Fossil Wars Part 4 The Feud Goes Public (Finale)

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 names.
And joy a blunder and look I'm raveling. I'm got

(00:23):
the ba A long struggle for freedom. It then he
is a revolution. In our previous episode, we saw how
paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope and O. C. Marsh had battled

(00:44):
over obtaining the vertible treader trove of never before seen
dinosaur bones that were being discovered in the western regions
of the United States, and in doing so, Marsh was
able to gain a decided edge on his rival, thanks
in no small part due to his connection to Yale University,
but also his new ties with the federal government, as
he was named the head of the Division of Paleontology

(01:04):
in the newly formed US Geological Survey, a position which
granted him the funds with which he was able to
employ staff around about eighteen men both in the field
and working with these specimens brought back to his Peabody
Museum in Yale. Cope, meanwhile, lacking such support, was forced
to fund his own expeditions out of the omittedly sizable
inheritance left to him by his father. Now, to try

(01:26):
and maintain this and support his family, Cope had tried,
using his expertise to guide him into making wise investments
into Western minds. These investments, however, would prove to be
a colossal mistake that utterly destroyed his wealth. The increasingly
desperate Cope then lashed out wildly at Marti and his allies,
which involved throwing in with Congressman Hillary Herbert out of

(01:46):
Alabama and his campaign to end all government funding of science,
a campaign that did little other than to further alienate
Cope from people who would conceivably have been his allies
in things like trying to get the next two volumes
of his grand work push by the government. Which is
all to say that at this point Marsh was ascended
and Cope was all but out of the game. Yet,

(02:06):
for as ugli as as feud it had been so far,
what with Marsh apparently directly or indirectly ordering his men
in the field to destroy fossil so that Cope could
not procure them, it was about to take an even uglier,
in much more public turn. However, before I get into
this the final chapter of our tale, first, like always,
I want to acknowledge my sources for this series, which
include Mark Jeffies, The Gilded Dinosaur, the Fossil War between

(02:30):
Ed Cope and OC Marsh, and the Rise of American Science.
Earl Lanham's The Bonehunters and David rain Wallace's The Bone
Hunter's Revenge, Dinosaur's Greed and the Greatest Scientific Feud of
the Gilded Age. And like always, these and any other
sources like websites that I used will be listed on
this podcast, KOFE and Blue Sky pages. Plus for any

(02:51):
who don't want to skip through commercials, there's an ad
free feed available to subscribers at patreon dot com slash
Distorted History. And with all that being said, and let's begin.
In eighteen eighty eight, during yet another trip to Washington,
in his continued effort to convince the government to publish
the final two volumes of his grand work, Cope also
hoped to receive some funds from the US National Academy's

(03:13):
Bash Fund, which had been set up to promote original research.
The problem with this plan was the president of the
National Academy was none other than O. C. Marsh, so
while several other scientists would receive the funds, they asked for,
there would be no money for Cope. Increasingly desperate, Cope
then looked to do something that would have been unimaginable
just a few years earlier. He approached the American Museum

(03:36):
of Natural History in New York, offering to sell them
his collection of fossils, while also asking to work in
their institution. However, they would turn him down on both fronts. Meanwhile,
with their family in increasingly desperate straits financially, Cope's daughter
Julia would get a job as a secretary at the
publisher of The Naturalist, which Cope still technically owned, but
was at this point only being kept alive through donations

(03:58):
from his friends. Following year eighteen eighty nine, as their
financial woes continued, there was some light at the end
of the tunnel, as Cope was offered the curatorship of
Reptilia at the Smithsonian. However, he would ultimately not be
offered the position, as according to the man who made
the decision, it wouldn't work out because Cope would have
to have quote recognize that there were certain rules laid

(04:21):
down for him as to what he was to do,
and more particularly as to what he was not to do,
as playing by the rules was not something that Cope
had ever really been good with, even when he had
been working for the survey conducted by the Army's Corps
of Engineers. Meaning it was answering to men in the
military used to having their orders obeyed to the letter,
Cope had still sought to stretch and even ignore the

(04:41):
orders and limitations that had been given to him. Cope
was simply a lone wolf type who did not play
well in a structured environment. Again, then we see, at
least in part, how Cope's behavior and his disagreements with
other scientists beyond Marsh were doing him no favors. Speaking
of Marsh, the Yale Paleontologists was of for election as
the President of the National Academy of Sciences, a position

(05:03):
that he had held for six years, and there was
some belief that the time had come for him to
step down and allow another to assume the responsibility. Yet,
despite this, in Cope's own campaign against Marsh in support
of mathematician Benjamin Gold, Marsh would be re elected to
the post. Indeed, it seems that Cope's attacks against Marsh
had backfired, as they had been so over the top

(05:24):
that members of the Academy had actually felt it necessary
to defend Marsh and by extension themselves from these wide ranging,
scattershot attacks. Cobe again then was not doing himself any favors.
But finally, in October eighteen eighty nine, he managed to
obtain a teaching appointment at the University of Pennsylvania, meaning
that at long last he again had a steady, if

(05:44):
modest income, which at the very least allowed Cope to
get his feet underneath himself financially once again. Yet while
this bit of good news seemed to suggest and maybe
things were finally turning around for the embattled paleontologist, Coope
would be blindsided when he next attempted to obtain govern
in funding to publish the next two volumes of his
grand work. As John Wesley Powell, the head of the

(06:05):
US Geological Survey, who Cope had also written an editorial
attacking due to his connections with Marsh, responded to this
request by declaring that Cope's collection of fossils technically belonged
to the government and thus should be transferred to the
National Museum in Washington. Now, as we will see, this
was a step too far, as this was a strike
not only in Cope's professional life, but also on any

(06:27):
hope he had a financial security, as the possibility of
selling his collectional fossils was the only real option he
had of doing so after having spent so much of
his own money accumulating said fossils. This then, was, in
COBE's buyd nothing short of an attempt to rob him
of a collection that had cost him seventy five thousand
dollars to accumulate, an amount that Cope, in his response

(06:48):
to Pall, insisted that the government would have to pay
him before claiming it. As for who was behind this vile,
underhanded attack, it could have been none other than O. C.
Marsh himself. Cope, you see, was convinced that Marsh was
attempting to steal his collection as he was quote engaged
in duplicating that work in a way that is disgraceful
to science, which I assume means that he believed that

(07:09):
Marsha was looking to take his fossils so that he
would then be free to write about them without having
to worry about Cope doing the same. This attack then
was seemingly, at long last, the final straw for Cope.
If Marsh was willing to wagh such unrestrained war against him,
then he was going to respond in kind ever the Pacifists,
though there was only one battlefield where Cope would take

(07:30):
this fight, as he would note that quote, when a
wrong is to be right, the press is the best,
most Christian method of doing it. It replaces the shotgun
and the bludgeon, and it is a great improvement. Cope
was going to at long last heir all of Marsha's
dirty laundry for the entire country to see by telling
his story to the press. Indeed, he had plenty of
ammunition for this fight, as he had been keeping a

(07:52):
full record of every error and misdeed that he believed
marsh to have committed, all of which he kept in
a file in the lower right hand drawer of a
studied table. Aiding Cope in this fight would be reporter
William Hosea Bellou, who, it has to be said, was
likely not the most honest journalist, as he would claim
to have attended Northwest University and the University of Pennsylvania,

(08:14):
in addition to receiving an honorary degree from the Chicago
Law School, despite none of these schools having any records
that supported these claims. Additionally, Blue would also claim to
have taken part in an Arctic rescue expedition in eighteen
eighty four, which will be surprised to learn that there
was no evidence of that either his participation not the
rescue expedition, which I'm sure did happen, as people were

(08:35):
constantly trying to reach the North Pole, only to get
their ships stuck in the ice, thus requiring rescue pack
sometimes the rescue operations needed their own rescue operations. Regardless,
it would be Blue who would write up Cope's story
about all of oc Marsh's various misdeeds over the years.
When he went to shop the story around, however, both
The New York Times any New York Sun would pass

(08:56):
on it. The New York Carol, though, would statue up
now this was quite the coup, as THEE. Harold was
one of the original penny papers which was aimed at
the working class. It predictably then grew at a rapid rate,
and by the eighteen sixties had boasted a readership of
nearly eight thousand and by January eighteen ninety, the point
in which are Feud finally appears in its pages. The

(09:18):
Harold had been the nation's leading newspaper for the past
several decades now. The Herald had been started by James
Gordon Bennett Senior back in eighteen thirty five, but it
was now under the leadership of his son, James Gordon
Bennett Junior, who was well known for his playable antics
staff like taking nude buggy rides or riding his bike
presumably well dressed around the block where his residence sat

(09:40):
on Fifth Avenue, which admittedly sounds fairly normal, assuming again
that he was dressed, until you get to the part
about how he had his servant waiting at the curbside
during these rides, bearing a silver tray upon which sat
not something practical like say what are but instead Brandy.
Bennett Junior also invented his own quote unquote sport that
he he called Bennetting, which basically involved galloping on horseback

(10:03):
into groups of young women from a nearby boarding school
when they were out in the bound. You then see
further evidence of Bennett Junior's character when he became the
editor for his father's newspaper, as basically his first act
was to remove his father's name from the masthead, which
was a particularly audacious move since he was just the
editor and his father very much still owned the paper. Indeed,

(10:24):
upon learning of his son's actions, Bennett Senior immediately had
his name reinstated. Still, despite this incident, Junior was able
to impress his father enough at in a year's time,
he was officially made the paper's publisher. That all being said,
for all his eccentricities, Bennett Junior did have a flare
for the newspaper game and was immensely dedicated to its success,

(10:45):
as he was known to work and run the clock
with such consistency that he typically only supped four hours
a night. Meanwhile, other papers reporters were said to have
respected The Herald so much that they wouldn't go to
bed until after they saw the Harald's early edition out
of fear of the paper scooping them on yet another story.
Under Junior's leadership, the paper also earned a reputation for

(11:06):
doing big stunts, like the time they sent Henry M.
Stanley in search of David Livingston in Africa. Such stunts
helped to sell massive amounts of papers, so much so
that other papers also started getting in on the act. Indeed,
it was possibly another big stunt organized by a rival
newspaper that spurred the Herald's decision to publish the story,
written by Belou with the aid of cope. As you see,

(11:29):
this part of our tale coincides with the event of
one of my earliest episodes. As such, I can't quite
speak to its quality, the tale of Nelly Blind, specifically
her attempt to travel around the globe in under eighty days,
a feat which he would accomplish in seventy two days.
The probo for Bennett Junior and his Herald, though, was
that Nelly was doing this stunt for their competitor, the World,

(11:49):
a rival that the Herald had tried to crush with
a price war that more or less backfired, as it had,
if anything, only served to increase the World's circulation until
it even managed to Supper asked that of the Herald itself.
Nelly's return after a globe tritting an adventure then, was sure
to be big news. But it was news that the
Herald wasn't about to cover, as it would only serve

(12:10):
to help their arrival, who actually had direct access to
Nelly and her story. Therefore, they needed something to fill
their front pages with that they could believably pretend was
a big enough story to justify ignoring Nelly Bla's return,
and this tale of a bitter rivalry over fossils seemed
to be just what the doctor ordered. As a result,
the headlines of the January twelfth, eighteen ninety edition of

(12:32):
The Near Carold would read quote scientist wage bitter warfare.
Professor Coppa the University of Pennsylvania bring serious charges against
Director Powell and Professor Marsh of the Geological Survey. A
fairly attention grabbing beginning. What the paper was far from
done as a continued quote corroboration in plenty learned men
come to the Pennsylvanian support with allegations of ignorance, plagiarism,

(12:54):
and incompetence against the accused officials. Indeed, the article would
cover decades of complaints in charges against Marsh that Cope
had assembled over the years. However, it was presented as
more than just a simple feud between these two scientists. Instead,
the paper would also declare quote the National Academy of Sciences,
of which Professor Marsh's president is charged with being packed

(13:15):
in the interest of the survey. In doing so, the
article was partially framed to catch the interest of the
public by putting the geological survey in the way John
Wesley Powell and Marsh ran it at the core of
the issue. Cope, through Bloo, would allege the Pale and
Marsha conspire together to turn the geological survey into a
quote gigantic political scientific monopoly run on machine political methods. Indeed,

(13:37):
Blue would declare in his article quote, the main question
is this is the United States Geological Survey conducted by
the best men in the best manner. If it is,
Professor Cope will retire to the background. If it is not,
Major Palell and Professor marsh must answer to the people
a question which explains the final attention grabbing headline of

(13:58):
quote will congress and instigate. The article, though, much like
the man who provided the evidence for these accusations, was
a bit scattershot, as instead of focusing on a single
issue and extensively laying out its case, it jumped from
topic to topic as it touched upon the various crimes
that had been allegedly committed by this corrupt regime, crimes
like plagiarism, misappropriation of government collections, and fossifying survey reports.

(14:23):
While also allegedly bribing politicians, scientists, and journalists to keep
them all quiet about their misdeeds. You see, according to Cope,
the mean reason why Powell had given Marsh's sixty thousand
dollars budget and four thousand dollars salary was simply because
he wanted the survey to have the prestige of being
connected to Yale, while also having some control over the

(14:43):
National Academy of Sciences through Marsh. To continue and join
these benefits, Powell then was willing to ignore Marsh's destroying
a specimen so no one else could have them, while
also hoarding fossils that belonged to the government in the
basement of the Peabody where no one but Marsh could
access them. Marsh had a habit of denying researcher's access
to specimens, even though they had been collected as a

(15:04):
part of his work for the government. Meanwhile, Cope was
also increasingly convinced that Marsh had been plagiarizing his many
brilliant assistants by passing along their work and ideas as
his own. Additionally, Cope also claimed that Marsh had taken
his ideas about the evolution of horses from a Russian paleontologist,
ideas which he had then famously shared with Thomas Henry
Huxley and gained much praise for her. Also among the

(15:27):
myriad of accusations at Cope was leveling against Marsh involved
a time when Cope had delivered an address to the
National Academy of Sciences concerning permian reptiles and address, and
Marsh happened to be in the audience for and was
apparently witness taking notes during However, seemingly as soon as
Cope was finished, Marsh disappeared and, according to these accusations,
went straight back to Yale, where he held up the

(15:50):
publication on the American Journal of Science until he could
finish an article about permian reptiles, the very subject upon
which he had just listened to Cope deliver a lecture on.
By doing this, Cope alleged that Marsh was attempting to
steal the ideas he had heard in Cope's lecture to
pass him off as his own by publishing them first,
which was just another in the long list of crimes

(16:10):
that Cope accused Marsha during the course of this article,
all of which below asserted that the public may never
have found out about had Martian as Allies not made
attempts to suppress Cope's work and seize his collection of fossils.
As you see, according to Cope, Powell's demands to hand
over his fossils was a part of a scheme to
quote place my collection in the National Museum, to gain

(16:31):
control of them, so that my work may be postponed
until it has been done by Professor Marsh. Cope Usie
for is aggrieved as he was at all of Marsha's misdeeds,
had been willing to let things lie until this final injustice,
and he couldn't take it anymore. Marsh then had brought
this on himself, which is all to say. There were
a lot of accusations being made in the pages of

(16:52):
this newspaper, accusations which were often documented through various letters
and other correspondence between Cope and other scientists who over
the years had attested to their own feelings about Marsh
and stuff like his laziness and his greedy approach to fossils.
As you see. As powerful and well respected as Marsh
was in some circles, he had also over the years
made quite a few enemies other than Cope due to

(17:14):
his imperious ways. For example, in eighteen seventy seven, two
nineteen year old Princeton University undergrads William Berrman Scott and
Henry Fairfield Osborne had decided they wanted to spend their
summer having an adventure hunting fossils in the West looking
for tips. The pair then reached out to the country's
premier palaeontologist O. C. Marsh to ask for his advice

(17:34):
on where they should go on their trip. Marsh, though
blatantly refused to even meet with the pair of eager students,
that being said, he did not ignore them, as he
would have them followed throughout their trip. Now, Scott and
Osborne would have some more luck when they approached Cope
before departing on their trip. That being said, Cope, who
even then had been dealing with Marsh for some time,

(17:55):
was not super forthcoming with ideas of places where he
thought the two young men could go to search for fossils.
For example, when the pair asked him if there were
fossils in the Bridger Basin, Cope replied, quote, well there
were before I got there, a reply that was not
exactly helpful. Still on, the two would still go to
the Bridger Basin, where they did indeed find some fossils.

(18:16):
It has to be said, though, as recalcitrinous Cope had
been before the pair departed on their trip, when Scott
and Osborne returned, more in love with paleontology than ever,
he could not help but realize that they hadn't been
sent by Marsh too spy on him and figure out
if he had made any new finds that they might
try and poach. With this realization, Cope was suddenly much
more supportive of the pair, and he even gave the

(18:37):
two young men a guided tour of his collection. The
now much more welcoming Cope seemed to form a bond
with Scott and Osborne, and soon the pair were making
regular trips to Philadelphia to meet with both Cope and Leedy.
Cope would even make the trip to Princeton to help
the pair with some of these specimens they had brought
back from their trip to the Bridger Basin. Meanwhile, in
stark contrast to Cope's fairly open and helpful be behavior

(19:00):
was that of Marsh, who was exceedingly cagy when the
pair approached him about possibly seeing his bridger basin finds
so that they might better understand and put into context
the bones that they had uncovered. As unlike Cope, who
had shown Scott and Osborne his entire collection marsh while
allowing the pair to see some of his bridger basin,
Fines also made sure to order the staff to cover

(19:22):
all his other materials when they visited. Indeed, the ever
suspicious Yell professor even haunted the Princeton students throughout their
time in the Peabody, as he donned a pair of
carpet slippers to keep his footfall silent while he followed
them around murky behind corners, watching them constantly. Unsurprisingly, such
behavior did not endear March to the pair, something that

(19:42):
would become increasingly important in the years to come as
both Scott and Osborne became professors of some note as
Scott took a job at Princeton while Osborne went to
work at Columbia University while also becoming the eventual head
of the American Museum of Natural History. The two then
as their own individual stars. Rose would remain loyal to Cope,
who had ultimately proven so welcoming and helpful and in

(20:04):
doing so, they also came to see his rival Marsh
as their enemy as well. So Cope as prickly as
he could be, and managed to in gender loyalty amongst
some of the next generational scientists, while at the same
time Marsh seemed to create new enemies from among his
own former assistants. For example, Samuel Wilson, who had earned
both an MD from Meale's medical school and a page

(20:25):
Jane zoology and worked for Marsh for some time. He, however,
did not feel the same way about Marsh's Scott and
Osborne felt about Cope. Indeed, Willison would write to his
wife at one point, quote my employer is a man
I cannot respect. Part of Willison's issues had to do
with quote money matters in the way he was trying
to prevent me from acquiring any sort of independent reputation.

(20:47):
Marshusey did not allow his assistants to conduct their own
independent research. Everything they did was to be in service
of him and his goals. Samuel Willison then would finally
break with Marsh once he neared the end of his
studies at Yale, at which point he practiced medicine for
several years before lending a professorship in geology at the
University of Kansas, and eventually becoming a professor of paleontology

(21:08):
at the University of Chicago. That being said, as much
as Willison resented Marsh for the way he had personally
been treated, it seemed that the greatest source of his
outrage toward the Yale professor had to do with his
treatment of Oscar Harker. Oscar Ucy had not only grown
up poor, but was also hobbled and suffered from a
hard condition. Despite all of this, the young man had
still managed to graduate with honors from Meal. However, Oscar's poverty,

(21:31):
physical issues in general poor health seemingly limited his options,
which likely explained why he chose to work for Marsh
for so long, despite the Yale professor refusing to allow
the brilliant young man to even co author, much less
publish his own papers in paleontology. This despite Marsh apparently
greatly valuing Oscar's opinion as a critic and editor of
his manuscripts. It seemed then like Marsh was simply using

(21:54):
Oscar all the while ensuring that his brilliance wouldn't be
allowed to shine on its own. A situation which to
upset not just Williston but also others who were on
Marsha's staff. They all knew how brilliant Oscar was and
hated the way he was apparently being used. Indeed, when
Oscar died of a cerebral hemorrhage in eighteen eighty seven
at age forty four, Samuel Wilson would make a point

(22:15):
of writing the obituary for the man who had worked
for fifteen years in obscurity under Marsh, in which Williston
wrote that quote, to my personal knowledge, nearly or quite
all the descriptive portions of Professor Marsh's work on donnas
Urrana was written by him and was published without change. Now,
to be clear, the paper on donnas Urrana was seen
as one of Marsh's most important works. As such, Williston

(22:36):
was alleging that significant chunks of one of the Yale
professor's most well known works had been written by Oscar
Harger without credit. Now, back in January of eighteen ninety,
word had gotten out beforehand that Blue Sage Cove story
about Marsh was coming. Marsh then had naturally attempted to
prevent the publishing of what would surely be an unflattering article,

(22:56):
doing so by going to William Pepper, the president of
the University Pennsylvania where Cope was currently employed, to demand
that Cope withdrawals quote unquote libelous article, insisting, as he did,
that if Cope refused, he needed to be fired. These
weren't just idle words either, as Marsian leverage against Pepper,
as he threatened to expose a blackmail scandal that Pepper
had been involved in if he failed to do something

(23:19):
about Cobe sufficiently intimidated. Pepper then very much seemed bent
on obeying Marsh's dictates. Now, whether this was simply because
of the threats Martian made or because Pepper actually believed
Marsh's claims that Cope was lying, I can't say. However,
Cope for once wasn't alone in this fight. Indeed, his
influential friend Harry Osborne made the trip to the University

(23:40):
of Pennsylvania to vouch for Cope and his accusations against Marsh,
also backing up Cope with the New York Herald, which
would warn the university president that there would be consequences
should he attempt to interfere with Cope's freedom of speech.
Imagine that a press with a spine unable to prevent
the publishing of the story. Marsh then looked to undermine impact,

(24:00):
most notably its most damaging, slash troubling aspect, which was
the suggestion that a number of other scientists from around
the country were prepared to back up Cope's various accusations
with evidence of their own. Indeed, the article would even
name names of a number of prominent scientists with prominent
positions both in the government and at universities, who were
ready to add their voices to the course against Marsh.

(24:22):
That being said, it's unclear if any of these men
had actually signed off on having their names included, and
indeed some were humiliated and having their names in any
way connected to this petty personal feud that was somehow
still going on after all these years. Keep in mind,
this whole thing ostensibly started back in eighteen sixty nine,
when Cope had pulled the skull at the wrong end
of the Epplesiosaur fossil he was working on, and Marsh

(24:44):
had posting new Jersey fossil fields from him, which means
it had been going on for some twenty one years
at this point, and had also been seventeen years since
his whole business had first boiled over and appeared in
printing the pages of The American Naturalist. You would think
then that they would have gone over all of this
by now, and yet here they were not only still
carrying on, but attempting to pull others down into the

(25:06):
mud with them. Marsha's initial response to the publishing of
these accusations then was to reach out in contact all
the scientists who had been named in the original story.
This would lead to the publishing of an article in
the subsequent days with the headline quote they all deny. However,
this headline was just as misleading as those of today.
As you see, while all the contacted scientists would respond

(25:28):
that they had not in fact given the Herald permission
to use their names, they also never actually said that
the accusations contained within the article were falls, which you know,
is a huge difference. That, however, would be the extent
of Marsha's response for now. It would then be several
more days before he responded in full to Cope's accusations.
For the time being, though this story was far from over.

(25:49):
As the day after the initial Herald article, both the
New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer would publish short
articles summarizing the feud. Meanwhile, The Herald would publish the
next chapter in is Feud under the headline quote Finally,
for Valley in the Great Scientific War, Professor Cope returns
to the attack, ripping up Major Palell's answers to the
first charges and heaping more on top of them. As

(26:10):
you see, Unlike Marsh, John Wesley Powell was not waiting
to respond to the accusations made against him and the survey.
Part of his defense involved accusing Cope and his allies
like Osborne as simply being bitter individuals who were upset
at not being chosen to lead the geological survey. As
for Cope in particular, Powell would assert that he was
a decent scientist who could do good work. Buddy needed

(26:33):
to quote realize that the enemy which he sees forever
haunting him as a ghost is himself, which probably wasn't
entirely unfair, but also ignored the active acts of sabotage
that Marsh had participated in over the years. That being said,
much of Pale's detailed defense of himself and his survey
was very deep within the article, where it was less
likely to be seen. Meanwhile, even though marsh was not

(26:55):
yet ready to walk onto this particular battlefield, he did
have a few friends or at lease people who did
not like Cope to speak out for him, like, for example,
a geology professor from Harvard, who would state that quote,
you ken from me and the Havid men interested in
geological matters, that little weight should be attached to Professor
Cope's statements as they grow out of disappointment and envy,
a statement which in many ways echoed Pals by suggesting

(27:18):
that there is nothing to these accusations other than a
man bitter over March's comparative success. As for the rest
of the article, in addition to a fresh barrage of
new scattered accusations from Cope, it would also notably contain
testimony from scientists like William Berryman Scott, who thought it
quote unbecoming in men of science to watch their dirty
linen in public. Scott, who liked Cope and saw in

(27:38):
him a mentor of sorts, would further elaborate on his
feelings about the situation years later in his memoirs, as
he would write a quote, though I thoroughly disapproved of
marsh and would have rejoiced to see him remove from
any connections with the US Geological Survey. I did not
at all like the sensational method of a newspaper attack.
This honestly feels like the prevailing feeling among more than

(27:59):
a few sciences, as regardless on whose side they were
on or if they didn't like either, they were just
generally embarrassed by this kind of behavior by others and
their profession. Among those expressing such feelings was none other
than Joseph Leedy, who, when questioned on this matter by
the Philadelphia Inquirer, would respond, quote, it is very unfortunate
that this thing should have gotten to the newspapers and

(28:21):
will simply cosset trifon vexation among the scientific men of
the country. Leedy, though, would put the majority of the
blame for the situation on Cope's quote consuming restlessness, a
trait which he believed tendant to gain his colleague into
quote on order with his associates. Again not a totally
unfair read of Cope. In the end, though he seemed
to think this much ado about nothing, as he would

(28:43):
praise both Martian Cope's work while asserting that he did
not believe there to be anything behind the charges of plagiarism.
For his part, despite these admonitions from his colleagues, Cope
was not ashamed about how all this was playing out,
as in his mind quote, it has to be done
or American science will sink into it, Colonel Disgrace. Meanwhile,
his partner in this effort, Blow would describe Cope's crusade

(29:04):
as being heroic, writing that quote, although his adversaries are rich, powerful,
and have influential friends in almost every department of the government,
the plucky Pennsylvania professor springs on gallantly to the fray,
as ever a knight of old. That being said, after
three days of making headlines in the New York Herald,
the story kind of lost team, then a battle. Week

(29:24):
after the initial publishing of the story, the ever slow
paced March finally had his response assembled and ready to go.
The headline for this latest chapter would then read, quote,
Yale's professor picks up the gauntlet of the Pennsylvania paleontologist
and does well battle in defense of his scientific reputation.
As began, Marsh would echo the same attack that Pallin's
other allies had made, by which I mean he attempted

(29:47):
to discredit everything that Cope had said, simply by insisting
that the Pennsylvania paleontologist was jealous. Indeed, he insisted that
Cope had spent his best years going after Marsh, But he,
the ever noble Yale professor, had ignored his appings and silence,
as due to the high positions he held, it would
be uncouth of him to lower himself to respond to
Cope's barbs. In this version of the story, then, Martian

(30:09):
never done anything to propel this feud forward. He was
wholly innocent. It was simply the half crazed and jealous
Cope who was at fault. To the end, Marsha recounted
the first time that he and Copen met, when they
had both been studying in Germany, and encountered that at
the time had apparently been friendly. Now though Marsh would
use these moments of friendship against his rival, as he wrote, quote,

(30:31):
Professor Cope called upon me, and, with great frankness, confided
to me some of the many troubles that even then
beset him. My sympathy was aroused, and although I had
some doubts of his sanity. I gave him good advice
and was willing to be his friend, which again may
be partially true, because, as I noted back in episode one,
Cope definitely did seem heavy bit of a breakdown during

(30:52):
his time in Europe. However, the whole willing to be
his friend thing seems questionable just given everything we know. Regardless,
Mark wasn't done there, as he would add that quote.
During the next five years, I saw him often and
retained friendly relations with him, although at times his eccentricities
of conduct to use no stronger term, were hard to bear. Then,

(31:13):
moving on from their supposed friendship, Marsh further dug up
the old story of Coe putting the head at the
wrong end of the pleases or specimen as a kind
of personal shot against his accuser. Speaking of the accusations
against him, Marsh defended himself in part by asserting that
the National Academy of Sciences, which he was president of,
represented a collection of the country's most prominent and well

(31:34):
educated men. Therefore, he asserted it would be impossible for
him to manipulate such a group. By extension, then he
could not be guilty of all he had been accused of.
If the men who were part of such a group
chose to elect him to his position. It should be noted, though,
that all the men he named when illustrating the brilliant
minds of the Academy were all his close allies. As
for the accusation that Marsh was taking advantage of his

(31:56):
position as he head of paleontology for the Geological Survey,
Mark should insist that all these specimens that were being
held at Yale had been painstakingly stored in such a
way that those owned by Yale and those who belonged
to the government were kept strictly separate. And when it
came to the claims that he was plagiarizing his own assistance, well,
according to Marsh, that was the furthest thing from the truth,

(32:17):
as all they did was primarily quote unquote clerical and
mechanical work. Indeed, according to Marsh, the only reason why
some of his manuscripts appeared to be in their handwriting
was not due to his assistance actually writing them, but
because he had taken his dictation. Furthermore, when it came
to Coope's accusation about Marsh attending his lecture and Permium
Reptiles only to quickly dash out an article on that

(32:38):
very subject in an apparent attempt to steal credit for
Cope's ideas. While Marsh would respond by admitting that yes,
he had indeed attended copees lecture. However, he asserted then
he too had a mastic collection of permium fossils upon
which he had based the article that he insisted he
had already finished and ready for publishing before attending Cope's lecture,

(32:59):
asserting that quote, I learned nothing from Professor Coppoor's paper
except that a field which I supposed to be my
own had been invaded in a manner not especially credible
to him, a statement which again illustrates as a parent
attitude that once he began researching an area or time period,
he considered it to be his own private domain that
no one else was to trespass in. Regardless, he insists

(33:21):
in that following Cope's lecture, his paper was published with
quote no changes of any importance. The thing was his author.
David rains Wallace points out Marsh's paper was quite unusual
by his own standards, As you see, instead of the
highly detailed writing that he was known for, the paper
only consisted of a few paragraphs and a handful of
fossil measurements. Additionally, the paper, notably, in contrast to most

(33:43):
of Marsha's other works, was not illustrated in any way.
This paper, then, was a bare bones type of publication
that he typically did not produce, and which seemed to
fly on the face of his claim that he had
been working on this project for some time. It's been
speculated then that law marsh had collected a number of
permes fossils, he likely had never actually really examined them
until upon hearing Cope's lecture. He responded by rushing back

(34:06):
to the Peabody, where he promptly retrieved a number of
Permian fossils, which he proceeded to make some hasty observations of,
just to leap ahead of Cobe. Regardless, Marshton just focus
on defending himself either, as he also made sure to
accuse Kob of stealing his fossils. It also wasn't just
his fossils at Cope had stolen either, as a Yale
professor further claimed that the Pennsylvania paleon Tagis had stolen

(34:29):
specimens from not only the Peabody, but also from the
Columbia University collection, the Philadelphia Academy of Science, as well
as from museums in England, Germany and France, asserting that quote,
I have the facts of the authorities from each and
every one of these museums facts and Marsh strangely did
not present in this forum or ever to my knowledge. Meanwhile,

(34:49):
it also has to be noted that at no point
in his elaborate defense did Marsh ever respond to the
accusations that he had misused funds, underpaid and or mistreated
his assistance, or contributed to the instruction of fossils. Regardless,
at the end of the day, outside of The Herald
initially publishing Cope's attack, it seemed that for the most part,
the press sided with Marsh, claiming as they did that

(35:10):
there was little to support the Pennsylvania paleontologists claims. This
was in part a consequence of the fact that the
people he had referenced had not actually given their permission
to have their statements put on the record, and because
it did not like the idea of having such dirty
laundry aired so openly. As such, Cope really got no
public support for his accusations. Plus, it also didn't help matters.

(35:31):
That Cope had no connections to powerful institutions like Gale
As like has been made clear today, the media attends
to simply listen to those with wealth and power. Meanwhile,
Cope's attack, much like the man himself and his approach
to science, had simply been too wild and unFocus to
be fully effective. Cope's attack then had been scattershot, while
in contrast, Marsha's response had been organized and calculated, almost

(35:54):
as if he had been preparing for some time for
just such an attack. Which is all to say that
in the end, COBE's allies felt and Marsh had won
this back and forth. The few then would remain in
the papers for a few more days after this, but
that was it. It had erupted into the public's consciousness
and remained there for about nine days before they ultimately
lost interest. The American naturalists would though feature the next

(36:17):
chapter in this tale, as George Bauer of Clark University
in orin Barbara of Iowa would each have their own
tales to tale of their time serving as Marsh's assistants.
According to Barbara, Marsh was a quote scheming demagogue who
had made the Peabody museum a place of quote, deceit,
and falsehood, as he asserted that quote only does he
avoid helping his assistants through better positions in geological fields,

(36:39):
but he often hinders them by trampling on their good names.
When gone, we assistants watched the evolution of a falsehood
from his lips from the day when he said that
man has resigned to the month when he said I
had to let him go. He was a bad lot,
until later he dismissed him because he was unreliable and
light figured. According to Barber, then the the Peabody was

(37:00):
a place where marshaan only marsh was to be successful.
Barber would also focus on Marsha's tendency to have his
assistants dress up as fossils so as to hide their imperfections.
For example, if a fossil was missing a piece, they
were to replace it. However, the remit in the Peabody
wasn't to make this reconstruction as accurate as possible, but
to make sure its colouration and texture matched, just to

(37:22):
hide the fact that the fossil had ever been damaged
or was missing something. As a result, according to Barbar,
a quote certain unfaithfulness runs through all his doings. George
Bauer meanwhile, would over six pages they had a very
deliberate and detailed attack on Marsh. For example, he would
point out that while Marsh did indeed keep the Yale
and Government collection separate, Marsh still had the ability to

(37:43):
decide which specimens became a part of which collection. As such,
all the best specimens were reserved for Marsh and the
Peabody regardless of where they had originally been meant to go,
which is to say that yes, the collections were separate,
but invariably, regardless of whether a specimen was collected under
the awe auspices of the government's funding, if Marsh wanted it,
the fossil in question became a part of his collection

(38:06):
and not the Smithsonians. Additionally, Bauer had also seen firsthand
Marsh denying scientists access to the Garment collection by telling
them that these specific fossils they were looking for were
currently boxed and inaccessible, when the reality was the fossil
in question were actually in that very same room, hidden
under a cloth. Furthermore, when it came to Marsh's defense

(38:26):
that his papers were in his assistant's handwriting because he
had dictated them. Bauer would agree that, yes, Marsh did
dictate his papers. However, all of his information for these
papers came from a series of questions he had his
assistant's answer when given a set of fossils to work on,
meaning that while Marsh was indeed dictating the words, he
was doing so using his assistants work. Additionally, Bauer also

(38:48):
recounted a time when he had informed Marsh of a
discovery that he had made about the evolution of ostrich
skeletons that had shown quote noonlight on the relationship between
birds and dinosaurs, a discovery that then appeared in one
of Marsha's papers without any credit being given to Bauer.
This situation had led to a back and forth between
the two men, with Marsh finally agreeing to credit Bauer. However,

(39:11):
in doing so, the credit only appeared in a caption
for an illustration, a place that, according to Bauer, made
it so it would be easier to overlook. So basically,
Marsh did give him credit, just not in the way
anyone normally would, instead choosing to do it in a
way to allow most readers to assume that the ideas
were Marsh's and Marsh's alone. Regardless, though, it was with

(39:31):
these final articles that the public back and forth essentially
ended Cope, even to some extent, seemed to have gotten
it out of his system. It was like all these
issues had been boiling up inside of him for years,
but now that he had given then to everything he
had against Marsh, he was kind of done. He had
set his piece and was now kind of at peace. Still, though,
it seemed like nothing would be done to actually investigate

(39:53):
the charges against Marsh, as even with all this being
published in the pages of one of, if not the
most popular paper in the country, no one really cared
enough to demands something to be done. It was all
to be on the realm of everyday life for people
to really care, as it really just did not affect
them in any meaningful way. There was, however, one person
who took note of all this and who would love

(40:16):
to use it to further their own plans. This, of course,
was none other than Alabama Congressman Hillary Herbert, who had
been trying to slash the government scientific budget for years.
He had tried and failed in the past, but it
seemed like these articles might finally give him the ammunition
that he needed for years, sellers have been sold on

(41:01):
the idea by various developers and land speculators. Then as
they moved west, plowed up the earth and started pharmsy
weather would respond to their activities, rains would become more frequent,
and the arid Western territories would transform into fertile farmland. Now, obviously,
whether systems are not going to change just because people
are plowing up the earth, that's just not how things work.

(41:23):
But it was an idea that the aforementioned developers and
speculators pushed just to sell land. Indeed, if anything, the
exact opposite of what they had predicted would happen, as
instead of more rain, a drought actually descended upon the
Western territories in eighteen eighty six that would last for
four years, which benistead of fertile well irrigated farmland. Settlers

(41:43):
now had to deal with dried up wells now. The situation,
despite the claims of the land speculators, wasn't totally unexpected. Indeed,
John W. Wesley Powell on the US Geological Survey had
warned that the West could not be settled any same
ways the East had been. It would be foolhardy to
just led people loose to settle the land and expect
them to be successful. Things actually had to be planned

(42:05):
out and organized. Most notably, if you planned on having
farms and the like, a system of irrigating the land
needed to be planned down and implemented first. Indeed, there
was a political movement at this time to create just
such a system through the construction of dams and reservoirs.
The responsibility of figuring out the best way to set
up this system was then given to Powell on the
US Geological Survey. Now, the politicians who had suggested this

(42:28):
survey expected that Powell would have as people do a
quick examination of the rivers in the West and from
this provide them with suggestions on where to build dams. Powell, however,
one of the do not only comprehensive topographical and hydrological surveys,
but also engineering studies for the proposed public works. Basically,
Powell wanted to organize and manage the western territories to

(42:48):
make them better suited for white settlement, and he wanted himself,
in the US Geological Survey to be in charge of
this grand sweeping task, a project what you believe would
take some six to seven years and some six to
seven million dollars to complete. In the meantime, then, he
wanted to halt the sale of eight hundred and fifty
acres of western lands by the government until the irrigation
plan could be worked out, something which outraged the land

(43:10):
speculators and other moneyed interests who loved to profit off
the sale of these lands. So looking to sell these
lands regardless of how ill suited they currently were for settlement.
These interests to bring down Powell and his geological survey.
To do this a little too, capitalized on the attacks
against Powell and the survey that Cope had made in
the New York Herald complaints which notably had nothing at

(43:31):
all to do with these surveys work on the irrigation project,
but it was still a potential scandal that they looked
to take advantage of regardless. Now, Powell was likely not
expecting this kind of pushback because to him, it was
obviously better to simply hold onto these lands for now
so he could complete his work, as that way, the
lands in question could be properly irrigated, so as to

(43:52):
avoid risking a situation where settlers would have failed homesteads
due to air conditions, and you wouldn't have to try
and take someone's land from them if it needed to
be sacrificed for the larger project. The moneyed interest in
their pet. Politicians, however, did not care about the potential
suffering of sailor's being sold land that was not fit
for habitation. All they cared about was their money, and

(44:13):
so in the land sales were once again opened up.
At the same time, these same politicians also saw to
it that the appropriations of pall had requested to conduct
a survey were cut from seven hundred and twenty thousand
dollars to a ponty one hundred and sixty two thousand.
Yet still, despite this pushback, the US Geological Survey as
a whole remained one of the best funded scientific entities

(44:34):
within the US government, a fact which may have been
comforting for Powell, but which continued to outrage Alabama Congressman
Hillary Herbert, who hated the idea of the government funding
science at all. So, with new allies in his campaign
against the Geological Survey and new evidence of corruption, this
time unintentionally provided by cop'st New York Carold Oarracles, Herbert
once again looked to take down Powell and the US

(44:56):
Geological Survey. This latest campaign began in May eight ten,
ninety two, when the Alabama Congressman brought a copy of
Marsh's book dealing with the Discovery of the Fossilized Bird
with Teeth into the House of Representatives as proof of
how useless and wasteful government funded science was. Now to
be clear, this was a book that none other than
Charles Darwin himself had once called the quote best support

(45:18):
for the theory of evolution which has appeared in the
last twenty years, Which is to say, this was, regardless
of what else you may say about Marsh, an invaluable
scientific tome. For the Alabama Congressman, however, it was outrageous
that the government had spent the money to publish a
lengthy volume on the topic of birds with teeth, a
topic in which he saw absolutely no value in whatsoever.

(45:39):
Where still, though, was the fact that this book was
replete with illustrations and bounded leather, things that would have
made it especially expensive to produce. The thing was, this
particular copy of Birds with Teeth was not at all
representative of what the government was publishing. This was a
private author's edition of the book that Marsha actually personally
paid to have published with illustrations and being bound. Therefore,

(46:01):
the average copy of this tone was nowhere near as
expensive to produce. Such facts, however, were inconvenient to Herbert
and his allies, and thus were ignored as birds with
teeth became a sort of rallying cry for the enemies
of the geological survey in Congress. Now, Herbert's main goal
in this campaign was to slash the country scientific budget,
because he found it outrageous that quote, we all expending

(46:24):
today on signs twenty times more than any government in
the world. Paleontology in particular was a problem for the
Alabama congressman because, in his mind, quote one practical use
has a government for paleontology. Additionally, he also viewed paleontologists
as particularly troublesome due to the way there were so
single minded in their obsession, As he would declare that quote,

(46:46):
when the moaning of the Resurrection shall come, some palionogists
will be searching for some previously undiscovered species of extinctive beings.
Such individuals, he felt, should not be indulged by giving
them government funding, especially since he could not conceive how
paleontology could benefit Pale's proposed irrigation survey of the West.
Herbert would then propose an amendment in the House that

(47:07):
cut the US Geological Surveys budget by thirty seven thousand dollars,
an amount that would effectively wipe out its paleontology division.
The proposal then passed by a vote of ninety to sixty,
a move that marsh obviously found ridiculous and outrageous. His opinion, however,
wasn't one of total self interest, as he, unlike the
Alabama congressman, actually understood the value of science and of

(47:29):
paleontology in particular, as he would state that quote, there
is more money wasted every year in the United States
searching for colon places where a paleontologist would know at
a glance nune could be found, than would pay for
all the works ever published on paleontology. Now, not all
was lost just yet, as Herbert's proposal still had to
be passed by the Senate, and which point Henry Fairfield

(47:51):
Osborne was called upon to be consulted upon the topic
of the US Geological Survey's paleontology department. Osborne, you may recall,
was one of the pair of Princeton students who, when
they had first attempted to go fossil haunting, Marsia obstructed,
but compan ultimately assisted. Since that time, Osborne had become
the chairman of Columbia University's Biology department and the head

(48:11):
of a mammalian paleontology at New York's American Museum of
Natural History. Which is to say that Osborne, while he
was in many ways Cope's protege, he was unlike his mentor,
quite well connected. Indeed, as Cope cease being able to
compete for fossils in the West due to his financial situation,
it was Osborne who had become Marsha's primary challenger and
a force to prevented the Yale professor from monopolizing all

(48:34):
the West's fossils. As such, win question about the value
of paleontology in the US Geological Survey, Osborne's answer was multifaceted.
For example, Osborne would state that the understanding of invertebrate
paleontology was crucial in helping to date geological strata. Indeed,
he believed such understanding to be the quote basis of
all geological work, as for vertebrate paleontology. Osborne would as

(48:58):
started that even though it was not quite a crucial
it was still important and valuable. That being said when
it came to the Geological Survey's paleontology department. In particular,
while according to Osborne, quote the systematic work is inaccurate
and if published by the government, will subsequently require complete revision,
he also took issue with the way the paleontology section

(49:19):
was run as if it were a quote, private bureau
and the collections were private property instead of a public
bureau with public responsibilities. Osborne in particular criticized the fact
that the government's collections of fossils were, rather than being
sent directly to the National Museum where instead being stored
in the private rooms of a college museum, where it
was difficult for scientists to gain access to them, statements

(49:40):
which were a direct shot at Marsh and the little
fiefdom he had created. Which is all to say that
Osborne was arguing that paleontology itself was important and immensely valuable,
but what Marsh had set up was a detriment to
the Geological Survey and to paleontology as a whole. Now
all this was starting to become a headache for Powell.
In particular, he was getting tired of the question of

(50:01):
why the government's fossil collection was being held at Yale,
a question that notably Cope had first brought up, and
to which Pallett responded by attempting to go after Cope's collection,
a move that was basically a toothless threat aimed at
silencing the troublesome palaeontologists, as cop had never actually taken
money from powell survey. This move, however, had not silenced
Cope like he had hoped, but instead only resulted in

(50:24):
even more of a spotlight being shown on the issue
thanks to resulting Harold articles and now here it was
once again becoming an issue thanks to Osborne's statements. It
was bad enough he had to deal with all these
other attacks and criticisms of his survey, but having to
deal with the same issue that was basically all Marsha's
creation over and over again was getting tiring. It also

(50:45):
wasn't just these outside criticisms that weren't issue either, as
behind the scenes there had been mounting issues with this
arrangement that had been so far kept quiet. For example,
in eighteen ninety, the Smithsonian would make multiple requests to
have tri serratop bones transfer to them. However, not only
would they not receive these specimens they had requested, but
they would not even get any real answer from those

(51:07):
working in the Peabody explaining what exactly was going on there. Now,
none of this was public knowledge, but the Senate was
to vote to slash the US Geological Survey's budget, causing
them to lose to paleontology post in fourteen other positions
as a result. This was a significant blow to these
Survey government funded science as a whole, and Palell's ambitions
in particular, speaking of with the Paleontology Division, Marsha's Birds

(51:31):
with Teeth publication, and just Martian General being used as
a convenient weapon against him in the Geological Survey by
their political enemies, pale finally had enough and demanded Marsha's
resignation from his position as he headed the Service Department
of Paleontology. O. C. Marshan one point, it seemingly had

(52:09):
it all in terms of wealth and political connections with
the slashing of the US Geological Survey's budget and his
force resignation, though his political connections had failed him, and
now he was on the outside looking in. Meanwhile, things
also weren't looking so great for the Peabuddy Foundation, which
meant that Marsh's financial situation was not what it once
was either, a situation that would not be helped out

(52:32):
by the fact that the federal government, in addition to
slashing its science budget, was also engaging in a terror
for with Germany and France, a clash that only seemed
to fuel inflation and wreck the economy. Indeeded one result
in an economic crash by the end of eighteen ninety three,
with the Peabuddy Foundation taking a major hit. As a
result of this, Marsh, for the first time in his

(52:52):
twenty four years at Yale, had to actually ask for
a salary to support himself and the fairly lavish lifestyle
he had gotten used to. In fact, he even had
to mortgage his mansion to the university so he could
afford to pay for its upkeep. Things even got to
the point that Marsh could no longer afford the cost
of shipping large amounts of bones from the West to Connecticut.
His bone collectors and were instructed to simply study how

(53:14):
the bones were distributed in the fossil beds rather than
collecting them. Additionally, the economic crash also forced marsh to
let go of some of his best collectors. This included
John Bell Hatcher, who would soon be hired to service
Princeton's curator of vertebrate Paleontology. Which is all to say
that Marsha's days of collecting fossils were effectively done. Cote, meanwhile,

(53:36):
had seemly recovered from his own financial setbacks. Indeed, with
Leady's passing, he was seen almost as his successor assorts
as he was given Leady's position as he chaired zoology
at the University of Pennsylvania. He'd even get the opportunity
to head back out into the field again thanks to
a grant for the Texas Geological Survey, a grant which
should have limited Cope's excursions to just Texas, but, like

(53:57):
always the Philadelphia palion Tad just sloped to stretch his mandate.
So after doing some work in Texas, Cope headed up
to the Dakotas to do some additional digging there, something
which I should note was a bit of a dangerous proposition,
given that he happened to being going there just a
little over a year and a half after the massacre
at Wood and Knee, which meant the Lakota in the

(54:18):
region were still understandably on edge. However, when he heard
a battle Lakota boy finding some big bones, Cobe simply
could not stay away. Now, Lakota legend explained the presence
of such bones by saying they were the remnants of
ancient monsters, which actually is fairly accurate. It's just in
their tails. These monsters lived underground. Now, these were terrifying creatures,

(54:40):
but there was no real need to fear them, because
whenever they came close to the surface, the Creator would
strike them down with lightning that destroyed their flesh, leaving
only their bones behind. There was even some talk that
should one touch the bones, they too would suffer the
same fate, a legend that was particularly ominous considering that
when Cope was first led by the young Lakota boyd

(55:01):
to the spot where it spoted the large bones, no
sooner had they arrived than thunderstorms started rolling in. The storm, however,
never reached Cope's camp, and so the Philadelphia paleontologist was
free to investigate the area without fear of divine wrath.
Cobe then would make several discoveries here, including the head
and skeleton of a duckbilled dinosaur that would eventually end

(55:22):
up in the American Museum of Natural History. Cope would
also continue to be a prolific writer, as he would
manage to produce an average of forty three publications annually
throughout the eighteen nineties. In doing so, he not only
wrote about dinosaurs and other fossilized creatures, but he would
also return to some of his earliest fascinations like living fish, steaks,
and various reptiles. In fact, Cope would publish the most

(55:44):
detailed analysis of North American amphibians that had ever been done, which,
once completed, he next set to work on a similar project,
focusing this time on the continents crocodiles, lizards, and steaks,
that would prove to be his last major scientific work. Meanwhile,
in eighteen ninety five five, Cope, who had been asking
for fifty thousand dollars for his collection of mammal fossils,
would agree to sell them to the American Museum of

(56:06):
Natural History for thirty two thousand, with the institution agreed
to make this purchase in part because Cope's protege, Henry
Fairfield Osborne, was now their curator of Paleontology, a move
that gave Copes a much need of financial stability after
years of uncertainty. Initially, that same year, Cope would also
be elected as a President of the American Association for

(56:26):
the Advancement of Science, doing so in no small part
thanks to the efforts of Henry Fairfield Osborne and Henry
Berryman Scott, the two Princeton students that Cope had taken
under his wing all those years ago, and who now
wanted their mentor to get this well deserved recognition. Things,
it seemed, had finally turned around for Cope two years later, though,
In eighteen ninety seven, Cope, who had never been known

(56:48):
for his great health, began suffering from a severe gastro
intestinal ailment of some sort. Now the Philadelphia paleontologists initially
tried simply arresting, as his ailment seemed to get worse
whenever he he tried to pursue his normal activities like
giving lectures at the university, and indeed his condition would
seem to improve when he rested, but still the issue
continued to linger. Now there was talk that surgery might

(57:11):
help his ailment, but Cope put it off, hoping to
avoid surgery altogether, seeing as how it was still a
very risky proposition in those days. Osborne, in particular, though,
would urge his mentor that get the surgery, even going
so far as to arrange an appointment with a prominent
New York surgeon, yet still co put it off. The
Philadelphia Paleontogis was at this point fifty six years old

(57:34):
and just tired. Things then took a turn for the
worst when he suffered yet another serious attack of this ailment,
at which point it became clear there was little chance
of getting him to New York to be treated. Osborne
then went to see his mentor on the fifth of April,
likely intended to make his good byes and to thank him. Cope, however,
wasn't interested in such talk, as instead, all he wanted

(57:56):
to focus on was Osborne's thoughts on the origins of mammals. Now,
Osmond was not alone in visiting Cope during those funnal days,
as a number of friends and relatives would, as words
spread of his condition, make the journey to his bedside.
Edward Drinker Cope with din on the twelfth of April
eighteen ninety seven, just week shy of his fifty seventh birthday. Now,

(58:17):
some over the years have suggested that the Philadelphia Paleontologis
death was a result of complications from syphilis that he
had contracted years earlier, a theory that plays with accusations
that Cope was thirty and potentially unfaithful during his various
trips There. However, is nothing to really support this, as
while yes, there are suggestions in his and Auth's writings

(58:38):
that he might have been thirty, there is no actual
evidence that he had syphilis. Basically, this theory tries to
tie together various illnesses at Cope had experience over the
years as being the result of syphilis, which seems a
stretch given that Cope ever since he was a child
had been fairly sickly. Indeed, one of the main reasons
why his father had started sending him to work on

(58:59):
a farm during the life summer was he hoped it
would improve his boy's constitution, regardless of the cause. There
would be two funerals for Edward Drinker Cope, one for
his scientific friends and one for just as family and
as Quaker friends, both of which were reportedly well attended affairs. Notably,
Osborne would attend both services in gatting the level of

(59:19):
affection he felt for his old mentor. He also wasn't
alone in these feelings, as Charles Sternberg, the fossil hunter
who Cope had given an opportunity to pursue his dreams
and had taken into his home on multiple occasions, would
write when learning of Cope's death, quote, I had lost
friends before, and had known what it was to bury
my own dead, even my firstborn son. But I never

(59:41):
sorrowed more deeply. It's clear then that Cope, for all
his prickly nature, had left quite the personal impression on
these men and others. As for his professional accomplishments. I
Phil Sternberg also made a fitting statement as he said
that quote, one thing is certain. As long as science
last and men love to study the animals of the
present in the past, Cope's damon work will be remembered

(01:00:03):
and revered. That being said, Cope was far from a
perfect individual. As you see, he had many of the
weird prejudices that you might expect of a white Protestant
man of his hera to have. For example, when he
encountered some Mexican individuals during his visits to the Southwest,
he would describe them as beautiful but lacking in intelligence.
He had also, when being passed over for a job,

(01:00:24):
complained that Jews had been hired in instead. This, you see,
was an in justice because Cope was of the belief
that white, specifically white Anglo Saxon Protestants like himself, were
superior to all He would even write on this subject,
attempting to use evolutionary language to support these claims by
suggesting that certain features common in other groups were indicative

(01:00:45):
of being more primitive and less evolved than white men
like himself. Cope then would warn against the quote unquote
mixing of races for this reason. Additionally, Cope was also
against women's suffrage, even going so far as to write
an article in Popular Signs Monthly that women cannot properly
take part in the political world because of their reproductive functions,

(01:01:05):
adding that women were also limited by evolution as men
were simply just more rational and able to deal with
more physically and mentally taxing situations. Plausi saw no appointed
women voting, as in his mind, the woman would either
naturally follow the lead of the men in her life,
or if not, she would have to deal with the
quote unquote unpleasant consequences. That all being said, despite his

(01:01:27):
convictions that white Protestant men were superior to all other races,
he would condemn lynchings. Also, even though he was against
women's suffrage. It has to be said that Cope was
a tireless supporter of his daughter and her education. He
constantly encouraged her to take on even the most complex
and demanding subjects, as he trusted that she would be
able to master them. Which is all to say that

(01:01:48):
Edward Drinker Cope was a complex man, a man who
held some of the regressive and repulsive thoughts of his
age while rejecting others, A man who could generally be
prickly and hard to deal with, and yet still inspire
love and devotion among those who got to know him. Meanwhile,
in the coming years, the rest of his fossil collection
would be sold off to the American Museum of Natural History.

(01:02:08):
In all, everything Cope had collected over the years would
be sold for eighty four thousand dollars, which ultimately wasn't
all that far off from what he estimated their worth
to be This money would then go to Cope's wife
any even though by the end of his life the
two were effectively separated, as it seems that dealing with
Cope on a constant basis was a bit too much
to ask. Plus there was also the factor that, based

(01:02:30):
upon his writings, it's possible that Cope was a womanizer
hor at least might have had a bit of a
wondering eye even if he didn't cheat. To support this supposition,
some point to Cope's idea that marriages should not be
a permanent thing, but instead something that every so many
years you have the choice to renew or not, which
on some level does sound like a man looking for
an excuse to ditch his wife to be with another woman,

(01:02:51):
Yet at the same time, in an era where there
really was no path to divorce and marriage was used
as a tool to control women, It's an idea that
I've seen offered up by feminist as a way to
escape loveless or even abusive marriages. So whether this was
an example of Cope putting to play the field even
though he was married, or him actually understanding that it
would be good to give women an escape patch out
of bad marriages. I don't rightly know. Regardless, it seems

(01:03:15):
that cop and Andy, despite their separation, remained on fairly
cordial terms, and he would indeed leave all his wealth
to her. As for his body, though that Cope donated
the science. That being said, he had no interest in
being put on display. Instead, he wanted his bones to
be used to help teach students of anthropology. He also
intended to have his brain measured and waited, as a

(01:03:36):
belief in those days was that the size of one's
brain was related to intelligence. This some have suggested might
have been his final attempt to show up Marsh by
proving that his brain was actually larger, but Marsh would
not take him up on this challenge, if that was
what it was. As for Coke skeleton, after it was
donated to the Anthropometic Society, it just kind of sat around,

(01:03:56):
as by that point there really was no scientific value
to be gained from examining it, as there were already
plenty of human skeletons that could be studied. Eventually, in
the early nineteen hundreds, cob spones would be sent to
the University of Pennsylvania, where they then sat for decades
in a box collecting dust until that is, in nineteen
sixty six, when Professor of Anthropology Lauren Issley, after making

(01:04:18):
sure the skeleton was still intact, took the box in
the skeleton back to his office for quote unquote safe keeping,
and which point cobe skeleton became a constant companion of
Isley's in his office. For example, when Issley, in the
director of the Museum, regularly metrologenous office, the two would
often offer up a toast to the skeleton. Then, come
Christmas time, COBE's remains were typically festooned with tensel and

(01:04:40):
holly by the office staff, and Isley, on one occasion,
even purchased a birthday present for Cobe, which consisted of
a printing block that depicted a skeleton seated at a
desk that was covered in cobwebs and spiders. Yet for
as much attention as was seemingly being paid to cops
remains on special occasions, It's been alleged that his skull
was lost in the mid seventy when it was borrowed

(01:05:01):
by an artist from the Museum of Natural History who
was intending to use it as a model for a bust,
although it has been suggested that they may have only
lost dean john bone and not the entire skull. Regardless, Isisley,
upon his death, apparently hoped to have Cobe skull intern
with his remains when he was buried. In fact, his
nephew even attempted to fulfill this request. However, the more

(01:05:22):
tissue responsible for Isley's remains prevented this from happening, which
then forced his nephew to try and surreptitiously return the
skeleton to the museum. Now, you would think this would
mark the end of the adventures a Cobe skeleton, But
come the nineteen nineties, with all the hype surrounding Jurassic Park,
magazine photographer Luis A. Jyos would borrow the skeleton to

(01:05:44):
use it as a part of a book project he
was working on. Louis, though, would go on to keep
the bones for years, even going so far as to
carry cope skull around in a cardboard box to present
it to the various palaeontologists he was interviewing, behavior which
the museum was definitely not okay with, which certainly when
he caught the attention of the paleontologists who recognized he
named Edward Drinker, Cope Indeed, according to Louis, the paleontologists

(01:06:07):
were often more interested in Cope Skull than they were
with him. O. C. Marsh would outlive his rival, but

(01:06:39):
with his once fast fortune now vanished, he could no
longer fund the kind of expeditions that had once sought
to sweep up and claim all the fossils that existed
in the West. Yet, even though Yale was now paying
him a salary, Marsh would still not teach any classes. Instead,
the closest he came to giving lectures was inviting undergrads
over to his mansion, where he would re count the

(01:07:00):
tales of his adventures in the West during his youth.
For these students, though, Marsh was not some grand figure
with a long list of accomplishments in the field of paleontology,
but instead a quote pompous but kindly old gentleman who
hunted buffalo in the dim past. Meanwhile, Marsh's prize Peabuddy Museum,
where he continued to work, was no longer the center
of America's paleontology community. Instead, the American Museum of Natural History,

(01:07:24):
under the guidance of Henry Osborne, now held that honor,
thanks in part to the collections they had purchased from Cope,
and because he'd hired some of COBE's best bone hunters.
Other museums two got in on the game, as they
and their bonehunters were funded by Robert Barns like G. P.
Morgan and Andrew Carnegie, efforts which were successful as they
no longer had to deal with Marsha's grasping interference. Indeed,

(01:07:46):
one of this next generation would discover the most famous
dinosaur of them all, the Tyrannosaurus Racks, in a fossil
field in Montana, a field which, by the way, had
first been found and identified by Cope. As others were
making expeditions into the West to collect fossils, Marsh focused
on trying to sum up his life's work, which included
the publishing of a tomb on the Dinosaurs of North America,

(01:08:08):
which would provide the foundations upon which American paleontology would
be built. As for whatever else you can say about
Marsh and how he conducted himself and even ordered his
men to destroy fossils, he was, at the end of
the day a good paleontologist. He had also notably won
the dinosaur race between him and Cope as he had
named eighty six new species, while Cope had only named

(01:08:29):
fifty six. In eighteen ninety eight, Marsh would donate all
of his fossils and his other collections, including his minerals
and skeletons of modern animals, to Yale, something which caused
some worry within the US Geological Survey, who, despite not
being affiliated with Marsh for years, still held a significant
number of their fossils in the Peabody still, though it
would not be utild after Marsh's death that they actually

(01:08:50):
began the process of divving up the collection and pecking
up the government's fossils to be sent to the Smithsonian.
Speaking of in eighteen ninety nine, after traveling to wash
him for a discussion with officials that likely involved that
long last packing up the government's fossils and sending them
where they belonged, Marsh would stop off in New York,
doing so to attend a dinner honoring the former Secretary

(01:09:11):
of the Interior who had helped to engineer the merging
of the government's various surveys into the US Geological Survey. Unfortunately,
the hotel room that Marsh was staying in was chilly,
and he would awake the next morning with a bad cold. Indeed,
Marsh was still ill when he returned to New Haven, Connecticut, where,
after getting off the train, he inexplicably walked home through
a rainstorm, meaning by the time he arrived at his mansion,

(01:09:35):
Marsh was thoroughly soaked and chilled, which of course did
him no good, nor did his insistence that he continued
going to the Peabody every day over the next week,
until finally one of his assistants found him sloped over
a chair in his office. Worried for his safety, the
assistant had Marsh brought back to his home, where a
doctor examined him and concluded that he likely had pneumonia

(01:09:56):
o c. Marsh would then linger on for a few
more days before, on the nineteenth of March eighteen ninety nine,
he quietly died in his bed. To properly illustrate how
far he had fallen. At the time of his death,
Marsh only had one hundred and eighty six dollars in
his bank account. His home, meanwhile, already belonged to Yale,
and they proceeded to sell off its contents, like its rugs,
various paintings, and a like for nearly nineteen thousand dollars.

(01:10:20):
As for his prize fossil collection, that too was naturally
left to Yale in the Peaboddy Museum, much of it
still unopened and unexamined, which just serves to illustrate how
pointless this campaign to monopolized fossils were, as all he
did was a mass of election so large that he
could never examine them all in a single lifetime. This
also notably serves to illustrate the slow and deliberate way

(01:10:41):
that Marsh worked. He was the type to focus on
the details, while Cope was more of the type to
try and see the bigger picture so he might make
broader generalizations, which brings us to the final tally of
sorts for our feud. Cope, according to account that was
made in nineteen hundred, had described one thy one hundred
and fifteen of the non three thousand, two hundred species
of vertebrate fossils that had been discovered in North America,

(01:11:04):
Meaning of all the fossilized species that had been discovered
at that time in North America, Cope was responsible for
naming just over a third of them. Plus he had
also described many others which ultimately ended up having already
been discovered and named. Cope was able to accomplish this
because he was an extremely prolific writer, something that was
especially true at certain times in his life. For example,

(01:11:25):
in eighteen eighty four, he would write seventy nine papers
monograss and articles, and would follow that up by running
sixty two in the following year. Meanwhile, over the course
of his entire career he wrote over twelve hundred scientific papers,
a record which may or may not still stand, as
I can say for sure, given that the Internet is
worthless nowadays. Now the speed in which Cope worked was

(01:11:46):
both a good and a bad thing, as while he
was capable of brilliance and capable of grasping things that
others did not, the speed in which he worked at
times led to airs and unconnected thoughts, things that a
bit more patience and some more editing might have cleaned
up and improved his work significantly. In comparison, marsh only
named and described four hundred and ninety six new species.

(01:12:08):
This was due to his more deliberate and more detailed work,
as well as the fact that his time was also
occupied with things like administrating the construction of the Peabody Museum,
in addition of things like socializing and making connections with
the well to do. Meanwhile, it also has to be
noted the valuable role that Marsh played in supporting Darwin's
theory of evolution, something which cannot be said for Cope,

(01:12:28):
because he did not like the process of natural selection,
seemingly because he wanted something a little less random or
less cruel than simply the survival of the fittest. At
the end of the day, then one may argue that
the feud between Martian Cope was in some way beneficial,
as it, after all, greatly expanded the field of paleontology
and our knowledge of the agent passed and of evolution. Indeed,

(01:12:50):
keep in mind, before Cope and Marsh paleontology wasn't really established,
especially in the US. Remember that Marsh where was the
prominence in part because he was basically the first professor
of paleontology in the United States. Additionally, a number of
the men they hired to be their fossil hunters or
assistants in Marsha's case, went on to have their own
highly valuable and influential careers in paleontology. In this way, then,

(01:13:14):
the feud helped to set up the next generation of paleontologists.
At the same time, though the way Cope and especially
Marsh conducted themselves during this feud squeezed others out. In
eighteen seventy, for example, Joseph Leedy, the man who had
been hailed as he quote father of American vertebrate paleontology,
recognized that his career in the field was coming to
an end because he increasingly found himself on the outside

(01:13:36):
looking in. Indeed, Leady would even tell a British colleague quote, Formerly,
every fossil one found in the States came to me,
for nobody else cared to study such things. But professors
Marsh and copathong purses offer money for what used to
come to me for nothing, And in that respect I
cannot compete with them. The discovery and collecting of fossils

(01:13:57):
had been something that was done simply for the pursuit
of knowledge. Now, with Martian Cobe though, it became a
business of sorts, and as such it limited those who
could get involved. Plus, as I hammered home over and
over again over the course of this series, Marsh in
particular constantly sought to block others from access to fossils,
both in the field and in his museum. Indeed, whenever

(01:14:18):
some other paleontologists petition to look at the Peabuddies' collection, Marsh,
if he let them in at all, had them carefully
monitored and made sure they didn't see anything beyond what
he had decided they were allowed to see, Which is
all to say that likely far more work could have
been done in the field at a quicker pace had
Marsh not decided to monopolize everything for years. The feud

(01:14:38):
was also detrimental to paleontology in other ways, as you see.
In addition to the destruction of fossils on the apparent
orders of Oz Marsh, there was also the confusion that
resulted in the haste in which the two men acted
in their desire to best their rival, something that Lady
recognized was going to happen pretty early on in this fight.
As you would write that quote, we have no doubt
in some cases this we had the same things under

(01:15:01):
different names, and thus produced some confusion which can only
be corrected in the future. For example, Marsh, upon finding
the juvenile remains of one of Cope's camera sources, when
believing it to be a new dinosaur species, attempt to
name it a morosaurus. Meanwhile, Cope would make the same
mistake with a juvenile stegosaurus. Indeed, between the two of

(01:15:21):
them and other scientists who were caught up in this race,
for every ten dinosaurs that were named, nine other proposed
names were invalid. Some of this was because they had
already been named, while some were based off of too
little evidence to be accurate, and still others weren't even
dinosaurs at all, meaning that because they were so caught
up in the rivalry, Cope and Marsh fired off papers

(01:15:42):
attempting to name nuw dinosaurs that, in retrospect weren't even
dinosaurs at all. The most lasting mistake made as a
consequence of this rivalry was that of the Brontosaurus, a
mistake that was entirely Marsh's. This twisted little tale begins
with some of the vertebrae that Arthur Lakes had found
in the Morrison Formation near Denver. Based upon this limited information,
Marsh would name this new dinosaur the Apatosaurus. Then, in

(01:16:05):
the following year, more remains of this creature were discovered,
thus providing a more complete picture of this animal. Meanwhile,
round about the same time. In his new dig sites
in the Como Hills, Marsh's various agents would uncover two
nearly perfect skeletons that the Yale paleontogist would then give
the name of Brontosaurus to. These nearly perfect skeletons then
allowed Marsh to describe these creatures in far greater detail

(01:16:27):
than the Apatosaurus that had been found near Denver. The
problem here, though, was twofold. As you see, these skeletons
were not a new dinosaur at all, but simply the
remains of juvenile patasaurces, something which, to be fair, might
have been easier to discern had these juvenile skeletons not
been missing one very crucial piece their skulls. Marsh, however,
would compound his mistake when he apparently decided that a

(01:16:49):
skull found some four miles away in a different quarry
had to be from the same type of dinosaur, and
so he just put it on the skeleton. The problem
here was the skull was actually from a completely different species. Indeed,
what Marsha done was to put the skull one a
cub's camera sources asaur pod with a very unique skull
on a young Patosaurus skeleton, which certainly made it appear

(01:17:09):
to be a different creature than the one found near Dever,
a mistake that I would argue was far greater than
putting the skull of a pleasiosaur at the wrong end
of its body, as at least that skull actually belonged
to those remains. It also has to be said that
this issue had actually been noticed fairly early on. Samuel Wilson,
for example, who had been working at the Peabody when
the skeleton in question was assembled, could not help but

(01:17:31):
note how strangely similar the Patosaurs and the Brontosaurus were.
Elmore Riggs of the Field Museum in Chicago would also
have the same suspicion in nineteen oh three, while William Holland,
the director of the Carnegie Museum, would note in nineteen
fourteen that quote the association of the skull material with
what Marston nominates the brontosaurus as holy arbitrary, and I
doubt its correctness, which is to say, I don't think

(01:17:54):
this skull goes with this skeleton. Still, though, the Brontosaurus
and its name would linger on for decades and deysades,
partially because it was connected to such a complete skeleton,
just one with the wrong head, and because Marsh had
accrued so much power and influence with any scientific community.
In the end, I think James Dway Dana, a contemporary
of both men and a professor of geology at Yale,

(01:18:15):
and a good assessment of both of our main characters.
As you would note that quote, Cope is a man
of great learning and ability, and were he not in
so burning haste, would always do splendid work. At the
same time, Dana was also critical of his colleague at Yale,
as he stated that quote, I have told Marsh more
than once that it would do more for his reputation
among zoologists to describe one species thoroughly than to be

(01:18:38):
the one to name a hundred. Still, Marsh was slower
and often more detailed in his writing than Cope was,
which resulted in him being better able to make the
value and the importance of his discoveries clearer and easier
to understand. Meanwhile, one of Cope's own friends would write
that is quote harried publication led him to many errors
of interpretation and nomenclature. Cope's frantic pace, though seen to

(01:19:00):
at least partially be the result of the way his
mind worked. You see, he never focused on one subject
or thing for too long. Instead, he was constantly all
over the place, fleeing from one subject to the next
and constantly writing papers as he went. In contrast, Marsha's
focus enabled him to write more comprehensive works that were
more likely to be held by other scientists. Meanwhile, Cope

(01:19:22):
also struggled to gain recognition because, as I mentioned, he
took issue with Darwinian evolution, namely the process of natural selection,
which to Cope seemed incomplete as it didn't satisfactory explain variation.
He also perhaps sends the potential for this process to
be used to claim that the rich were inherently superior
to the poor. Cope then eventually accepted a compromise theory

(01:19:44):
which suggested that variation was a part of the quote
unquote plan, seemingly suggesting that it wasn't just cruel, emotionless
nature at play, but instead some larger, likely divine plan.
In contrast, Marsha embraced Darwinian evolution and lotus support it.
Through his research was able to make powerful connections with
other prominent scientists, which in turn raised his profile in

(01:20:04):
ways that the more rebellious Cope was unable to do.
There was, however, one important way in which these two
men were alike, and it was this thing that, as
much as anything else, fuelled the rivalry. As yell paleontologist
Charles Schugert would note, quote, Marsh was never to have
fossils enough, even with almost every box open at the
museum yielding a new species, of throwing new light on

(01:20:25):
an old one, he saw need for more and yet
more material. In this way, Cope was similar to his rival,
although in Cope's case, his obsession seemed to at least
in part, be the result of the way his mind
weren't as we constantly darted from one thing to the next,
also drove him to constantly be on the lookout for
more fossils. Meanwhile, Cope's protegye of sorts, Henry Osborne, would

(01:20:47):
have his own opinion of the main characters of our story.
For example, he would describe Leedy as a quote man
of the exact observer type Leady see it. Sai would
describe the fossils nothing more and nothing less, while in contrast,
Cope was a quote man who loves speculation. He was
constantly then looking to imagine the world where these creatures

(01:21:07):
came from, as he tried to see the bigger picture now.
When it came to Marsh, in Osborne's potentially biased opinion,
the Yale professor had less ability than the other two. Still,
though he had to admit that Marsh was a quote
paleontologist of a very high order. Meanwhile, Peter Donson, a
Yale graduate who would go on to become the University
of Pennsylvania's premier dinosaur paleontologist, would note that quote, when

(01:21:31):
it came to dinosaurs, Cope was always a daylight and
dollars short, as even though Cope in the end needed
more species in general, when it came to dinosaurs, Marsh,
thanks to his superior connections and resources, was able to
outdo his rival on the biggest stage. At the same time,
though Donza would note that even though Marsh had won
the dinosaur race, there are a quote no ideas associated

(01:21:53):
with Marsh. In the end, both men would make mistakes
when it came to their understanding of dinosaurs. However, a
fair amount of that can simply be chalked up to
the fact that they had to have been overwhelmed by
the sheer number of discoveries that were being made all
at once, basically as a consequence of their personal competition.
There were so many discoveries being made that neither could
really keep up with them all, much less take the

(01:22:14):
time to fully understand what they had found. As instead
of taking the time to properly process and understand their
last discovery and how it fit in with everything else
they had learned, they were too busy looking for the
next find. It all then simply became too much. I will, though,
leave us on a high note of sorts concerning what
came about as a result of this feud. To do so,

(01:22:35):
I will take us back to seven months after Edward
Drinker COBE's death. It was here where American Century, one
of the best magazines of the era, published a nine
page article that was written by William Hosea Balloo, the
same sketchy journalist who had written up COBE's attack on
Marsh that had been published in the pages of the
New York Herald. This article, however, had nothing to do
with Marsh. Instead, it was titled quote Strange Creatures of

(01:22:57):
the Past, Gigantic Saurians of the Reptilian Age and was
heavily inspired by Cope's work. Parts of it even seemed
to read like it was written using Cope's own words. Indeed,
this article would start off by giving much credit to Cope,
as it read quote in his laboratory in Philadelphia, the
late professor Edward Driker Coppe devoted many years to the
study of the fossils or petrified skeletons of the gigantic

(01:23:19):
saurian or lizard like reptiles. The artic would then go
on to repeatedly talk about Cope discovering something or his
theorizing on the subject. As while the article was primarily
focused on expanding the public's knowledge of dinosaurs, it was
also at least in part dedicated to Cope and his legacy.
As you see, in addition to its repeated references to
the Philadelphia paleontologist, there was also a six page introduction

(01:23:41):
penned by none other than Henry Osborne, who wrote about
Cope's career and call him the greatest naturalist in America
had ever produced testimony, which likely helped to connect Cope
with these fantastic creatures in the public's mind, which is
notable because his article was accompanied by a number of
illustrations that had been done by Charles Knight and artists
who had been worked on Dinosaur reconstruction and Osborne's American

(01:24:02):
Museum of Natural History illustrations which made these ancient creatures
come to life in a way that they hadn't before
from much of the general public, as Knight illustrated dinosaurs
in lifelike poses amidst detailed landscapes, with much of these
illustrations being done with advice from Cope before his death.
These pictures and were probably the best presentation of dinosaurs
that had been done at the time. They likely helped

(01:24:24):
to plant these seeds of the publics enduring fascination with them. Indeed,
I've even seen some of these illustrations. For example, there
is a picture of two of Marsha's terrible leapers, which
had been renamed Dryptosaurus, doing battle. This is what I
definitely remember seeing as it depicts one of the dinosaurs
on its back on the ground with its legs and
feet up in a kind of defensive position, while its

(01:24:45):
opponent is in mid air poised to come down upon
its foe with its own talent feet. To see it
for yourself, type in Charles Knight with ak illustration and battle,
and it should be one of the results. It was then,
only when their feud was over that the public fascination
with dinosaurs was able to spread and thrive. This was
partially the result of the work both of the men

(01:25:05):
in question had done, but also because with both of
them out of the picture, others were able to work
and share their funds with increasing freedom. That being said,
a number of the men who would rise to prominence
in the wake of this feud had gotten their start
by participating in it. As a number of those individuals
who had gotten their start digging up bones for both
Cope and Marsh would continue to apply their trade even
after both men's money had dried up. Additionally, in Cope,

(01:25:28):
during his final expeditions, had found bone fields that, while
he himself never got the chance to examine them in detail,
would prove to be paleontological gold mines. Meanwhile, a number
of Marsh's assistants, after growing tired of working under him,
would also go on to become major figures in the field,
as did the men that Cope had mentored over the years.
Which is all to say that for all the harm

(01:25:49):
that the feud might have caused any short term, in
the long term, it helped to establish and perpetuate the
field of paleontology and our understanding of the past. That
then is the and the fossil Wars between Edward Drigger,
Cope and OC Marsh. Next time, I will, for no
particular reason, be diving into the tail of the green
labor uprising of eighteen seventy seven. Like I said, though,

(01:26:12):
that will have to for now remain the story for
another time. Thank you 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

(01:26:32):
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 an RSS feed. I will continue
to post sources on kofee and Twitter, though, as it's
just a convenient place to go to access that information. Regardless,
once again, thank you for listening, and until next time

(01:27:14):
is Inla

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