evidence of recent Lakota activity, and indeed some
of the young men reported hearing the sounds of Native
American horses moving about in the night. The camp then
was kept under constant guard, although in reality they had
little to actually worry about, as they were simply too
large of a group to make a tempting target. It
wasn't all hardship, either, as the expedition, in addition to
their provisions, also had a regular supply of fresh meat

(16:55):
thanks to the large heards of elk and antelope that
were drawn to the river where they were conducting their investigation,
speaking on which the clainl like ground proved to be
good for fossil hunting, as he yelled boys founding number
of mammal bones from the Appliocene era, bones that came
from ancient camels, rhinos, masdons, and horses. The horse bones
were of particular interest to marsh and he would indeed

(17:16):
come back with fossils from six different speechies of agent horses.
It also wasn't just a Yelle students who took part
in the bone hunting either, as soon these soldiers were
enjoining them, and eventually even the Pawnee scouts got involved,
which was a somewhat surprising turn of events given their
initial refusal to even come into contact with the bones.
As you see, they apparently believed they came from some

(17:36):
ancient race of giants. Their attitudes changed, however, once Mores
took one of their funds, a jawbone from an ancient
horse and held it up beside one of their horses
to illustrate exactly what it was, recognizing then that these
are simply bones of long gone horses. The Pawne dismissed
their fears and actively started taking part in the fossil
hunting as well. That being said, the yellmen did not

(17:56):
restrict themselves to just agent remains, as when they came
across some Lakota funeral platforms, instead of leaving the remains
there undisturbed, Marsh declared, quote, we can't study the origins
of the Indian reason unless we have those skulls. It
was then with this proclamation that these skulls were removed
from the remains and brought back to Yale. Whether the
Lakota were where these desecrations are not. It seems that

(18:19):
the longer the Yale expedition stayed along the Loop Fork River,
the more inclined that Lakota were to demonstrate to them
how unwelcome they were in their lands. Indeed, at one point,
the Lakota set a fire among the prairie gresses, a
fire that, as it burned, advanced through the grasses towards
the camp before it got too close. However, these soldiers,
any Yale students, were able to recognize what was happening,

(18:39):
and so they set a fire of their own. They
consumed an area of grass in between their camp and
the other fire, thereby halting its advance.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
That being said, the message had been sent, and they.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Figured it best to leave the area and start heading
back before any more attempts were made on their lives.
As they left their camp, the expedition turned south, making
for the Platte River, eventually reaching the town of North Plant,
where the Yale students thought it was a fun idea
to charge in acting like they were a band of
fostile Lakota warriors. After their joke terrified the locals, the

(19:10):
expedition briefly returned to Fort McPherson before heading back out again,
this time heading into Colorado, where they found an investigated
a previously unexplored stretch of bad lands. Here they found
even more fossils, like the remains of an oredon, a
creature that somewhat resembled a pig but was actually related
to camels. Additionally, they also found the remains of a
large grazing mammal that looser resembled a rhino with a

(19:32):
four foot long jaw in which stood as tall as
an elephant. The expedition then spent about three weeks visiting
and examining various sites in this region before departing for
Fort d A. Russell, from where they took a train
west to Fort Bridger in western Wyoming. Here, March would
meet with a trio men who were influential in the area,
forging relationships with these men that would prove to be

(19:52):
crucial in protecting this area from other interested parties in
the years to come. For the time being, though, Marsh,
the Yale students, and a detect which from the thirteenth Infantry,
headed out on mule back to the area where the
Green and White Rivers met in Utah, where they conducted
further investigations before taking several weeks off to rest up
and explore Salt Lake City, at which point they set
off again for the Smoky Hills of Kansas, the same

(20:15):
region where Cope s the Lastmosaurus had come from, the
type of plesiosaur dinosaur that Cope had mistakenly placed a
skull at the wrong end of. Indeed, Marsh was looking
for his only Lastmosaurus remains, but he did not find any.
He did, however, find the remains of a Moses Saurus,
a fifteen foot long marine lizard, a giant version of
which I believe appears in the first of the Jurassic

(20:35):
World movies. Moses or remains, however, were fairly common at
not groundbreaking or exciting. Marsha's most significant fund in the
region then wouldn't come unto the very last day they
were there. Indeed, more stayed out after the authors had retired,
and was left for the protection of a single guard.
When as we were finally heading back to the camp,
marsh happened to spot an unusual looking bone protruding out

(20:57):
of the ground a ways off the trail. This bone
was six inches long one inch in diameter, and was
hollow with an unusual joint, by which I mean it
apparently looked like the tibia of a giant bird, but
it had a kind of joint that birds simply do
not have. This was a particularly curious find, but mars
simply could not spend any more time out there looking
for any more remains. Indeed, the only way the Yale

(21:19):
professor and his guard found their way back to camp
that night was by following the sound of one of
the men in camp repeatedly firing off their gun to
help guide them back. Also note about this trip, we
see the beginnings of Marsh's intentions to monopolize any finds
made in an area he had visited. Through the way,
he interacted with one Ferdinand Hayden. Hayden UCI, who was
now the head of the Geological and Geographical Survey of

(21:41):
the Territories, had been an associate professor of geology at
the University of Pennsylvania, a position that he had gained
with the help of Joseph Leedy. Thus, he understandably felt
a sense of loyalty to the aging father of American paleontology. Hayden, then,
who was at the time conducting his own investigation into
the Big Sandy Creek and Wyoming, would write to Lead
to inform him that martianists men had quote been ransacking

(22:04):
the country and claims great success. Most importantly, though, Marsh
had approached Hayden asking that he provided Marsh with any
specimens as sur Van covered so that he might compare
them to his own fines and write about them. Hayden, however,
instead of doing as Marsh had requested, had sent the
various specimens he had collected on to Leedy, telling him
to make sure that he or whoever he handed them

(22:25):
off to, wrote about them quickly before Marsh would publish
his own work, a choice at according to Hayden, Marsh
was not very happy with. Indeed, Hayden would send another
letter to Lady informing him of how upset Marsh was
by his choice to send his specimens to Philadelphia. For
his part, Leady could not understand why Marsh would be
so upset, as he wrote Hayden that Marsh quote has

(22:46):
no reason to complain. You have been exploring Western territories
year after year, and have at all times sent me
the vertebrate remains. For Leady, it was strange that Marsh
actually expected Hayden to just drop his previous arrangements and
work exclusive for him. Additionally, he thought it strange that
Marsh was acting like, all of a sudden, all these
specimens collected in the West should be his exclusive property

(23:09):
to study and write about, as if he had late
claimed to those territories just because he had gone there.
After all, Lady had been getting specimens from those territories
for years, but he had no intentions of trying to
deny anyone else access to them. Indeed, as Leady would note, quote,
when Professor Marsh informed me he was going west, I
had no right to complain, nor did I even think so.

(23:31):
Leady then seemed to find it hard to believe that
Marsh was actually behaving in this way. However, Hayden, who
had apparently gotten a good measure of a man, warned
Lady that Marsh was quote reaching ambitious. The ambitious Marsh would,
upon returning to New York, receive even more praise and recognition,
as the New York Herald published an article covering the
expedition and its leader, as it would describe Marsh as

(23:52):
a quote young, fresh looking gentleman of probably five and
thirty years of age, who appears to the casual observer
anything else. Then he devoted student of the petrified bones
of ages past, which I think meant he was not
the bookish type they assumed him to be, but was
instead a quote most active figure. Most interestingly, though, the
article ended with a hook for its readers and a

(24:13):
sign of things to come in our story, as it
stated that quote, it has understood the Professor Mash has
not satisfied himself that he has obtained everything of value
to science are new in the fields of scientific research,
which some of the regions afford, and that he well
returned to the Rocky Mountains to explore further. As long
as there was a potential for new discoveries to be made,
Marsh intended to be the one to make them. He

(24:35):
had no interest in leaving such fines for anyone else,
even if he could have occupied himself for some own
time with what he had brought back already. The Herald Houer,
despite this tease, would not follow any of Martia's subsequent expeditions,
instead finding Odyssey's intent on exploring Africa or attempting to
reach the Poles as more appealing to their readership. Now,
Mars Spine has desired to claim every possible fossil imaginable,

(24:58):
would take some time upon return to Yale to examine
some of the funds he had already made. In particular,
he was interested in that unusual bone he had found
on the final day of their expedition. Upon further examination,
Marsh came to the conclusion that this odd hollow bone
with its unusual joint had to be the figure of
a terodactyl, which would have been all that notable in

(25:19):
and of itself if not for the size of the bone.
As you see, Marsh estimated that Based upon the size
of the singular bone, the full animal had to have
had a wigspan of at least twenty feet, making it
far larger than any terretdactyl that had been previously discovered
in North America. In fact, according to his calculations, this
beast would have been twenty times larger and one hundred

(25:39):
times heavier than any previously discovered terot dactyls, a discovery that,
when Marsh publishes findings and conclusion, made quite the stir
in scientific circles, further cementing Marsh's place as one of
the pre eminent men in his field. Over the next

(26:20):
three years, Marsh would lead similar quote unquote student expeditions
into the West to hot fossils, the first of which
taking place the following spring, at which point Marsh returned
to the Smoky Hill area in Kansas, where he had
found the pterodactyl finger but had not had enough time
to search for further remains. Upon returning to the area,
it only took him a brief search to find more
bones for the flying dinosaur's wings, with which Marsh was

(26:42):
able to prove that his estimate of his specimen size
was correct, as it turns out this area had been
the home of a significant number of such creatures, as
over the years, Marsha's agents would collect bones from hundreds
of Smoky Hill terotdactyls, including ten fairly complete skeletons. Yet
despite this, he ever made a serious, intensive study on them,

(27:02):
likely due to his burning desire to make more discoveries
and beat everyone else to them. In addition to further
exploring the Smoky Hillarrea, Marsha's Yale expedition headed for the
Green River Basin near Fort Bridge in Wyoming, where they
also collected boxes and boxes of fossils that were then
shipped back to Yale, an expensive process that was made
possible in no small part due to his ties with

(27:25):
the institution. Similarly, the following year, Marsh would mount a
third expedition, where he again brought back a hall of
bones that, along with what he had already collected, would
form the foundation of Yale's collection of fossilized vertebrates. Equally important, though,
was the fact that these expeditions had allowed Marsh to
form relationships with important influential men in the West, men

(27:47):
who in the years to come would help Marsh in
keeping him informed of competitors' activities and or helped to
impede his competitor's work. Meanwhile, back at Yale, in addition
to examining the multiple halls of specimens he had brought back,
Marsh would also used the money he had inherited from
his uncle to have an eighteen room mentioned belt for
himself in New Haven, a mansion then he filled with

(28:07):
various art pieces and murmurabilia that he had collected during
his adventures in the West. This included the head of
a buffalo that would be mounted promptly on the wall
of his home's reception hall that he called the Wigwam. Yet,
for his famili as, Marsh seemed to remember these trips
and would endlessly retell these stories of his adventures, especially
the time he had participated in a buffalo hunt. Marsh

(28:28):
really wouldn't undertake any more serious excursions after eighteen seventy four. Sure,
he would make a couple of trips to examine sites
for himself, but there really weren't any more of these
multiple month long trips in which he was actively participating
or at least guiding the fossil hunting effort. Meanwhile, as
Marsh had been organizing his second expedition, none other than
Edward Drigger.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Copen also turned.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
His attention to the areas west of the Mississippi.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
After all, it's not like he had much choice.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
After he had essentially been shut out of the fossil
fields of New Jersey thanks to Martsian's yell funds. PLUSI,
fossil fields in the west were more appealing than those
in New Jersey. As you see, the Jersey fields, with
the exception of Leedies Hadrosaurus, typically only had scattered bones
and not complete remains. The boneyards of the west, however,
for reasons stated earlier, had a greater tendency to contain

(29:18):
complete skeletal remains. So, desiring to make a name for himself,
Cope also headed west, hoping to find some discoveries of
his own. The problem for Cope, though, was that, unlike Mars,
who was single, Cope was married with a child, and
he was not about to leave them home alone for
six whole months plus's. He didn't have the backing of
an institution like Yale. He didn't have the access to

(29:40):
the kinds of institutional connections to have a military escort,
much less the kinds of funds to outfit an entire
expedition like the once Marsh was carrying out. Indeed, Marsh's
second expedition would cost Yeal some fifteen thousand dollars, which
is roughly three hundred and sixty one thousand dollars to day. Now,
Cope had a pitten solution to this vexing little problem,

(30:02):
which was to get himself appointed as a member of
one of the geological surveys that were tasked with exploring
the Western territories during this period, as they often had
multiple scientific advisors, including geologists and sometimes even paleontologists. When
Cope attempted to join a Texas survey, however, his application
would be rejected, at which point he turned to Ledy's ally,

(30:23):
Ferdinand Hayden, the man who had warned the aging Naturalist
about Marsh's raging ambition and who also happened to be
the head of one of the Western surveys. Thanks to Hayden,
then Cope would be appointed to the Spring eighteen seventy
one survey expedition as a paleontologist. This would be the
first time Cope visited the Western territories, and he was
dazzled by the sights he saw there, writing his wife quote,

(30:46):
I had for the first time a view on the prairies,
and they are wonderful to me and look more like
ocean than anything I have seen. Cope then started out
in the Smoky Hilaria, but since he knew that area
had already been fairly well explored, he only planned to
spend a week there investigating before moving onto the areas
around Fort Bridger, where Marsh had also visited but had

(31:07):
been less thoroughly explored. Now, Marsh was decidedly not happy
when he learned that Cope was poking around in what
he viewed as his fossil fields around Fort Bridger. Despite this,
Cope would be aided by some of the military men
stationed there, who knew the area well but had not
been bought or influenced by Marsh and as yell money. Still,
since he lacked the same institutional funds and connections as Marsh,

(31:30):
Cope would receive a significantly smaller military escort. Notably, though,
even though he was potentially facing even more risk, Cope,
as a Quaker and thus an avowed pacifist, would refuse
the offer of a pair of pistols to defend himself
while he was out in the field. Indeed, as he
would tell his wife, he left the pistols he had
been given back at the fort because quote, I hate

(31:50):
the sight of them. Cope also Samson frequently written to
his wife and especially their beloved daughter Julia, describing the
unique sites and animals that he saw. He even promised
to try and bring Julia back a prairie dog, which
he informed her was not a dog at all, but
instead it resembled a quote big fat squirrel with a
short tail. Now, Cope was unable to return with a

(32:11):
prairie dog, although he would bring home a preserved rattle
steak specimen to show her. As far as fossil hunting went, though,
Cope wasn't very successful at first, much to his confusion
and frustration. He knew there were supposed to be fossils
in the area, but he had found little evidence on them. Plus,
making things worse was the harsh environment he found himself in.

(32:32):
Water was especially a problem, as not only wasn't hard
to come by, but what he was able to find
was silting alkaline. Meanwhile, the wind blown dust in the
area frequently forced Cope to wear a handkerchief over his
face to protect it. Plus, there was also the potential
risk of encountering hostile Cheyenne or Rappaho warriors who at
the time were not very happy with the Americans and

(32:53):
the destruction of the buffalo herds that were the backbone
of their way of life. Cope, though, was never attacked,
and soon he he even started figuring out the tricks
to finding fossils, which included searching the bottoms of rain
washes and ravines. Cope then, during his time in the
fossil beds around Fort Bridger and Wyoming, would discover the
remains of sea turtles, mosasaurs, and plesiosaurs. He even found

(33:15):
the remains of terret dactyls, including one whose twenty five
foot wingspan made it even larger than the twenty foot
terotdactyl that marsh had uncovered. Yet, unlike Marsha's expedition, Cope
received no real coverage in the press for his activities.
Also of note, Cope believed that during his time in
the area he had found the remains of a massive
seventy five foot long mosasaur in a ravine, which would

(33:36):
have made it twice the size of any known comparable animal.
It has to be said, though, that Cope had not
actually excavated the entire animal. Instead, he was basing his
estimate off the skull he had uncovered on one side
of the ravine and the tail he had found at
the other. As it eventually turned down though, what he
had actually found was not one unbelievably massive mosasaur, but
the head and tail of two separate creatures. Again, then

(33:59):
we see that Cope, and in his haste and excitement,
was more prone to make mistakes than Marsh. At the
same time, though, he seemed to have a way of
seeing these creatures and the world that they came from,
in a way that Marsh lacked. These were more than
just bones for Cobe, they were animals, and when he
talked and wrote about them, he made them in their
world come alive. For example, he would write of terror

(34:21):
Dactyl's quote. These strange creatures flapped their leathery wings over
the waves, and often plunging, seized many an unsuspecting fish,
or soaring at a swift distance. Viewed the sports and
combats of the more powerful soy ins at sea at night,
we may imagine them trooping to the show and suspending
themselves to the cliffs by the claw bearing fingers of

(34:41):
the wing limbs. COBE's vision of this ancient, prehistoric world
would very much help to shape the way others sawed
for years to come. In this way, he was also
different from Lady, whose career in inclination when running was
to just describe the bones. Cope, though, looked to understand
the fuller story that these discoveries tol. What would prove
to be a major point of frustration for Marsh, though,

(35:03):
was the speed at which code worked. Now, the speed,
as we have seen, could lead to mistakes, but it
also meant he was able to publish his discoveries before
the slower and more deliberate March could get around to it.
For example, during the course of the expedition, Cope would
publish several papers detailing finds that he had made while
in Kansas, finds that Marsh had also made, but had
not yet gotten around to examining a running batch yet,

(35:26):
a situation that likely frustrated him greatly, as the person
who identifies a new species had the right to name it,
but it was a bit more complicated than that. You see.
To keep things structured, and orderly. Each species could only
have one scientific name, which is why the rural priority
was created. The thing was, it didn't matter who actually
found and pulled a fossil out of the ground first.

(35:48):
What mattered was who wrote about it first. Basically, to
have a newly discovered planet animal scientific name recognized, it
had to first appear in quote unquote literature, meaning it
had to be written and published so the scientific community
could be made aware of it and accepted. This was
also the primary form of evidence used when more than
one individual attempted to name the same discovery, as the

(36:10):
person who published first would get priority. In this way, Marsh,
for all of its connections and resources, was at a
disadvantage to Cope simply because the other man worked at
a much faster pace. It did not matter if Marsha
discovered a new fossil first if Cope was able to
write and publish his discovery before him, which again helps
to explain his actions during the course of this war.

(36:31):
At least somewhat you can begin to understand then why
Marsh was quite upset when he learned that. The following year,
Cope again returned to the Bridger Basin area in Wyoming.
These lands, you see, contained fossil beds that dated back
to the eocn epoch, a time that saw the emergence
of early mammals. The fossils found here then were of
immense scientific value, as it could potentially be used to

(36:53):
support Darwin's theory of evolution, which was very much being
debated at the time, as his Origin of Species had
just been published thirteen years prior to this. Marsh very
much then would have wied to have boosted his already
sizable reputation by making such an important find, which in
some ways helps to explain why the Yale professor had
come to see that region as his own private little area,

(37:16):
where only he should be the recipient of any fossils
found Therein that being said, Marsh seemed to feel this
way about any place that he ER's agents went, as
according to his colleague ce Beecher, Marsh quote entered every
field of acquisition with the dominating ambition to obtain everything
that was in it and not leave a single scrap behind.
These fossils in his mind, regardless of if he had

(37:38):
discovered them yet or not, were his, which you may
note is distinctly different than how he had treated the
fossil fields of New Jersey that were supplying funds to
Cope and leaded to study. It did not matter in
that case, and others had been there before him, But
since he had been here first, he believed that he
should get everything found here. Yet, while his desire to
have sole ownership of every fund was not new, as

(38:00):
illustrated bias actions in the Jersey fossil fields, it's likely
that the issue was made worse due to Cope demonstrating
his ability to write and produce papers before Marsh could
even get around to examining these same discoveries. Marsh then
likely wanted to hoard all the fossils in parts so
he could examine and write about them at his own
methodical pace. To that end, Marsh started looking to put

(38:22):
obstacles in the way of others, most doubtably Cope. For example,
Marsh attempted a guinea promise from Hayden that his geological
and geographical survey of the territories would stay out of
his Bridger Basin country, a clear attempt to keep Cope
out of the area, as he had been granted an
unpaid position with the survey that allowed him to tag
along and take advantage of their protection and their supplies. Yet,

(38:44):
while Marsh claimed that Hayden had given him this promise,
Hayden didn't seem to see things that way, and so
Cope would arrive in the region round about mid July. However,
when he attempted to hire some locals to assist him
in his fossil hunting, they proved to be less than helpful.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
This likely had to do with the.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Fat and Martian previously hired them when he had come
to the area. As such, if they weren't still technically
employed by Marsh, then it had likely been made clear
that they would not be hired again when he returned
if they assisted Cope. In addition to struggling to find
people to assist him, on at least one occasion, some
of Marsh's workers, after finishing in an area, purposely left

(39:22):
behind a fragmented skull and some scattered teeth. Upon finding this,
Copo had assumed that these bones had been left behind
because the workers thought them to be too shattered to
be of use. It was only twenty years later, well
after Cope had written about the creature whose skull and
teeth these were, that he learned it had all been
a trick and that the skull and teeth had nothing
to do with one another. Between these active acts, as

(39:44):
sabotage and the fat and Marsian flooded the area with
so many bone hunters, Cope would decide to abandon the
Bridger Basin and had a bit of a way south
to the Washa Key Basin. Cope would unfortunately find a
little success here either, although the impediments he done with
couldn't be a triper to marsh. As you see, despite
officially being a member of the survey, Cope actually received

(40:05):
little benefit from the association, as he wasn't paid and
received no other financial assistance to speak of either. Basically,
the extent of its benefits consisted of being allowed to
stay at the fort, which for Cope meant sleeping in
the government's hayyard and being able to requisition some supplies
from the military. Meanwhile working in the Washakee base and

(40:26):
meant being constantly tormented by biting insects, as according to Cope,
the area was a quote land of mosquitoes and midges
and gnats. Then there was the Regent's water supply, which
was so bad that the various horses and cattle that
Cope had brought with him nearly died from drinking it.
And as if that wasn't enough, and what seems like
a particularly comical fu from nature, flocks of magpies would

(40:49):
regularly raid cope supplies. Things then clearly weren't going the.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Way he had hoped.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Plus, the longer he was out there, the code of
the Knights were getting which was also not good news.
Cope and the men he had managed to hire essentially
just had thin blankets to try and keep warm. With
blanket sed on more than one occasion, Cope awoke to
find frozen stiff. As for the men he had managed
to hire, they didn't actually help manors much either. For example,

(41:15):
when a group of their mules ran off, the men
who had been dispatched to retrieve them, rather than returning
with the mule straight away, opted to instead spend three
days in a saloon. Then, when he did finally start
heading back to camp, this man managed to crash their
wagon into a ditch. And what I can only assume
was a consequence of his three day binge, assuming then
that it was going to be fired for you know,

(41:36):
everything he had done the man upon returning promptly quote
stole twenty dollars or more worth of provisions, et cetera
from our larder, and cashehade them. What exactly he means
by cashade, as he puts it in quotes, I'm not
really sure, but regardless, at this point, Cope really had
no choice but to fire the man. Then, on top
of everything else, Sam Smith, Cope supposed god for the area,

(41:59):
was actively working as a spy for Marsh. But it
was more than that, as in addition to spying a
Marsha's competitor, Smith also made upon a guiding Cope away
from any errors that he thought might contain good fossils. Indeed,
a Smith would write Marsh quote, my motive in going
with Cope was to keep him off some places, as
I think is good bone country. So no wonder, Cope

(42:21):
wasn't having a lot of luck making new discoveries in
the area, as he was actively being undermined by Marsh
every step of the way. All this bad luck and interference,
both natural and unnatural, was enough to make Cope ill. Indeed,
it said he suffered from an extreme fever that lasted
for ten days, a fever that left him weak, gave
him hallucinations and huge carbuncles on his neck. Things apparently

(42:45):
got so bad that his wife made the trip out
to Wyoming to nurse him back to health before eventually
returning back east, meaning Cope's expedition for that year was over.
That all being said, Cope's expedition hadn't been a total
bust or all.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Of his struggles. According to a letter to his wife.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
From early on quote in two days of found twenty
five or thirty species, of which ten are new. Indeed,
despite everything that had transpired, Cope would during this time
manage to write several papers that he then transmitted back
to the American Philosophical Society to either be published or
at least read into the record, either of which would
help to establish his priority when it came to the

(43:23):
finds he had made. Interestingly enough, though, Cope and marsh
hadn't been the only ones to pay Fort Bridger and
its surrounding fossil beds a visit that year, as none
other than Joseph Leedy chose to make an exceedingly rare
trip out west that same year. Leady, uc wasn't one
to typically go into the field as for the most part,
prior to this, he had been sent specimens to study,

(43:45):
so he hadn't needed to actually participate in the actual
bone hunting aspect of paleontology, and to be clear, he
wouldn't really involve himself much after this, as at forty
nine years old, he wasn't super interested in the growing
work in the harsh conditions. Leedy, however, would not suffer
these same hardships at Cope had, as he and his
wife were invited to stay with the post army surgeons

(44:06):
and only made brief control trips out into the badlands.
In doing so, though, he was able to uncover the
skull of an animal that he named the Unditherium, a
beast that somewhat resembles a rhino, although they are apparently
not related, and instead of a singular horn, these animals
had a series of six knob white protrusions from their skull.
This fine was particularly notable as in naming this creature,

(44:28):
Leady would manage to scoop both Cope and marsh who
had also found the remains of these animals, and who
would also rushed to have the discoveries published. Although it
would be some time before this matter was settled and
Leady's name was given priority. Similarly, it would be some
time before everyone realized that Cope's discovery was actually distinct
from the ones that Lydy and Marsh had made, as

(44:49):
while Leady and Marsh were examining and naming the remains
of fossilized animals from a similar time period, Copes actually
came from eight to ten million years later, and thus
was larger in mort of developed, which, as we will see,
explain some but not all, the differences between their depictions.
This rush to name every new or even potentially new
find that they made would be one of the main

(45:11):
defining aspects of this feud, and it really started to
kick off here as Cope and Marsh and the rush
for glory and preeminence in their field, would go on
to give multiple names to a number of species, adding
a layer of confusion that later paleontogists and evolutionary biologists
would have to untangle. Now, this bad Russian competition was
seemingly a bit too much for Lady, as while he

(45:33):
had a much better time in the basin than Copad
and would make a couple more trips west with his
wife in the years to come, he very much seemed
to retreat from participating in the increasingly cut through a
Western paleontology game. Meanwhile, Copen, Marsh, and their competition would
manage the rare feat of both publishing a name for
the same newly discovered animal, a small lemur like mammal

(45:55):
with a two to three inch long skull, on the
very same day, which to understand the magnitude of this occurrence,
you have to realize that the system of scientific naming
and the rule of priority had been in existence for
over one hundred years at that point, and not once
during that entire time had this ever been an issue.
As such, neither Cope nor Marsh, nor the places where

(46:17):
they submitted their papers made any note of the time
of day when their work had been submitted. All that
was noted in both cases was their documentation had been
submitted on the seventh of August eighteen seventy two. To
try and resolve this thorny issue, Cope would argue that
since his description was longer and more detailed, as it
consisted of seventeen lines and seven measurements to Marsh's five

(46:38):
lines and six measurements, he should receive priority in the end,
though none of this really mattered, as Leady had already
named a similar specimen, and so again his is the
name that is used today. Marsh, however, would make a
significant find that year that neither Cope nor Leady could
challenge him. For Cope, you see, had found the fossilized
remains of a large bird like creature that had tea birds, however,

(47:01):
almost by definition, don't have teeth. Indeed, this fine was
so unusual that when Marsh had been sent a similar,
smaller specimen previously, he had assumed that the remains were
from two separate creatures. It had been his assumption at
the time that the teeth skull of a reptile had
gotten mixed up with the bones of a bird. Upon
discovering his Hasperanas re gallus, however, it was clear that

(47:23):
this was not the remains of two creatures, but instead
a bird that had teeth like a reptile. This quote
carnivorous swimming ostrich, as Marsh described it, was especially notable
because it provided further evidence for the idea that birds
and reptiles were related, a potentially important piece of evidence
in understanding evolution. As you may recall, at one point

(48:08):
in time, Martian Cope had seemingly been friends. The two
men had first met while they were both in Germany,
and were drawn to each other as in addition to
being Americans in a foreign land, they were both drawn
to these same realms of science, particularly geology and paleontology.
The two and subsequent years even named nude creatures after
the other men. Since that time, though there once cordial

(48:30):
relations had taken a decidedly different turn, which brings us
to eighteen seventy three, when the already strained and fraying
relationship between Martian Cope seemed to take a particularly ugly turn.
Things really seemed to start going down a bad path
when Cope accidentally received a box of fossils from Kansas
that had been meant for Marsh, something that had happened before. Cope,

(48:53):
though unlike the last time, recognized a mistake right away
and sent the specimens onto Marsh with a letter explaining
these situation and complimenting his colleague on his bird with
t specimen. Now, upon reading Cope's don't there does not
appear to be anything to take offense to, But you
wouldn't know this from Marsha's response as instead of a
simple thank you for passing all my fossils, the young

(49:15):
professor was seemingly intent on picking a fight with the
other man. You see, Martian's letter almost immediately switched topics
to demand to know why Cope didn't quote send your
papers more promptly as I invariably do. This was apparently
in reference to the last paper Covid sent him, as
was dated on the sixteenth, but was postmarked on the
eighteenth and arrived on the twentieth. This issue with the

(49:37):
way Cope dated and mailed his papers likely had to
do with their ongoing fights for priority in naming new discoveries. This, however,
was just the opening salvo, as next Marsh started asking
where were the rest of his fossils from Kansas and Wyoming,
apparently accusing Cope of outright theft, which as far as
I can tell, there was no actual evidence of, especially

(49:58):
since COPD just said to long fossils to Marsh that
he had received an error. If Cope was stealing fossils
from Marsh, why pass along those and make it clear
he was to one doing so. Now I can see
this anger slash paranoia as coming from two sources. One
being the fact that Cope had conducted expeditions into Kansas
and Wyoming areas, where Marsh had seemingly decided that all

(50:21):
the fossils therein were his. Therefore, any fossils removed and
written from those locations were, by his definition, thefts. Alternatively,
this could have also been about the incident years earlier
when doctor Newberry had sent fossils meant for Marsh to Philadelphia,
at which point Cope, not realizing they were not meant
for him, examiner wrote about some only to write an

(50:42):
apologize to March for the mix up. It's possible then
that Marsh had convinced himself that neither of these incidents
had been accidental, but had been orchestrated by Cope. Regardless,
Marsh would continue in his letter to Cope, quote the
information I received on this subject made me very angry,
so angry, in fact, that he considered going after Cope.
Quote not with pistols or fist, but in print. I

(51:06):
came very near publishing this with some of your other transgressions.
Marsh wanted to publicize all the wrongs Cop had committed
against him over the years, but chose not to, even
though he was quote never so angry in my life.
In all, this was quite the unresponse to the polite
and even complimentary letter that mar Should received from Cobe. Now,
in addition to these other issues, David rains Wallace points out,

(51:29):
Cope's letter was addressed not to oh C. Marsh using
the letters O and C, but instead to O. C.
Marsh using the word c as an see, which was
apparently a nickname that had been created by the young
ladies of Newhaven in response to the bachelor Marsh's papa's attitude,
something which is interesting to note as a suggest that
Cope might have been trying to subtly thumb his nose

(51:50):
at Marsh. However, at the same time, for all we know,
Cope had no idea about the nickname and was just
trying to be playful, like, oh see here, I accidentally
got some of your fossils. Here you go. Regardless, it's
clear that even if Marsh did take offensive the way
the letter had been addressed, this was just the tip
of the iceberg. That was clearly a letter that was
written because he had been steing about Cope and his

(52:12):
issues with him for some time, with his core issues
most likely being the rapidity in which his rival wrote
and published his papers, and the fact that he had
been operating in territory that Marsh considered to be his own. Cope,
who was admitedly a bit of a crank himself, as
you might expect, and not take too kindly to this letter.
As he responded to Marsh, quote, all the specimens you

(52:34):
obtained during August eighteen seventy two you owe to me.
Had I chosen, they all would have been mine. I
allowed your men chewing Smith to accompany me, and at last,
when they turned back discourage, I discovered a new basin
of fossils, showed it to them, and allowed them to
camp and collect with me for a considerable time. By
this I lost several fine things. Which is all to

(52:56):
say that apparently, during his explorations, Cope had found a
new fossil fuel and allowed a pair of Marsha's meant
to share the side with him, even though they had
already decided to turn around and give up the search.
In doing so, they were able to claim multiple fossils that,
had he not allowed them to join him, would have
all been Copes. This response, however, would do nothing to
change Marsha's mind. As he was convinced that he had

(53:18):
been quote deeply wrong by you in numerous instances. He
had not said anything at the time, but he apparently
could not take it any longer.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
It is here, then that.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
The feud starts to turn ugly and become at least
somewhat public, as, in spite of his claims of not
wanting to go after Cope in print, Marsh wouldn't March
publish an article in The Naturalist doing just that.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
In this article about the unit.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Tothereum fossils he had discovered, in which he used his
own name for the species, as he attempted to claim
priority for his discovery and his name, Marsh seemingly paid
little attention to Leady, who actually had priority, and instead
focused on Cope and his attempts to name the species.
In particular, he went after Cope's paper on the subject,
claiming he had made sixteen errors, errors like Cope's initial

(54:02):
assumption that the animal had a trunk like an elephant,
which decidedly did not. The thing was, most of these
mistakes were simply the result of working with incomplete evidence,
some of which Cope had already corrected. Indeed, in the
very same issue of the Naturalist, there was an article
by Cope describing the animal in question that contained none
of the errors that Marsh was focusing on. Additionally, it

(54:25):
also has to be noted that again, the reason why
there were a number of discrepancies between Marsha's and Cope's
descriptions was because they were actually describing different animals. Yes,
they were similar in a number of ways, but Cope's
discovery was eight to ten million years newer than Marsh's
and ladies, meaning that while Cope had indeed made a
few mistakes in his initial haste writing about these creatures,

(54:47):
at the same time, a number of the things that
Marsh claim were mistakes were simply the result of their
running about two related but the stink species. Marsh wasn't
done there, though, as you would also in this article
supposedly about his grand discovery, accused Kope of putting the
wrong dates on his papers, basically accusing him of cheating
in an attempt to gain priority. That wasn't all either,

(55:08):
as in the following issue, the Yale Paleontologists would write
yet another article seemly focused on mocking Cope's version of
the unitethereum fossils, in which he made reference to pictures
provided to him by the esteemed Harvard's scientist Lewis Agassy
to support his claims. The thing was, it's questionable how
much Agasi's involvement actually had to do with his belief
that Cobe was wrong versus he just needed to stay

(55:31):
on Yale on Marsh's good side. You see, Agassi was
looking to build a museum of comparative zoology in Cambridge,
for which you would need a number of fossilized specimens.
The problem for Agassy, though, was Harvard didn't have a
notable paleontologists of their own, which meant they had no
collection of fossils. As such, they needed to play nice
with Yale and Martian, particular in the hopes that he

(55:52):
would deign to share with them his ever growing collection.
Such attempts, however, would prove pointless, as Marsh had no
intention of helping Hart, as he wanted to make Yel's
pea Buddy Museum named for his uncle who had donated
the money for its creation, the greatest in the country. Marcia.
This point, it published two articles seeming the aim specifically
it going after Cope, but still he wasn't done, as

(56:15):
next he went to the American Philosophical Society, where he
read off a list of charges against Cope and his
publications so as to put this matter into record and
to encourage them to censure Cope and retract his papers.
He had taken issue with papers that primarily seemed to
be the Baraga writings that Cope had sent to the
Society during his time in Marsha's Bridger Basin region. Marcia's

(56:37):
main issue seemed to be the dates which appeared on
the papers and the disparity between them and when they
were officially reported, as in some cases there was a
great disparity, with Marsh's suggestion being that Cope was falsifying
the dates he placed on his papers to make it
look like he had written them earlier so as to
gain priority. The thing was, though, it seems that most

(56:58):
of Marsha's complaints really had nothing to do with Cope.
As you see, it wasn't Coke's fault that his papers
were being read into the record in a kind of
chaotic and half hazard manner. What March really should have
been complaining about, then, Whilst the way in which the
Society operated, as you see, this was more of a
gentleman's club than an institution where people work full time. Thus,

(57:18):
there were gasped between the receiving papers and reading them
into the record, which would explain why some of COBE's
papers had differing dates, as he would write and submit
them on one day, but they would not be officially
read into the record until a later date. As such,
there does not seem to have been any apparent deception
on COBE's part, something which Cobe obviously recognized, as you

(57:40):
would write in a letter to his father, quote the
acting secretary of the Philosophical Society, not being a paid officer,
has been careless and indifferent. Cope was not trying to cheat.
He was following these same rules as everyone else.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
It was just that the.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Philosophical Society kept poor records, and, oftentimes due to their
odds scheduling the publication of his papers. Marshaweverg and his
ever suspicious mine, could never mention any innocent excuses. Cope
had to have been lying and trying to cheat All
the while this was going on. The two continued going
back and forth in the pages of The American Naturalist. Finally,

(58:17):
though the editors all this respected Scientific Publication had enough
of this behavior and decided to push their squabbling into
the appendices. However, they made it clear that from now on,
if they intended to continue this back and forth, they
were going to have to pay for this privilege, as
it declared, quote, we regret the professors Mash and Cope
have considered it necessary to carry their controversy to the

(58:38):
extent that they have. Wishing to maintain the perfect independence
of the naturalist in all matters involving scientific criticism, we
have allowed both parties to have their full say, but,
feeling that now the controversy between the authors in question
has come to be a personal one, and that the
naturalist has not called upon to vote further space to
its consideration, the continuance of this subject will be allowed

(59:01):
only in the form of the Appendix, at the expense
of the author. This was apparently no problem for Marsh,
as in the June eighteen seventy three edition of the
publication he filled up nine pages of the appendix with
complaints about Cobe, to which Cope would reply with a
single paragraph published in the July edition that read, quote
the recklessness of assertion, the erroneousness of statement and the

(59:23):
incapacity of comprehending our relative positions on the part of
Professor marsh render further discussions on the trivial matters upon
which we disagree unnecessary, and my time is too fully
occupied on more important subjects to permit me to waste
it upon personal affairs. Indeed, while Marshould seemly poured so
much time and energy into his attacks, Kope continued writing

(59:45):
papers on a variety of topics. Their long simmering rivalry
then had finally boiled over, and the pettiness of their
back and forth in the pages of a respective publication
was an embarrassment to the scientific community. This was not
the behavior as scientists or gentleman. The only real comfort
was that this was mainly contained to the pages of
a scientific publication that was unlikely to be consumed by

(01:00:08):
the general public, thereby keeping this shameful piece of business
somewhat contained. That, however, would not always be the case
in this feud, but things would not accelerate to that
point for several more years. In eighteen seventy four, trips

(01:00:44):
to the fossil fields of the West became potentially more
dangerous thanks to the government's continued provocations of the Lakota,
specifically Colonel George Armstrong Custer's mission into the Black Hills
to search for gold land that was sacred to the
Lakota and an area that Sitting Bull would argue hw
as crucial to their continued survival as a people who
could rely on Haunting to survive and live. For the

(01:01:05):
American's reservations, the Black Hulls, you see, were place they
could go whenever times got tough. As there was always
an ample supply of edible plants and small animals in
the hills, they could sustain them in such times. For
his part, Cope, despite all the problems he had encountered
on his previous trip, was still very much enamored with
the West and the prospect of making even more discoveries. Still,

(01:01:27):
the issues with the Lakoto would give him pause as
to the fact that his time was being occupied by
other work that was necessary to support himself and his family.
As you see, Unlike Marsh who had been left a
sizable inheritance from his wealthy uncle in the ram of
three point five million dollars a day, Cope had been
supporting himself by writing Allison Encyclopedia articles, as while such

(01:01:50):
work kept him and his family afloat the time that
he dedicated to such uninspiring pursuits was time in which
he was not doing the kind of work he was
truly passionate about, haunting stiff and writing about newly discovered fossils.
Not helping matters was the fact that Hayden's survey was
apparently a bit hard off, as Cope was only given
two hundred and fifty dollars to support his.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Work that year.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
As a result of these limited resources, Cope could not
range as far as he wanted to, but instead had
to stay within already established areas. Cope then would mainly
spend his time in the area around Greeley, Colorado, which
was already well trod ground in terms of palaeonto logical investigations. Indeed,
quite a few of Marsh's agents were also at work
in the same area at this time. For Cope, then,

(01:02:33):
seemingly the most important thing to come out of this
expedition was the realization that the dividing line between the Cretaceous,
the final age of the dinosaurs, and the Tertiary period
that followed, was not as stark as he had previously believed.
You see, before this, Cope had believed that life had
more or less reset in between the downfall the dinosaurs
and the rise of the mammals, meaning he had assumed

(01:02:55):
there to be little to no connection between modern animals
and the creatures that had existed before this dividing line
in terms of evolution. During his time in Colorado, though,
Cope would realize that much of the vegetation that existed
in the Tertiary period had also existed in the Cretaceous.
For example, oak, palm and fig trees, in addition to
a number of others, had all existed in both periods,

(01:03:16):
which Cope realized suggested that if vegetation was able to
carry on, then animals may have as well. As such,
there was not a pure reset, and evolution had been
in play. As for Marsh, while he had seemingly enjoyed
his Western adventures, he was now more content to stay
at Yale and pay others to get the fossils for him.
For example, he would pay a lawyer, teacher, and amateur geologists,

(01:03:38):
Benjamin Mudge a thousand dollars in eighteen seventy four to
be his full time fossil co elector in Kansas, a
job that Mudge would prove to be quite adept at,
as he responded by setting his benefactor thirty large boxes,
all full of fossils. Increasingly, this became the way Marsh
would obtain his fossils. He would remain at Yale handling
other matters while he relied on the contacts he had

(01:04:00):
over the years to pay professional bonehunters to retrieve specimens
for him. As he did so, though, he continued to
make it out that he was the one stall making
these grand discoveries out in the field. As years later
Samuel Williston, a Yale student who had been among those
who assist in March by funding fossils without credit, would
say that quote. In his publications, Professor Marsh's stated, or

(01:04:21):
left it to be inferred, that his personal explorations in
this as in other fields, were extensive, and that the
largest part of the fossils described by him were the
results of these explorations. The actual fact is that since
eighteen seventy five, when my personal relations with Professor Marsh began,
he himself did no field work. Marsho did more than

(01:04:42):
just take credit, if even obliquely, for all of these fines.
As according to Williston, he also made of tails of
the dangers he faced to acquire the fossils. As he added, quote,
his reference to the personal dangers encountered by hostile Indians
is amusing in the extreme to all those who know
the facts. I think I can s I say, without
fear of dispeed by those who know the facts, that

(01:05:03):
Professor Marsh never ran into any greater danger from Indians
than when he entertained Red Cloud at his home in
New Haven. Now, to be fair to Marsh, as a
detailed last time he was in hostile Lakota country on
his first expedition, Bunny was also surrounded by significant military
force keeping him safe. It's quite possible then that the
stories he was telling were in reference to his own

(01:05:24):
actual early exploits. But Willison does seem to be right,
and that he was seemingly never in any real danger. Now,
all of this would come out years later after Willison
stopped working from Marsh, but he would insist this wasn't
the case of bitterness in looking to harm his former
benefactor's reputation. Instead, he insisted that quote this statement I

(01:05:45):
think has called for injustice to his collectors who did
expose themselves to real and often imminent dangers from hostile Indians,
but who were really or never mentioned by him in
his publications. Meanwhile, in addition to hiring men to hunt
for fossil on his behalf, Marsh also used his money
to hamper Cope's own efforts in the field. For example,

(01:06:05):
during Cope's expedition in Colorado in eighteen seventy three, Marsh
consistently badgered Orvin Devendorf, one of his men operating in
the area, about rumors he had heard of finds that
Cope was making. Devendorf, however, would tom and again assure
Marsh that he had little to actually worry about. Indeed,
he would report to Marsh how he had gone so
far as to destroy marks that he believed had been

(01:06:27):
made by Cope to help him find locations he planned
to investigate the following spring, which is to say that
Marsh's man believed that he had found several locations that
Cope intended to further investigate the following spring, and had
thus left a mark there as a sign to himself
of where to work when he returned. After Cope left
these areas. Though Devendorf had moved in and destroyed these

(01:06:47):
marks so as to confuse Cope when he came back
looking for these areas. As he did so, though, Devendorf
noted these locations so that he, on Marsh's behalf, could
swoop in and make the discoveries that Cope had been
hoping to make. The thing was whether or not those
marks had actually been left by Cope, or if he
even had any intention of returning to those locations, ultimately
proved to be immaterial, as he would not return to

(01:07:09):
Colorado the following year, but instead turned his attention to
New Mexico. This was partially because Cope was more of
an explorer at heart than Marsh was. He liked pushing
into unknown lands and seeking his own discoveries. Indeed, his
greatest that flash of excitement that he got from uncovering
a new fossil was It seemed that cop valued the
journey to get there just as much he was fascinated

(01:07:30):
by the West, its environment, and its animals. This thus
for exploring new places, combined with the scattered and floody
way his mind, worked to make his movements unpredictable. Cope,
you see, and his work would dart from one subject
to another. He liked to dabble in a lot of
different fields, as he wrote papers on a wide variety
of topics, behavior that carried over to the way he

(01:07:51):
traveled about the West, thus making his movements at time
hard to track and predict, something which was incredibly frustrating
to a man who wanted to both out maneuver and
to keep him far away from where his people were working.
Marsh and his allies then were constantly worried about where
Cope was going to pop up next.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Unexpectedly.

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
In this case, however, the change of venue from Colorado
to New Mexico had as much as anything else to
do with the difficulties he was experiencing as a member.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Of Hayden Survey.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
As such, Cope then lashed onto a different competing survey.
The survey was run by the Army Corps of Engineers
and was being led by one Lieutenant George Wheeler. Their
shifting surveys, in addition to allowing Cope to explore a
ground on trodden by fellow paleontologists, also gave him a
respectable budget to work with, as in contrast to the
two hundred and fifty dollars he'd been given to provide

(01:08:39):
for his expedition as a part of Hayden Survey, Cope,
now that he was working under Lieutenant Wheeler, was actually
paid twenty five hundred dollars per year for his work,
plus he was also promised an additional thirty dollars a
month for additional provisions, while all the expenses of the
expedition were paid for by the army. Yet as beneficial
as this new setup was, Cope would be frustrated by

(01:08:59):
the military ses structure that he was now a part of,
as he got in the way of the work that
Cope was trying to do as a paleontologist. You see,
in addition to his normal difficulties in working within a
structured environment, the survey's primary mission was to map out
the geology into rain of the area. Cope's work then
was technically secondary. As such, they had a tendency to

(01:09:19):
over Cope's protest leave behind treasure trowes of fossils to
camp places that made sense for their real mission but
which contained no fossils. Cope would complain so much about
the situation that zoologist H. C. Yarrow, who was in
charge of his group, actually wanted to resign. This was
likely at least partially the result of Cope, as he
was said to have been hard to deal with. However,

(01:09:40):
this was also because Yarrow, who did on some level
agree with Cope's complaints, was afraid of disobeying the orders
he had received from the military men in charge of
the survey. Now, Cope did not actually want Yarrow to resign.
He just wanted some more leeway to haunt fossils, so
he convinced Yero to accompany him, and speaking with General
and Greg, who was in charge of that particular military district.

(01:10:03):
After listening to these scientists plead their case, Greg somewhat
surprisingly accepted their arguments and thus gave Cope's team of
scientists free of reign. Cope, now with a bit more freedom,
immediately headed for an area known as the San Juan Basin,
as it was here where he had earlier found an
area of badlands similar to those in Wyoming that contained
fossils from the Eocene epoch. His instincts then proved right,

(01:10:25):
as he would indeed find some of these same type
of fossils here as had been found in Wyoming, which
placed the area as coming from the Eocene at the
same time, though, he also found a fair number of
unfamiliar fossils, meaning he was making some new discoveries. As
for Yero, he was apparently tired of all the stress
of dealing with such an expedition, which in addition to

(01:10:45):
dealing with Cope also meant dealing with teamsters and a
cook who were refusing to do their jobs. Plus on
my Cope, he wasn't exactly super comfortable with the idea
of disobeying or even slightly stretching the orders he had
been given. As a result, he quit and returned home,
with yuro Nao gone. The raw, the head non military
official of the expedition would have fallen to topographer P. R. Ainsworth,

(01:11:08):
who was a part of their main mission. The thing was,
Ainsworth had recently been killed when his revolver accidentally went off.
Cope then was summoned to speak with the military men
in charge of the expedition, possibly expecting to be reprimanded
for stretching his orders, only to learn that he was
now in charge of his group. The newly empowered Cope
returned to his work in the San Juan Basin, where

(01:11:30):
he excitedly wrote that the discoveries he was making were quote,
the most important fine in geology I ever made, and
the paleontology promises grandly. That being said, he would soon
make an even greater find. Win In late October, Cope
discovered yet another fossil field near Rio Praco. Now he
would not be able to fully investigate this area as
it was getting late in the year. However, this fossil

(01:11:52):
field would prove to be the oldest of its kind
in the States. This area held mammal fossils from the Paleocene,
the beginning of the age of mammals, a time that
would see some of the first mammals becoming herbivores as
he developed the teeth suited for that purpose. To fully
understand the input of this find, you have to understand
that the Paleocene is an epoch that falls in between

(01:12:14):
the Cretaceous, the end of the dinosaurs, and the Eocene
epoch that he and the other paleontologists had been investigating.
In fact, this was a period of geological time that
hadn't even really been delineated or named at that point
in history. Now, all this would be confirmed by later
investigations into the area, as at the time Copa only
discovered some petrified wood, which is to say that Cope

(01:12:35):
had made a tremendous discovery, but no one would really
realize it for some time, as Sachi would not receive
the kind of recognition that Marsha had gotten for his
discovery of the bird with teeth. Indeed, Cope would not
get a good idea of what he had discovered until
seven years later, when in eighteen eighty one, he hired
a man named David Baldwin to further explore the Rio

(01:12:56):
Perico area. Baldwin would then subsequently Cope over eight hundred
new species, some of which Cope had to create new
biological categories just to properly classify them. This arrangement is
particularly interesting considering our overall theme of the feud between
Martian Cope, because Baldwin had actually been hired by Marsh
following Cope's initial discovery of the Rio Percro area, likely

(01:13:19):
doing so with the hope of swooping in and stealing
whatever was there, like he had the New Jersey fossil fields. However,
Marsh had dismissed the fossils that Baldwin had sent him
as being uninteresting, and thus had not done any further
examination or pursued the area in any way. Speaking of Marsh,
part of the reason why he was spending less time
in the field starting in eighteen seventy four, in addition

(01:13:39):
to having the funds to pay others to do the
hard and dirty work for him, was because he was
supervising the construction of the Pea Buddy Museum at Yale.
This then was the year in which he made his
last major four right into the West and when he
spent time on Red Cloud's agency seeking their permission to
collect fossils from the nearby badlands. It was then during
this period that mars Ch, after being shown the corruption

(01:14:01):
president in the government's Indian agency system, that he upon
returning East, began his campaign to try and clean up
that system, as he had promised the Lakota leader he would.
Marsha's efforts, including his subsequent meetings with government officials, were
covered in the press, which only served a further raise
Marsh's national profile. That being said, I don't think this

(01:14:22):
was a calculated, cynical move on his part. In other words,
I don't think Marsh did this because he was only
thinking a foul this would benefit himself and his reputation,
but instead, I do think he thought a true sense
of injustice when it came to how the Lakota were
being treated on the reservation. Indeed, even without this campaign,
marsh was more or less poised to become the most

(01:14:43):
well known scientist to.

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
The American general public.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
This further horizon prominence was largely due to the arrival
of Thomas Henry Huxley and American in eighteen seventy six.
The London born Huxley, who was the curator of the
Royal School of Minds, Paleontology collection and the British Geological
Surveys Naturalist, was arguably the most famous scientist of the day.
Huxley UCY was a strong proponent of Darwin's theory of evolution. Indeed,

(01:15:07):
he came to be known as Darwin's bulldog, as in
contrast to the more reserved Darwin, Huxley was a skilled
public speaker who was eager to take the stage defending
and supporting Darwin's theory of evolution, a theory that once
he grafts it, Huxley could not help but think, quote,
how extremely stupid to have not thought of that? It
just made so much sense to him that he could

(01:15:27):
not believe that he had not come to the same
conclusion long ago. Huxley then came to see himself rather
proudly as Darwin's protector.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
One of Hoxley's main goals in visiting American in eighteen
seventy six was to meet with Marsh as to consult
him on his already quite impressive collection of fossils. Huxley,
UC had long suspected Slash, feared that proof or lack thereof,
for darwin theory would line the fossil record for you see,
as confident as he was a Darwin was right. Huxley
and others like him feared that the fossil record was

(01:15:58):
so incompletely fragmented that any hole in the evolutionary process
would then be used to dismiss their conclusions. Upon consulting
with Marsh, though Hawxley was delighted as a Yale professor
was able to, through his collection of fossils, lay out
a fairly linear evolutionary path for early horse ancestors. By
presenting his visitor with a series of fossilized specimens, Marsh

(01:16:19):
was able to trace the growth of teeth among early
horses as they became better suited to be herbivores as
they transformed from cat sized burrowers that resided in a
forest two larger animals that were better suited to graze
on the prairies. Within these same fossils, marsh was also
able to trace for his guest the way their feet
changed as their toes gradually fused and eventually turned into

(01:16:40):
who's in response to environmental changes. Hawxley then would excitedly
proclaim quote no collection which has hitherto been formed approaches
that made by Professor marsh in the completeness of the
chain of evidence by which certain existing mammals are connected
with their older tertiary ancestry. Hawxley would then use the
evidence that Marshall provided him with in a series of

(01:17:01):
lectures in New York's Checkering Hall, in which he credited
the Yale scientists for his contributions. And to be clear,
these weren't some obscure lectures given by a scientists that
the general public had no awareness of, as he were
front page news. For example, the New York Herald, while
critical of Huxley for quote unquote assaulting the Catholic Church,
would sing Marsha's praise as a road quote of the years.

(01:17:24):
The marvelous Tochier deposits of the West of America had
supplied fossil so numerous and its sunch perfect state of
preservation that they left nothing wanting. And the field itself
had been worked by Professor marsh of Newhaven in a
most incomparable fashion, so that nothing too much could be
said of the care taken by him, the extent of
the discoveries that had been made, or their scientific impotence.

(01:17:46):
Marsh then had, through his work in sizeable collection of fossils,
found himself in the same conversation as a manual the
most famous scientists of the era, in his discussion of
the most monumental, newsworthy scientific subject of the day. In
addition to ra his profile, his connection with Huxley would
continue to serve Marsh well in the years to come.
For example, when the Yale professor visited England in eighteen

(01:18:08):
seventy eight, Huxy personally introduced him to many notable English figures.
Yet his greatest this was personally for marsh who enjoyed
living the high life and rubbing elbows with the origin
and famous. The greatest benefit of his connection with Huxley,
of course, came for the professional benefits of having his
name tied with such a famous scientific figure. For example,
in eighteen seventy seven, when the English scientist was hailed

(01:18:30):
at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences annual
meeting in Nashville, Marsh's name would be brought up in
an editorial in the Nashville Daily American. Indeed, the publication
would credit Marsh, calling him a quote bold discover art,
while also describing his work with fossils and how he
had used them to demonstrate evolution as being quote hardly
second in importance to that of Darwin. So while Edward

(01:18:52):
Drinker Cope was working in pretty much obscurity for a
variety of Western surveys, his rival O. C. Marsh was
rubbing elbows with some of the most prominent and important
scientists of the age. Martha had seemingly left his rival
in the proverbial dust. Their feud, however, was far from over,
as soon they would compete for a whole new type
of fossil. As you may have noticed, up until this point,

(01:19:13):
they were primarily focused on early mammal fossils and creatures
from a similar time span. Soon, though, the uncovering of
massive bones would start a whole new race between the
two men, as the discovery of peniful dinosaur bones in
the West would only serve to heighten their feud all
the more. However, that aspect of Artel will have to
for now remain a story for another time. Thank you

(01:19:40):
for listening to Distorted History. If you would like to
help out, please rate and review the podcasts and tell
your friends if you think they'll be interested. If you
would like ad free in early episodes, I set up
such a feed over at patreon dot com slash Distorted History.
By paying ten bucks a month, you will gain access
to the special ad free feed available on Spotify or
likely through your podcast app as long as it uses

(01:20:01):
an RSS feed. I will continue to post sources on
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to go to access that information regardless, once again, thank
you for listening and until next time.

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Fossil Wars Part 2 The feud heats up in the west

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