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But their discoveries were accompanied by sensational accusations of spying, stealing workers, stealing fossils, and bribery. Among other things Cope repeatedly accused Marsh of stealing fossils, and was so angry that he stole a train full of Marsh's fossils, and had it sent to Philadelphia. Marsh, in turn, was so determined that he stole skulls from ] burial platforms and violated treaties by trespassing on their land. He was also so protective of his fossil sites that he supposedly used dynamite on one to prevent it from falling into Cope's hands. But their discoveries were accompanied by sensational accusations of spying, stealing workers, stealing fossils, and bribery. Among other things Cope repeatedly accused Marsh of stealing fossils, and was so angry that he stole a train full of Marsh's fossils, and had it sent to Philadelphia. Marsh, in turn, was so determined that he stole skulls from ] burial platforms and violated treaties by trespassing on their land. He was also so protective of his fossil sites that he supposedly used dynamite on one to prevent it from falling into Cope's hands.


While Cope and Marsh dueled for fossils in the American West, they also tried their best to ruin each others' professional credibility. Cope's ''Elasmosaurus'' error humiliated Cope who tried to cover up his mistake by purchasing every copy he could find of the journal it was published in;<ref>Jaffe, 15.</ref> Marsh, who pointed out the error in the first place, made sure to publicize the story. Marsh was no more infallible; he put the wrong skull on a skeleton of '']'' and declared it a new species, ''Brontosaurus''.<ref>Rajewski, 22.</ref> While Cope and Marsh dueled for fossils in the American West, they also tried their best to ruin each others' professional credibility. Cope's ''Elasmosaurus'' error humiliated Cope who tried to cover up his mistake by purchasing every copy he could find of the journal it was published in;<ref>Jaffe, 15.</ref> Marsh, who pointed out the error in the first place, made sure to publicize the story. Marsh was no more infallible; he put the wrong skull on a skeleton of '']'' and declared it a new genus, ''Brontosaurus''.<ref>Rajewski, 22.</ref>


Cope over the years had kept an elaborate journal of mistakes and misdeeds that both Marsh and John Wesley Powell, head of the U.S. Geological Survey, had committed. From scientific errors to publishing mistakes, he had it all written down in a journal that he had kept in the bottom drawer of his Pine Street desk.<ref>Osborn, 585.</ref> Reporter ] ran the first article on January 12, 1890, in what would become a series of newspaper debates between Marsh, Powell and Cope.<ref>Osborn, 403.</ref> Cope attacked Marsh for plagiarism and financial mismanagement and attacked Powell for his geological classification errors and misspending of government allocated funds.<ref>Osborn Osborn, 404.</ref> Marsh and Powell were each able to publish their own side of the story and in the end little changed. No congressional hearing was created to investigate the misallocation of funds by Powell and neither Cope nor Marsh was held responsible for any of their mistakes. Marsh was however quickly removed from his position as paleontologist for the government surveys, Cope’s relations with the president of the University of Pennsylvania soured, and the entire funding for paleontology in the government surveys was pulled.<ref>Jaffe, 329.</ref> Cope over the years had kept an elaborate journal of mistakes and misdeeds that both Marsh and John Wesley Powell, head of the U.S. Geological Survey, had committed. From scientific errors to publishing mistakes, he had it all written down in a journal that he had kept in the bottom drawer of his Pine Street desk.<ref>Osborn, 585.</ref> Reporter ] ran the first article on January 12, 1890, in what would become a series of newspaper debates between Marsh, Powell and Cope.<ref>Osborn, 403.</ref> Cope attacked Marsh for plagiarism and financial mismanagement and attacked Powell for his geological classification errors and misspending of government allocated funds.<ref>Osborn Osborn, 404.</ref> Marsh and Powell were each able to publish their own side of the story and in the end little changed. No congressional hearing was created to investigate the misallocation of funds by Powell and neither Cope nor Marsh was held responsible for any of their mistakes. Marsh was however quickly removed from his position as paleontologist for the government surveys, Cope’s relations with the president of the University of Pennsylvania soured, and the entire funding for paleontology in the government surveys was pulled.<ref>Jaffe, 329.</ref>

Revision as of 18:13, 1 August 2008

Edward Drinker Cope (left) and Othniel Charles Marsh's rivalry sparked the Bone Wars.

The Bone Wars is the name given to a period of intense fossil speculation and discovery in the United States during the Gilded Age, fueled by a heated rivalry between paleontologists Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. Both scientists used underhanded methods to out-compete the other in the field, sometimes resorting to bribery and destruction of bones. Cope and Marsh also attacked each other in scientific publications and attempted to ruin the other's credibility.

Their rivalry sparked in part by dinosaur finds in New Jersey, Cope and Marsh's pursuit of bones led them west to rich bone beds in Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Cope and Marsh used their wealth and influence to hire dinosaur hunters to send them fossils. The digging lasted from 1877 to 1892, by which time both men had exhausted their funds.

Both Cope and Marsh were financially and socially ruined by their efforts to disgrace each other, but their contributions to science and the field of paleontology were massive; scientists are still cataloguing Cope and Marsh's finds. The bitter feud between the two men led to over 142 new species of dinosaurs being discovered, and 1,818 species or genera of fossil vertebrates described between them. Not only did the products of the Bone Wars result in an increase in knowledge of ancient life, but the public's interest in dinosaurs was sparked and led to continued fossil excavation in North America in the decades to come.

History

Background

At one time, Cope and Marsh were friends; they even named species after each other. Over time, however, their relations soured, due in part to their temperaments. Cope was known to be pugnacious and possessed a quick temper; Marsh was slower and more methodical, but despite his powerful friends was introverted. In 1870, Marsh had humiliated Cope by pointing out his reconstruction of Elasmosaurus was flawed, with the head placed where the tail should have been. Cope, in turn, began collecting in what Marsh considered his private bone-hunting turf in the Bridger Basin of southwestern Wyoming. Combined with other sleights and humiliations, any pretense of cordiality between the two ended in 1872, and open hostility ensued. The two began attacking each other in papers and publications.

New Jersey

The Bone Wars were triggered in part by the 1858 discovery of the holotype specimen of Hadrosaurus foulkii by William Parker Foulke in the marl pits of Haddonfield, New Jersey. It was the first nearly-complete skeleton of a dinosaur ever found. The skeleton was sent to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, where it was named and described in 1858 by Joseph Leidy, a leading paleontologist of the time.

Edward Drinker Cope worked for Leidy at the time, and soon was working in the marl pits of southwest New Jersey. Together they made a number of discoveries, including the second near-complete skeleton of a dinosaur, a carnivorous Laelaps aquilunguis, in 1866. The two made arrangements for the companies digging up the marl, which was being used as a fertilizer, to send them any fossils they discovered. Cope moved to Haddonfield with his wife and baby daughter to be near the discoveries, and soon rivaled his mentor in fame.

At the time, Marsh was a professor at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, studying fossilized dinosaur tracks in the Connecticut Valley. As the first American professor of paleontology, the discoveries in New Jersey were of particular interest. He visited Cope, whom he knew from the University of Berlin, and was given a tour of the discovery sites. Together they unearthed some new partial skeletons, and departed as friends, but Marsh secretly returned and bribed the marl company managers to report any new finds directly to him.

Como Bluff and the West

In 1870, both mens' attention shifted west, and in 1877, specifically to the Morrison Formation in Kansas, and to Como Bluff, Wyoming, as well as sites in Nebraska and Colorado. At the time, the Transcontinental Railroad was being built through a remote area of Wyoming.

Since both were wealthy — Cope was the scion of a wealthy Quaker family, and Marsh was the nephew of George Peabody, for whom Yale's museum is named — they used their own personal wealth to fund expeditions each summer, and then spent the winter publishing their discoveries. Small armies of fossil hunters in mule-drawn wagons or on trains were soon sending literal tons of fossils back East. The digging lasted fifteen years, from 1877 to 1892.

But their discoveries were accompanied by sensational accusations of spying, stealing workers, stealing fossils, and bribery. Among other things Cope repeatedly accused Marsh of stealing fossils, and was so angry that he stole a train full of Marsh's fossils, and had it sent to Philadelphia. Marsh, in turn, was so determined that he stole skulls from American Indian burial platforms and violated treaties by trespassing on their land. He was also so protective of his fossil sites that he supposedly used dynamite on one to prevent it from falling into Cope's hands.

While Cope and Marsh dueled for fossils in the American West, they also tried their best to ruin each others' professional credibility. Cope's Elasmosaurus error humiliated Cope who tried to cover up his mistake by purchasing every copy he could find of the journal it was published in; Marsh, who pointed out the error in the first place, made sure to publicize the story. Marsh was no more infallible; he put the wrong skull on a skeleton of Apatosaurus and declared it a new genus, Brontosaurus.

Cope over the years had kept an elaborate journal of mistakes and misdeeds that both Marsh and John Wesley Powell, head of the U.S. Geological Survey, had committed. From scientific errors to publishing mistakes, he had it all written down in a journal that he had kept in the bottom drawer of his Pine Street desk. Reporter William Hosea Ballou ran the first article on January 12, 1890, in what would become a series of newspaper debates between Marsh, Powell and Cope. Cope attacked Marsh for plagiarism and financial mismanagement and attacked Powell for his geological classification errors and misspending of government allocated funds. Marsh and Powell were each able to publish their own side of the story and in the end little changed. No congressional hearing was created to investigate the misallocation of funds by Powell and neither Cope nor Marsh was held responsible for any of their mistakes. Marsh was however quickly removed from his position as paleontologist for the government surveys, Cope’s relations with the president of the University of Pennsylvania soured, and the entire funding for paleontology in the government surveys was pulled.

Legacy

By most standards, Marsh won the Bone Wars. Both made finds of incredible scientific value, but while Marsh discovered a total of 86 new species, due in part to his discovery of the Como Bluff site, near Medicine Bow, Wyoming (one of the richest sources of fossils known), Cope only discovered 56. Many of the fossils Cope unearthed were of species that had already been named, or were of uncertain identification, while dinosaurs Marsh discovered included household names such as Triceratops, Allosaurus, Diplodocus, and Stegosaurus; even Cope's most famous discoveries, synapsids and dinosaurs such as Dimetrodon, Camarasaurus, Coelophysis, and Monoclonius were more obscure. But their cumulative discoveries defined the field of paleontology; at the start of the Bone Wars, there were only nine named species of dinosaur in North America; after the Bone Wars, there were around 150 species. Furthermore, some of their ideas -- such as Marsh's argument that birds are descended from dinosaurs -- have been upheld; while others -- such as "Cope's law", which states that over time species tend to get larger -- is viewed as having little to no scientific merit. The Bone Wars also led to the discovery of the first complete skeletons, and the rise in popularity of dinosaurs with the public. As paleontologist Robert Bakker stated:

Nothing like has come since. The dinosaurs that came from not only filled museums, they filled magazine articles, textbooks, they filled people's minds.

Their rivalry lasted until Cope's death in 1897, but by that time they had both run out of money. Marsh got Cope's federal funding cut off (including his funding from the U.S. Geological Survey), and Cope had to sell part of his collection. Marsh in turn had to mortgage his home, and ask Yale for a salary to live on. Cope nonetheless issued a final challenge at his death. He had his skull donated to science so that his brain could be measured, hoping that his brain would be larger than that of his adversary; at the time, it was thought brain size was the true measure of intelligence. Marsh never rose to the challenge, but Cope's skull is still preserved in a museum.

While their collective discoveries helped define the budding new field of study, the race also had some negative effects. Their animosity and public behavior harmed the reputation of American paleontology in Europe for decades. Furthermore, the reported use of dynamite and sabotage by employees of both men destroyed or buried hundreds of potentially critical fossil remains. It will never be known how much their rivalry has damaged our understanding of life forms in the regions which they worked. Joseph Leidy abandoned his own more methodical excavations in the west, finding he could not keep up with Cope and Marsh's reckless search for bones.

Recent excavation of several of Cope and Marsh's sites suggest that some of the damage propagated by the two paleontologists was less than recorded. Using Lakes' field paintings, researchers from the Morrison Natural History Museum discovered that Lakes had not actually dynamited the most productive quarries in Colorado; rather, Lakes had just filled in the site. Museum director Matthew Mossbrucker theorized that Lakes propagated the lie "because he didn't want the competition up at the quarry—playing mind games with Cope's gang. Recently the Bone Wars has been the subject of a graphic novel, Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards, by Jim Ottaviani. Bone Sharps is a work of historical fiction, as Ottaviani introduces the character of Charles R. Knight to Cope for plot purposes, and other events have been restructured. The Bone Wars was featured in more fantastical form, in the book Bone Wars by Brett Davis, which includes aliens also interested in the bones.

Notes

  1. ^ Dodson.
  2. Wilford, 87.
  3. Jaffe, 10.
  4. ^ Bakker.
  5. Jaffe, 15.
  6. Rajewski, 22.
  7. Osborn, 585.
  8. Osborn, 403.
  9. Osborn Osborn, 404.
  10. Jaffe, 329.
  11. Academy of Natural Sciences.
  12. Rajewski, 21.
  13. Mondor.
  14. Waggoner.

References

External links

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