Othniel Charles Marsh (1831–1899)
The sixth decade of the nineteenth century saw the beginning of the labors of several paleontologists who, like Leidy, were destined to raise the science of fossil vertebrates in America to the level of attainment of the Old World. They were, among others, Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. Of these the names of Marsh and Cope are linked together by the brilliance of their attainments, their contemporaneity, and the rivalry which the similarity of their pursuits unfortunately engendered. Marsh produced his first paleontological paper in 1862 (33, 278), Cope in 1864, but the latter died first, so that his life of research was shorter.
To Professor Marsh should be given credit for the first organized expedition designed exclusively for the collection of vertebrate remains, the results of which contain so much material that it has not yet entirely seen the light of scientific exposition. Marsh’s first trip to the West was in 1868, the first formal expedition being organized two years later. These expeditions, of which there were four, were privately financed except for the material and military escort furnished by the United States Government, and consisted of a personnel drawn entirely from the graduate or undergraduate body of Yale University. These parties explored Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and Oregon, and returned laden with material from the Cretaceous and Tertiary formations of the West. Some of this is of necessity somewhat fragmentary, but type after type was secured which, with his exhaustive knowledge of comparative anatomy, enabled Marsh to announce discovery after discovery of species, genera, families, and even orders of mammals, birds, and reptiles which were unknown to science. The year 1873 saw the last of the student expeditions, and thereafter until the close of his life the work of collecting was done under Marsh’s supervision, but by paid explorers, many of whom had been his scouts and guides in the formal expeditions or had been especially trained by him in the East. In 1882, after fourteen years of the experience thus gained, Marsh was appointed vertebrate paleontologist to the United States Geological Survey, which relieved him in part of the personal expense connected with the collecting, although up to within a short time of his death his own fortune was very largely spent in enlarging his collections. After his connection with the Survey was established, Marsh had two main purposes in view in making the collections: (1) to determine the geological horizon of each locality where a large series of vertebrate fossils was found, and (2) to secure from these localities large collections of the more important forms sufficiently extensive to reveal, if possible, the life histories of each. Marsh believed that the material thus secured would serve as key or diagnostic fossils to all horizons of our western geology above the Paleozoic, a belief in which he was in advance of his time, for few of his contemporaries appreciated the value of vertebrates as horizon markers. The result of the fulfilment of his second purpose saw the accumulation of huge collections from all horizons above the Triassic and some Paleozoic and Triassic as well. These contained some very remarkable series, each of which Marsh hoped to make the basis of an elaborate monograph to be published under the auspices of the Survey. One can visualize the scope of his ambitions by the fact that no fewer than twenty-seven projected quarto volumes, to contain at least 850 lithographic plates, were listed by him in 1877. These covered, among other groups, the toothed birds (Odontornithes), Dinocerata, horses, brontotheres, pterodactyls, mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, monkeys, carnivores, perissodactyls and artiodactyls, crocodiles, lizards, dinosaurs, various birds, proboscideans, edentates and marsupials, brain evolution, and the Connecticut Valley footprints. Much was done towards the preparation of these memoirs, as evidenced by the long list of preliminary papers, admirably illustrated by woodcuts which were to form the text figures of the memoirs, which appeared with great regularity in the pages of the Journal for a period of thirty years. Of the actual memoirs, however, but two had been published at the time of Marsh’s death in 1899—the Odontornithes in 1880 and the Dinocerata in 1884. One must not overlook, however, the epoch-making Dinosaurs of North America, which was published by the Survey in 1896, although it was not in the form nor had it the scope of the proposed monographs. This was not due to lack of application, for Professor Marsh was an indefatigable worker, but rather to the fact that the program was of such magnitude as to necessitate a patriarchal life span for its consummation. As it is, Professor Marsh’s fame rests first upon his ability and intrepidity as a collector, ready himself to brave the very certain hardships and dangers which beset the field paleontologist in the pioneer days, and also by his judgment and command of men to secure the very adequate services of others and so to direct their endeavors that the results were of the highest value. The material witness to Marsh’s skill as a collector lies in the collections of the Peabody Museum at Yale and in the Marsh collection at the United States National Museum, the latter secured through the funds of the United States Geological Survey. Together they constitute what is possibly the greatest collection of fossil vertebrates in America, if not in the world; individually, they are second only to that of the American Museum in New York City, the result of the combined labors of Osborn and Cope and their very able corps of assistants.
As a scientist Marsh possessed in large measure that wide knowledge of comparative anatomy so necessary to the vertebrate paleontologist, and as a consequence was not only able to recognize affinities and classify unerringly, but also to recognize the salient diagnostic features of the form before him and in few words so to describe them as to render the recognition of the species by another worker relatively easy. The publication of hundreds of these specific diagnoses in the Journal constitutes a very large and valuable part of that periodical’s contribution to the advancement of our science. Marsh’s method of indicating forms by so brief a statement leaves much to be done, however, in the way of further description of his types, which in many instances were but partially prepared.
Yet another important service which Marsh rendered to science was the restoration of the creatures as a whole, made with the most painstaking care and precision through assembling the drawings of the individual bones. These restorations have become classic, embracing as they did a score or more of forms, of beast, bird, and reptile. They also were published first in the Journal, although they have subsequently been reproduced in text-books and other works the world over. Part of Marsh’s popular reputation, at least, which was second to that of no other American in his line, was due to his skill in attaining publicity, for his papers, of whatever extent, were carefully and methodically sent to correspondents in the uttermost parts of the earth, and thus the Marsh collection has reflected the fame of its maker.