WEBVTT - The Bone Wars, Part 2 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.800 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from house 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:13.880 works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.840 to bling a truck reporting and I and we're continuing 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.400 on here with our discussion of the Bone Wars, which 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.400 are also sometimes known as the Dinosaur Wars or the 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.640 Great Dinosaur Feud. And it's the story of an intense 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:32.200 scientific rivalry between two really talented nineteenth century paleontologists, Edward 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:36.000 Drinker Cope and off Neil Charles Marsh. And they entered 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.640 the field at a time when very few dinosaur species 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.879 were known and competed defined fossils, name the species that 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:46.280 those fossils belonged to, and to be the first to 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:49.720 publish their findings. And in part one of this episode, 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.879 we learned a little bit about Cope and Marsh's backgrounds 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:56.120 and how they got to be paleontologists because they took 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.840 very different paths, as we'll get into a little bit 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.640 more later. And we also talked about how they started 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.560 out as friends, or at least as friendly colleagues or acquaintances. 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.520 I don't know if even their early friendships wud Yeah, 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:13.399 I wouldn't categorize that as a friendship. People do friendly. Yes, 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.399 they were friendly, and uh, we also talked about what 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:20.199 exactly it was that caused this enormous riff to form 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:23.400 between them. Yeah, and when we left them off, Cope 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.679 and Marsh had just started to look west in search 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.520 of fossils. In this episode, though, we're going to be 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.399 talking a bit about what they found out west and 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.840 these sometimes shady tactics that they employed to be the 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.640 first to get credit for their discoveries. We're also going 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.560 to take a look at the more official stage on 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.280 which their battle played out and where it got truly 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.640 truly nasty. But first we want to take a closer 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:51.200 look at who these guys were, because it might help 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:53.880 provide at least a little more insight as to why 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:56.480 they were destined to clash in the first place, the 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.800 clash of the dinosaur hunters. Okay, so we've already talked 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:05.720 about the differences between Cope and Marsha's socio economic backgrounds 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.520 and their educational training, which is kind of where it 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.680 all started. And if you'll recall, Marsh was poor raised 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.800 on a farm until his uncle, George Peabody stepped in 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.400 with the financial support that Marsh needed to go to 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:22.200 prep school. And then onto Yale. And it's Peabody's generous 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:26.040 donation at Marsha's request that also led to the creation 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.959 of a Museum of Natural Sciences at Yale, which was 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:33.320 a move that then helped secure Marsha professorship there and 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:35.799 it created a great resource for him while he was 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.200 hunting for fossils. Yeah, he had the Yale in its corner. 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:43.799 But all of Peabody's support did unfortunately come with a catch. 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.240 According to an article by James Pannic an American Heritage, 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.600 it turned out that Uncle George had a certain stipulation 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:55.799 for anyone named in his will, and that stipulation involved marriage. 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:58.640 When he was twenty five and a freshman at Yale, 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.399 marsh received eaved a letter from his aunt indicating this stipulation, 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.840 and it read quote, if any of his nephews should 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:10.680 in any way conduct himself as to disgrace themselves and 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.560 him or now mine this, should any of them form 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.840 a marriage connection or even get engaged before they had 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.840 the means of supporting a family, they should never have 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.959 a cent of his money. He desired me to communicate 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:28.440 this to all his nephews. Yeah, and apparently there was 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.520 one other nephew who had gotten cut out of the 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.520 will for marrying too soon, so Peabody was serious about 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:38.560 put to the test. By the time March was financially independent, 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.240 he was well into his thirties, so Pennett kind of 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.240 suggests maybe he was too set in his ways to 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.960 marry at that point, or you know, just wasn't inclined 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.080 to do so, or just that he had this strange 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.920 break on his life until he could be financially independent. 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.480 He had some other friendly sort of issues though, Yeah, 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.440 just basically the issue was he didn't have many friends. 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.960 According to an article by Tom Huntington in American History, 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:09.000 people found Marsh to be quote autocratic and petty and 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.480 accused him of taking credit for the work of his 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:16.000 assistance and for falling behind on paying his employees, never 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.000 a good move. At one of his clubs, they apparently 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.920 nicknamed him quote the Great dismal Swamp. That's a bad sign. 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.560 He doesn't do well with the nicknames. No, she really doesn't, 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:30.000 except for the bone wars that one is. It's a 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:34.120 pretty great nickname for his rivalry. Cope, on the other hand, 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.320 came from a very different kind of background, which we 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:39.880 discussed on the on the last podcast. It was a 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.200 more privileged beginning, if you remember in the last episode. 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.880 Though he didn't have a lot of formal education. He 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.719 was self taught and he was a part of this 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.600 whole gentleman's world of natural science that existed in the 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.400 nineteenth century. Deblina and I were talking about it earlier, 0:04:55.440 --> 0:05:00.040 how it just fascinates us that gentleman would choose to 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.400 to science in some form, and there's something very romantic 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:05.520 about it. I mean, we both talked about how it's 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:09.120 just there's something very ideal. A little troubling too, because 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.240 it ends up with you end up with personal disputes 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:16.919 like this. But um Cope was considered to be very brilliant, 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:20.240 considered to be a prodigy, and his life was also 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:22.599 very different from marsh Is on a personal level too. 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.440 We mentioned that he was married, he had a wife, 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:29.240 he had a daughter named Julia. Unlike marsh to Cope 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.560 was pretty charming. The friends he had seemed to really 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:36.320 like him, really care for him, although they would agree 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.640 that he could kind of be arrogant sometimes he could 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:44.960 be quick tempered. According to Huntington's article, paleontologist William Berryman Scott, 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:48.120 who took Cope side in the war with Marsh instead 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.880 of Cope Quote, despite his greatness in some measure, indeed 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:56.120 because of it, he had some unfortunate personal peculiarities. Was 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:00.400 pugnacious and quarrelsome and made many enemies, so many enemies, 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.920 many friends, no friends on the other side, kind of 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.640 unusual guys. So when we last left off of our story, 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.080 Cope had kind of broken the mold of those gentlemen 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:14.720 naturalists that we were describing. They usually waited for things 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:16.800 to be sent to them to study. They didn't actually 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.000 go out on these great expeditions. They limit their study 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:24.320 to the comfort of their own home exactly. And Cope, 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:28.000 like Marsh, went out to hunt fossils, but he had 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.400 a different way of traveling from Marsh. We mentioned how 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.920 Marsh went out with this entourage and had guides in 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:39.159 a military escort. Cope did not have a resource like 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:41.840 Yale behind him, so he didn't have all these graduate 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:44.799 assistants to come with him, so he often put together 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.760 teams for his expeditions when he got wherever he was going. Also, 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:52.880 since Cope was a Quaker, he really used a military 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.240 escort because he was a pacifist, and he pretty much 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.960 refused to carry a revolver, which a lot of people 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.119 thought was crazy because of the threat of hostile Native 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.960 American tribes out west, among other things. Yeah, Bandit Taiwan, 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:08.360 then all sorts of of risks he might come across, 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:12.800 not to mention just the wildlife Pentually, um Cope did 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.880 things his way, though, and he was very tough about it. 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.240 Panic relates how Cope would read the Bible every night, 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:21.240 even when he was out in the field, and if 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.320 others in his camp would would laugh at him, he'd 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.720 sort of stare them down until they would just uh 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:31.160 straightened up, you know, stop laughing, stop making fun of him. 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.640 Cope and Marsh did both have successes in the field 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.160 that we've kind of described the way they carried about 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.960 their expeditions, but they did both have successes though Marsh, 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:44.720 of course, with his official Yale connection and his Peabody 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.880 inheritance at his disposal, did have more resources to throw 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:53.720 at the situation. However, both to some extent, Cope especially 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.600 or reliant on being associated with one of several geological 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.360 surveys of the West that were going on at the time. 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:02.840 It was kind of an official backing almost Yeah. Being 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.520 involved with these surveys provided economic support for their work 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.960 and a vehicle for publishing their findings, and this becomes 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.000 important later in our story as well. So just kind 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.880 of remember that. We talked a little in the last 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:18.480 podcast also about how Marsh and Cope started going at 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.280 each other mostly by way of letters after their initial 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:25.080 expeditions out west, when they started really competing in a 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:29.200 sense for fossil finds out there. But they really launched 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:33.480 into full scale warfare in eighteen seventy seven when Arthur Lakes, 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.360 who was a mining teacher, wrote to Marsh saying that 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.240 he discovered some fossils near Morris in Colorado. Now Marsh 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:44.480 didn't reply, so Lakes said, well, okay, I want to 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:46.960 do something with these, so he sent some samples to Cope. 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.720 When Marsh heard that, though he sent Lakes some cash 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:52.280 to win him over, he was like, well, I don't 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.880 want Cope to get these. After that, after getting that cash, 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.160 Lakes asked Cope to please send back his samples so 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:01.480 that he could work with the Marsh And according to 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:05.040 Huntington's part of what Marsh found among Lake's initial find 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:09.280 were the remains the first remains of the Stegosaurus around 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:13.720 the time. The same time, too, another teacher named O. W. 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:18.600 Lucas also found some fossils in Colorado. He contacted Cope 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.560 first about it, and Cope jumped at the chance to 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:25.760 to check out the fossils. Overall, according to Huntington's, Cope's 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.720 Colorado finds actually turned out to be better than marshes 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.320 because they were bigger and they could be taken out 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:35.120 of the surrounding rock without breaking them. Marsh, of course, 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.760 so did come out on top in other situations. In 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:42.560 the summer of eighteen seventy seven, for example, two railway 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.680 workers in Como, Wyoming named William Reid and W. E. 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:51.199 Carlin contacted Marsh about some fossils that they had discovered 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:54.920 as a site known as Como Bluff, and marshal course 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:57.640 and his bone collectors out there. They ended up gathering 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:02.120 thirty tons of fossils from the Jurassic Age and shipped 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.400 all the stuff back to Marsh at Yale. And it 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:06.800 was very high quality, you know, large bones. It was 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.160 well preserved. The result of of Marcia's investigation of this 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:12.560 fine too, really speaks to how high quality it was. 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:18.319 He discovered several new species and named um the Allosaurus, 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:24.040 the Diplodocus, the Camptosaurus, all from those Como bluff fine 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:29.559 and also notably he named the Brontosaurus out of those fines, 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.800 one of the world's best known dinosaurs, and Sara doutis 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:37.800 favorite dinosaur. I should mention interesting, though, that the naming 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.440 of Brontosaurus is actually considered one of Marcia's biggest mistakes. 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:46.040 After he died, scientists realized that the creature Marcia named 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.760 Brontosaurus was just another example of a dinosaur Marsh had 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:54.120 already named the Patosaurus, so the designation Brontosaurus was taken 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:58.560 away obviously, though that's kind of an enduring yes. So 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.880 it's probably clear by now that Cope and Marsh often 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:05.679 weren't the ones actually digging in the ground, collecting fossils, 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.559 or even supervising digs themselves, Hence all the talk of 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:12.920 sending bones back east to them. They accomplished a lot 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.760 of what they did through the help of bone collectors. 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.720 Cope and Marsh would occasionally visit the dig sites, but 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.120 the fossil collectors were sort of the foot soldiers in 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.240 this battle that they were waging against each other. Too. 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.520 There really was a lot of taking sides. Reid took 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.880 Marsh's side and became a major collector for him. Well, 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:37.480 Carlin switched over to Cope side, Lucas remained on Cope side, 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:41.520 while Lakes stuck with Marsh. I was surprised by Lucas, 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:43.880 I think, since he sort of got slighted at the 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.440 beginning by Marsh. But I guess I was okay, might 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.000 have been better. Yeah, I mean that means a lot. 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:54.840 It does. Occasionally though, according to Huntington, again, the two 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:59.040 peontologists would try to woo each other's collectors away from 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:01.880 the other. Um. I don't know if they were attempting 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.880 them with better publication of the works or money all 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:08.120 the time. But that wasn't the most extreme of the 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.000 tactics used in this war. I mean that already sounds 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.280 a little bit dicey. But they also spied on each other. 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:18.120 Marsh at least would even communicate in code with his 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.880 collectors to try to keep Cope from figuring out what 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:24.400 he was up to, what his bone collectors were up to. 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:29.720 They referred to Cope as Jones in this Sneaky correspondence, 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.240 and one of Marsha's guys was so paranoid about Cope 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:35.880 spying on him that when a man showed up at 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:38.720 their camp one day in eighteen seventy eight, he asked 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.800 for a handwriting sample in case it was Cope in disguise. 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:46.640 He was so suspicious. So I guess they were right 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.200 to worry, though, because Cope really did charm his way 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.599 into one of Marsha's camps in eighteen seventy nine, probably 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.440 to woo some team members over to his side, or 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.800 just to steal information outright. But the funny thing was 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:05.400 Marsha's men really liked Cope. According to Huntington's article, Lakes 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:08.760 later wrote of the incident that Cope quote entertained his 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.520 party by singing comic songs with a refrain at the 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.600 end like the howl of coyote, and Lakes went on 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.520 to observe quote. I must say that when I saw 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.160 of him, I liked very much. His manner is so 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.880 affable in his conversation, very agreeable. I only wish I 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:27.480 could feel sure he had a sound reputation for honesty. 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:33.800 Maybe not. According to an article by Renee Clary, James Wandersie, 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:38.480 and Amy Capernelli in Science Scope, March was said to 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.400 have planted unrelated fossils at some of Cope's dig sites 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.319 to slow down his progress too. So it's not just 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:50.640 invading the other guy's camp and the reputation for honesty there, well, 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.000 I mean that that takes it to another level. So um, 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.199 tampering with the with the science essentially, Yeah, I mean, 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.800 and that was the really shocking part of Cope and 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:02.760 Marks's tactics is that they just they went beyond trying 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.920 to harm and hinder each other in their efforts. They 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.080 actually may have harmed the field itself from maybe even 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:13.920 hindered scientific progress in some cases. For example, if March's 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.120 guy read unearthed more bones than he could use, he 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:20.560 smashed them so that Carlin couldn't get to them. Marsh 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.680 is also said to have ordered that certain sites be 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:27.360 blown up with dynamite to keep Cope from getting to 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.800 the fossils, although, according to a two thousand eight article 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.640 by gen Viev Jiski, at least when it comes to 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.920 one of the sites that was supposedly blown up, Quary ten, 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.880 which is in Morris Some, Colorado, those allegations are false. 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.760 Some researchers found Quarry ten in two thousand two using 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:50.200 Lakes's field notes and determined that Lakes probably just shoved 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.720 some dirt in there and then said he dynamited it 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.120 to discourage the competition from checking it out. The way 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.640 I sort of read that though, is maybe he had 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:02.000 his history of dynamite things already established. Though if people 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:04.480 were going to believe that could be well. It may 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:06.680 have been out west that some of the more colorful 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.760 war tactics were used by these two. As we hinted 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.080 in the previous episode, the really decisive battleground for the 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:16.480 Bone Wars turned out to be Washington, d c. And 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.960 this is where Marsh really pulled ahead, because even though 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.280 he wasn't winning any popularity contests, he was much savvier 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.000 when it came to politics than Cope. Was. The first 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.440 development that really set the ball rolling for Marsh had 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.560 to do with those surveys out west that we talked 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.560 about earlier in the late eighteen seventies early eighteen eighties 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.520 or so, Congress, upon the advice of the National Academy 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.880 of Sciences, which by the way, was an organization which 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:46.080 Marsh had become president of, decided to do away with 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:50.680 all of the existing competing geological surveys and create just 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.640 one national geological survey to replace them. They decided to 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:59.160 call it the United States Geological Survey, and the former 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.040 head of one of the defunct surveys Marsh had been 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:06.520 affiliated with, was named as the director. Uh So, soon 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:11.360 Marsh became the official vertebrate paleontologist of the United States 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:15.800 Geological Survey. Not too surprising there, if if he's the 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.840 head of the National Academy of Sciences already, he knows 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.640 the new head of the Geological Survey. Uh. I mean, 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.720 he was certainly at this point winning the feud in 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.480 terms of political clout in the science world, in terms 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:33.440 of how his career was progressing. When Cope lost that 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:37.440 government support, it really devastated his research too, and his 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:41.160 publication efforts. He just didn't have any funding anymore, and 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.640 his personal wealth, which he had also put toward his 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.760 efforts in paleontology over all these years, was starting to 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.800 dry up. Cope, looking for a get rich quick sort 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.040 of scheme, tried to make up for it by investing 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.920 in a silver mine in New Mexico, but that turned 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.440 out to be a bust. He lost everything, and uh 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:04.560 it really seemed at this point where that there was 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:07.600 a clear winner and loser in this feud, but that 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.280 didn't seem to be enough for Marsh. He took things 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:14.560 a step further and tried to have Cope's fossils confiscated, 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:18.639 claiming that they had been collected with government funds. Cope 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.280 completely denied this. He said that he had used his 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.760 own money to collect the fossils. And then he decided 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.600 to fight back against Marsh and the only way that 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.160 he could at that point, and that was through the press. 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:32.600 He approached a writer for the New York Herald and 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:35.479 told that writer basically every bad thing that he had 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.440 ever thought or heard about Marsh, and this kicked off 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:42.080 a very public, very brutal battle of words between Cope 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.919 and Marsh that was splashed all over the pages of 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.280 the New York Herald between January twelfth, eighteen eighty in 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:53.679 January eighteen eighty under headlines like scientists wage bitter warfare. 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.600 And they went way back in their relationship too. They 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:00.840 weren't just considering the last few years as their at 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.520 their ammo um. They went back to the beginning. According 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.520 to hunting Kin's article, Cope said things like Marsh was quote, 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:13.400 unable to properly classify and name the fossils his explorers secured. 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.200 It's pretty damning. Uh. He said that Marsh took credit 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.679 for his assistance work, and he also accused Marsh and 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.199 the U S Geological Survey of corruption and Mithews of 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:28.160 government funds, which is pretty key here. For his part, 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.280 Marsh brought up how Cope rushed to get his discoveries 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:34.320 into print, you know, before they were ready, often making 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.040 errors in the process. He also brought up that embarrassing 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:42.720 mistake with the elasmosaur, among other things. We discussed that 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.439 in the in the last podcast, flipping the head and 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.439 tail of the dinosaur and then having Marsh be the 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:53.359 one to point it out. This newspaper feud didn't last long, 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.280 but it was really damaging to both of their reputation, 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.840 so nobody won. In this instance, Cope struggled to find 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:03.399 a buyer for his massive fossil collection because he needed 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:05.920 the money. Eventually he could only sell part of it, 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.399 and then he hit the lecture circuit and tried to 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.320 secure a paying position at a college. He didn't have 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:14.600 that backing behind him that Marsh had at Yale. I 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.280 think I saw him described in one spot as a 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:22.320 rogue rogue scientist or a rogue paleontologist, and now he 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.560 has all this bad press out too exactly, so doubly 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.360 he he just doesn't have anyone to go to at 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.480 that point. It just proved to be really tough to 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.119 find a pain position. According to Panix article. He finally 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.200 got a position though, and a small salary, at the 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.920 University of Pennsylvania in eighteen eighty nine, and he turned 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:42.840 out to be a pretty good teacher. But of course 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.280 that wasn't his life school, that's not what he had 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:49.239 really wanted. He died in eight of renal failure at 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:54.000 age fifty six according to PBS, and not right away, 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:57.440 but in a couple of years. Congress did investigate the 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.399 u S geological surveys use of funds and ended up 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.640 cutting their funding and completely doing away with the Department 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:07.600 of Paleontology. Marsh was forced to resign, and for the 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.560 first time he had to accept a salary from Yale. 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:15.400 He died of pneumonia in eighteen nine, two years after Marsh, 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.199 at the age of sixty seven. He only had a 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.200 hundred and eighty six dollars in his bank account. When 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:24.200 he died of all that Peabody money that had come 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.520 to him. His collection ended up in the Smithsonian and 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.399 at Yale, and part of Cope's collection ended up at 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:33.480 the American Museum of Natural History. That's like, those are 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:36.720 the two or the three winners in the story. I 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.080 think the places in us too. You know that we 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:43.159 can go see them today. Yeah, and that there's this 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.600 interesting story for us to look into. But looking at 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.080 this result there doesn't really seem to be like a 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.960 winner at the end. Neither of these guys seemed to 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:54.239 really come out on top. But of course they were 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.920 both very accomplished overall, and they both made major contributions 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:01.160 to science. If you stuck up some of their accomplishments 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:03.119 those side by side, what does it look like? We 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:04.960 wanted to take a look at that, So first we'll 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.560 look at the naming part of it. Well, March seemed 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.960 to win when it came to naming dinosaur species. He 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:14.560 named eighty six out of thet some odd ones that 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.879 they named. Total. Cope published war though according to Science Scope, 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.640 his record of twelve hundred publications is still unbeaten. Wow, 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.119 I mean, I guess that is not too surprising he 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.800 won that side of the battle. Um Marsh notably provided 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:32.000 evidence for the theory of evolution, to which Darwin himself 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:35.359 called quote the best support of the theory of evolution 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:40.000 at the time. Um He found thirty specimens, for example, 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.439 that allowed him to outline the evolutionary history of the horse, 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:50.080 and he recognized similarities of the modern bird in extinct dinosaurs. Cope, 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.160 on the other hand, because of his religious convictions, probably 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.960 didn't support Darwin's theory. But as science Scope points out, 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.199 he's known for Cope's rule, which is the observation that 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.440 organisms of a species tend to get larger over time 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.880 than the fossil records. So it just depends on what 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.240 you're judging them by, which one of them one. Yeah, 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:12.760 and and it certainly made me wonder too how much 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.720 they accomplished because they did have the other one they're 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.840 competing and egging him on, or whether they could have 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.719 accomplished more if they had worked in better concert together 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:27.240 than they did, not trying to sabotage each other's work 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:30.920 as much. No, but it's interesting, just another tidbit here. 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:35.359 Their competition continued a little bit even after the grave, 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:39.679 about a century after Cope's death, national geographic photographer Luis 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:43.720 Sahoyo Scott cope skull from the University of Pennsylvania. Cope 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:47.080 had willed his body to science, so this was available, 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:49.320 and he took the skull with him as he traveled 0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:52.520 around the world interviewing paleontologists for a book, and he 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:56.000 referred to the skull as he was doing this as Eddie. Later, 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:59.240 he and paleontologist Robert Baker tried to have cope skull 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:01.680 named as the hype specimen, which means that it would 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:04.200 have been the standard of a species to which all 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:06.479 others are compared. He wanted to have it named as 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:09.520 a type specimen for Homo sapiens, but it turned out 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:12.560 that the late botanist Careless Linnaeus had already been named 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:15.960