Edward drinker cope discoveries

Marsh, desiring the fossils found in that region, became embroiled in Army-Indian politics. In the end, Marsh slipped out of camp and according to his own possibly romanticized accounts, amassed cartloads of fossils and retreated just before a hostile Miniconjou party arrived. Grant on behalf of Red Cloud, but his motives might have been to make a name for himself against the unpopular Grant administration.

Lakes reported that he had been hiking in the mountains near the town of Morrison , when he and his friend, H. Beckwith, discovered massive bones embedded in the rock. Lakes further advised that the bones were "apparently a vertebra and a humerus bone of some gigantic saurian. As Marsh was slow to respond, Lakes also sent a shipment of bones to Cope.

Marsh published a description of Lakes' discoveries in the American Journal of Science on July 1, and before Cope could publish his own interpretation of the finds, Lakes wrote to him that the bones should be shipped to Marsh, a severe insult to Cope. A second letter arrived from the west, this time addressed to Cope. The writer, O. After receiving more samples from Lucas, Cope concluded the dinosaurs were large herbivores , gleefully noting that the specimen was larger than any other previously described, including Lakes' discovery.

Unfortunately for Marsh, he learned from Williston that Lucas was finding the best bones and refused to quit Cope to come work for Marsh. This setback would have dried up Marsh's bone supply from the west, if not for receipt of a third letter. At the time of Lakes' discoveries, the First transcontinental railroad was being built through a remote area of Wyoming.

Marsh's letter was from two men identifying themselves as Harlow and Edwards, workers on the Union Pacific Railroad. Williston, who had just wearily arrived in Kansas after the collapse of the Morrison mine, [ 35 ] was quickly dispatched to Como Bluff by Marsh. His former student sent back a message, confirming the large quantities of bones and that it was Cope's men snooping around the area.

Marsh also reserved the right to send his own "superintendents" to supervise the digging if needed and advised the men to try to keep Cope out of the region. The paleontologist procured Carlin's and Reed's services, but seeds of resentment were sown as the bone hunters felt Marsh had bullied them into the deal. While Marsh's own collectors headed east for the winter, Reed sent carloads of bones by rail to Marsh throughout Marsh described and named dinosaurs such as Stegosaurus , Allosaurus , and Apatosaurus in the December issue of the American Journal of Science.

Despite Marsh's precautions against alerting his rival to Como Bluff's rich bone beds, word of the discoveries rapidly spread. This was at least partly due to Carlin and Reed helping spread the rumors. They leaked information to the Laramie Daily Sentinel , which published an article about the finds in April that exaggerated the price Marsh had paid for the bones, possibly to raise prices and demand for more bones.

Cope and Marsh used their personal wealth to fund expeditions each summer, then spent the winter publishing their discoveries. Small armies of fossil hunters in mule-drawn wagons or on trains were soon sending literally tons of fossils back east. Reed was locked out of the Como train station by Carlin, and was forced to haul the bones down the bluff and crate the specimens on the train platform in the bitter cold.

As Reed's Quarry 4 dried up, Marsh ordered Reed to clear out the bone fragments from the other quarries. Reed reported he had destroyed all the remaining bones to keep them away from Cope. Cope likewise toured his own quarries in August. Although Marsh's men continued to open new quarries and discover more fossils, relations between Lakes and Reed soured, with each offering his resignation in August.

Marsh attempted to placate the two by sending each to opposite ends of the quarries, [ 46 ] but after being forced to abandon one bone quarry in a freezing blizzard, Lakes submitted his resignation and returned to teaching in Marsh tried separating Kennedy and Reed, and sent Williston's brother Frank to Como in an effort to keep the peace.

Frank Williston ended up leaving Marsh's employ and taking up residence with Carlin. As the s progressed, Cope's and Marsh's men faced stiff competition from each other and from third parties interested in bones. Professor Alexander Emanuel Agassiz of Harvard sent his own representatives west, while Carlin and Frank Williston formed a bone company to sell fossils to the highest bidder.

Despite these setbacks, Marsh had more operational quarries than Cope at this point of time; Cope, who at the early s had more bones than he could fit in a single house, had fallen behind in the race for dinosaurs. Cope's and Marsh's discoveries were accompanied by sensational accusations of spying, stealing workers and fossils, and bribery. The two men were so protective of their digging sites that they would destroy smaller or damaged fossils to prevent them from falling into their rival's hands, or fill in their excavations with dirt and rock; [ 50 ] while surveying his Como quarries in , Marsh examined recent finds and marked several for destruction.

While Cope and Marsh dueled for fossils in the American West, they also tried their best to ruin each other's professional credibility. Humiliated by his error in reconstructing the plesiosaur Elasmosaurus , Cope tried to cover up his mistake by purchasing every copy he could find of the journal in which it was published. Cope's own rapid and prodigious output of scientific papers meant that Marsh had no difficulty in finding occasional errors with which to lambast Cope.

By the late s, public attention to the fighting between Cope and Marsh faded, drawn to international stories rather than the "Wild West". Geological Survey, and Marsh's contacts with the rich and powerful in Washington, Marsh was placed at the head of the consolidated government survey and was happy to be out of the sensationalist spotlight. Marsh, meanwhile, alienated even his loyal assistants, including Williston, with his refusal to share his conclusions drawn from their findings, and his continually lax and infrequent payment schedule.

Cope's chance to exploit Marsh's vulnerabilities came in , when Congress began to investigate the proceedings of the consolidated geological survey. Cope had become friends with Henry Fairfield Osborn , then a professor of anatomy at Princeton University. For the moment, Powell and Marsh were able to successfully refute Cope's charges, and his allegations did not reach the mainstream press.

Cope's chance to strike a critical blow at Marsh appeared soon after. Over the years, Cope kept an elaborate journal of mistakes and misdeeds that Marsh and Powell had committed; the mistakes and errors of the men were put in writing and stored in the bottom drawer of Cope's desk. Most scientists of the day recoiled to find that Cope's feud with Marsh had become front-page news.

Those closest to the scientific fields under discussion, geology and vertebrate paleontology, certainly winced, particularly as they found themselves quoted, mentioned, or misspelled. The feud was not news to them, for it had lurked at their scientific meetings for two decades. Most of them had already taken sides. In the newspaper articles, Cope attacked Marsh for plagiarism and financial mismanagement, and attacked Powell for his geological classification errors and misspending of government-allocated funds.

Ballou's articles were poorly researched, written, and read, and Cope himself was smarting from a piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer which suggested the University of Pennsylvania trustees would ask Cope to step down unless he provided proof for his charges against Marsh and Powell. No congressional hearing was convened to investigate the misallocation of funds by Powell, and neither Cope nor Marsh was held responsible for any of their mistakes, but some of Ballou's charges against Marsh came to be associated with the Survey.

Facing anti-Survey sentiment inflamed by western drought and concerns about takeovers of abandoned western homesteads, Powell found himself the subject of larger scrutiny before the House Appropriations Committee. Cope, still reeling from the personal attacks levied at him during the Herald affair, did not take advantage of the change in fortunes to press his personal attacks.

Towards the latter part of the decade, Cope's fortunes began to sour once more as Marsh regained some of his recognition, earning the Cuvier Medal, the highest paleontological award. Cope and Marsh's rivalry lasted until Cope's death in , by which time both men were financially ruined. Cope and O. Marsh and the Rise of American Science.

New York: Crown Publishing Group. King of the Dinosaur Hunters : the life of John Bell Hatcher and the discoveries that shaped paleontology. Pegasus Books. Retrieved August 10, American Quarterly. JSTOR S2CID Retrieved September 6, Edward Drinker The origin of the fittest : essays on evolution. Gerstein — University of Toronto. New York : D.

ISSN Scientific Community News. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved July 16, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. New Series. Retrieved January 3, Annals of Improbable Research. July 1, Bibcode : RoMin.. Bibliography [ edit ]. Alroy, John October 2, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.

University of California, Santa Barbara. Archived from the original on February 7, Retrieved November 17, Bakker, R. Part IV. The dinosaurs: A new Othnielia -like hypsilophodontoid". The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Bowler, Peter June Carpenter, Kenneth Foster, J. G eds.

Edward drinker cope discoveries

Colbert, Edwin Courier Dover Publications. Cope, Edward Drinker Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Lystrosaurus frontosus from Cape Colony". Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 28 : — The Origin of the Fittest: Essays on Evolution. Cope, Edward Drinker c. Theology of Evolution.

Arnold Philadelphia. The American Naturalist. Gallagher, William B When Dinosaurs Roamed New Jersey. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Hone, D. January Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Davidson, Jane Academy of Natural Sciences. Dodson, Peter ; Robert Bakker interviewees The Dinosaurs! Fowler, Henry W March 30, Gill, Theodore October Jackson, J.

Lanham, Url The Bone Hunters. Levins, Hoag April 10, Historic Camden County. Retrieved October 26, Osborn, Henry Fairfield []. Montgomery, Thos January Biological Bulletin. Nussbaum, Ronald September Penick, James August Professor Marsh". American Heritage. Archived from the original on January 1, Polly, David June 6, University of California Museum of Paleontology.

University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved September 19, Polly, P. October 2, Bibcode : Sci Romer, Alfred S December Systematic Zoology. Scharf, John Thomas; Thompson Westcott History of Philadelphia, —, Volume 3. Shor, Elizabeth Maverick paleontologist Robert Bakker declared his intention to describe Cope's skull as a type specimen, but never published this.

Such a publication, even if it did exist, would have been invalidated by Stearn's prior designation, but—to make matters more confusing—the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature which did not exist until also invalidates Stearn's designation, and makes it altogether impossible for a neotype to be validly designated for H.

Cope's competition with Othniel Charles Marsh for the discovery of new fossils became known as the Bone Wars. The Bone Wars began in the marl pits of Haddonfield, New Jersey, with the discovery of a nearly complete skeleton of a dinosaur, Hadrosaurus foulkii. The skeleton was sent to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, were it was named and described by Joseph Leidy, a paleontologist for whom E.

Cope worked. Soon E. Cope and Leidy were working in these marl pits and made some important discoveries, including an almost complete skeleton of a carnivorous Dryptosaurus aquilungis. The marl was being dug up by companies to be used as fertilizer, and Cope and Leidy made arrangements that they be contacted should any fossilized bones be unearthed.

Marsh visited Cope, who he knew from the University of Berlin, and together he and Cope unearthed some new partial skeletons. However, the rivalry commenced when Cope learned that Marsh had secretly returned and bribed the marl company managers to report any new finds directly to him. From that point, until Cope's death, Cope and Marsh were bitter rivals.

Much of competition centered in the Morrison Formation, a site in the American West that has proved to be a most fertile source of fossils. Both Cope and Marsh strove to destroy the other's reputation. When Cope made a simple error, and attached the head of an Elasmosaurus to the wrong end of the animal the tail, instead of the neck , he tried to cover up his mistake.

He even went so far as to purchase every copy he could find of the journal it was published in. But Marsh, who pointed out the error in the first place, made sure to publicize the story. Marsh also got Cope's federal funding cut off, including his funding from the U. Geological Survey. Cope accused Marsh of stealing fossils, and at one point was so angry that he stole a train full of Marsh's fossils and had it sent to Philadelphia.

In , Cope then 52 years old was granted expense money for field work from the Texas Geological Survey. In the s his publication rate increased to an average of 43 articles a year. In , Cope re-hired Sternberg, who knew about the nightmares he had about dinosaurs, to look for fossils for him. Cope sold fossils to museums. Although his collection still contained more than 13, specimens, Cope's fossil hoard was much smaller than Marsh's collection, which was valued at over a million dollars.

In , Cope got sick, and he died on April 12, His friends told of how they remembered him. They then held the reading of his will. The Naturalist had a longer one. And, the National Academy of Sciences' journal had one years later. Edward D. Cope was a Quaker. He felt the husband should be able to take care of his wife and that married women would vote the same as their husbands.

He was remembered as not liking the Negro accent, and he believed that if "a race was not white then it was inherently more ape-like". Although his daughter Julia burnt many of his private papers, many of his friends have written about him. Charles R. Knight , a former friend, said that Cope's language was so filthy that "in [Cope's] heyday no woman was safe within five miles of him".

People said Cope had great energy and activity and was always interesting, kind and helpful. Over his lifetime Cope's views on evolution shifted. Cope's beliefs became one with an increased emphasis on continual and utilitarian evolution with less involvement of a Creator. This theory fails because use and disuse does not affect the genetic code of the gametes , something which became clear in the generations after his death.

Find a Grave. Retrieved September 3, Contents move to sidebar hide. Page Talk. Read Change Change source View history. Tools Tools. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikispecies Wikidata item. Edward Drinker Cope. Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , U. Early life [ change change source ]. European travels [ change change source ]. Early career [ change change source ].

The Wheeler Survey [ change change source ]. Independence [ change change source ]. The bone wars [ change change source ]. Later years [ change change source ]. Cope's death [ change change source ]. Cope's ideas and character [ change change source ]. Views on evolution [ change change source ]. References [ change change source ].

Academy of Natural Sciences. ISBN Cope: master naturalist: life and letters of Edward Drinker Cope, with a bibliography of his writings. The bone hunters. Columbia University Press. Edward Drinker Cope, Naturalist - a chapter in the history of science.