Dinosaur hunter Edward Drinker Cope studied briefly at Penn in his youth BONEand ended his WARRIORdays as a faculty member at the University.

In between, the impulsive and driven scholar churned out more than 1,400 scientific publications— and exchanged many harsh words—in an epic battle with his more methodical rival, Othniel Charles Marsh of Yale, for primacy in the nascent field of paleontology.

BY DENNIS DRABELLE

ard on the heels of the California precocious Edward found himself drawn of 18 he had a part-time job there. A year Gold Rush and the Comstock to the natural sciences in a favorable later, he racked up his first scholarly H Lode Silver Rush came the place and time—Philadelphia was a sci- publication, and not even his father’s Great Plains Bone War. At stake in the entific mecca, newly discovered fossils gift of a farm could dissuade the young Bone War were dinosaur fossils, not ore, were adding years by the tens of mil- man from pursuing a scientific career. but what the struggle lacked in glitter it lions to the Earth’s age, and Darwin was In either 1860-61 or 1861-62 (the evidence made up for in intensity and vitriol, sup- honing his theory of evolution in is ambiguous), he attended Penn, where plied by two paleontologists locked in advance of its release—but Alfred had he is known to have studied comparative bitter rivalry: Othniel Charles Marsh, a a different future mapped out for his anatomy with the famous Joseph Leidy longtime professor at Yale, and Edward son: gentleman farmer. Edward attend- M1844, professor of anatomy and found- Drinker Cope, an independent scholar ed a Quaker day school and then board- er and head of the Department of Biol- who in his last years taught at Penn. ed at Westtown School near West Ches- ogy at the University. Cope’s formal edu- Marsh and Cope’s drawn-out race to ter, Pennsylvania. Writing home to his cation ended at this point, though with- unearth, describe, classify, and claim parents, the 12-year-old schoolboy mar- out adverse effect on his progress. To his intellectual property rights to dinosaurs shaled cunning, charm, and self-knowl- job at the ANS he added one as a research- was characterized by spying, dirty tricks, edge in a way that could hardly have er in herpetology at the Smithsonian turncoats, and mutual accusations in failed to get him what he wanted: “that Institution in Washington. the gutter press. Today dinosaurs are the Quarter dollar is not gone by any means, His father sent Edward off to the safe- domesticated stuff of kids’ fantasies; a I only begin to ask soon, as I thought ty of Europe for what proved to be the century-and-a-half ago, the beasts drove some more might be hard to get … for last two years of the Civil War. The young grown men to act like children. when a boy is hungry money is nothing, man used his freedom to immerse him- Edward Drinker Cope sprang from the food must be had.” self more deeply in science. It was during Philadelphia establishment: his Quak- When in Philadelphia, Cope frequent- this period, Marsh later recalled, that er father, Alfred, was co-owner of a pros- ed the Academy of Natural Sciences, the future combatants first met, in Ber- perous shipping firm. Born in 1840, the becoming such a fixture that by the age lin—and hit it off. At the time, according

62 MARCH | APRIL 2017 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE ILLUSTRATIONS BY DAVID HOLLENBACH THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MARCH | APRIL 2017 63 to Mark Jaffe in his book The Gilded up his findings and submitted them to and teeth had been overlooked, that they Dinosaur: The Fossil War Between E.D. the American Philosophical Society, went together, and that he’d found a new Cope and O.C. Marsh and the Rise of which had printed and disseminated dinosaur species, which he duly wrote American Science, Marsh “had two uni- advance copies. Cope scurried to retrieve up. Later it came out that he’d been versity degrees, but only two published these, but a few got away. tricked. One of Marsh’s Yale colleagues, scientific papers. While Cope had no Over the years, Marsh kept Cope’s error James Dwight Dana, called Cope “a man degrees, he had already published thirty- alive by dragging it into almost every phase of great learning & ability and were he seven scientific papers.” of their burgeoning feud—the scholarly not in so burning haste would always do Back home in 1865, Cope landed a equivalent of poking a sore. (Ultimately, splendid work.” teaching position at Haverford College, however, Marsh made what was arguably Kansas was also the site of the feud’s a Quaker institution, probably thanks a worse mistake: he matched a dinosaur ugly nadir. Years after the event, the to string-pulling by his dad. In 1866, body with the wrong head, thereby bollix- paleontologist Samuel Williston, who Edward was elected a member of the ing up the taxonomy of two species.) had defected from Marsh’s team to American Philosophical Society, whose Cope’s, wrote Cope a letter of confession. journal became a favorite venue for his With the American West opened up by Marsh had ordered the destruction of paleontological articles, some of them the transcontinental railroad in 1869, certain fossil fields—in one instance by on an early specialty of his: fossil fish. Cope and Marsh began making summer setting off dynamite—to keep Cope from The young professor married a distant forays to the fossil fields of Kansas, having a go at them, and Williston had cousin, Annie Pim; their only child, a Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and else- carried out one of these orders. “It is daughter, was born in 1866. After Cope where, typically as advisers to federal necessary for me to say,” he concluded, gave up his teaching post in 1867, the fam- geological surveys. They soon clashed “I only despised him for it.” ily moved to Haddonfield, New Jersey, to over issues of territory and primacy. Other colleagues and agents fell out be near local fossil deposits in which he’d As Keith Thomson explains in The Leg- with Marsh, too, sometimes over his hog- already discovered what was only the sec- acy of the Mastodon: The Golden Age of ging of credit, sometimes over his slow- ond known American dinosaur skeleton Fossils in America, by the mid-19th cen- ness in paying their salaries. But it would (the first had been found by Leidy). Cope’s tury North America had earned a reputa- be wrong to depict Marsh as an out-and- farm was making money, which his father tion as “a huge open textbook for the dis- out knave. Much to his credit, he stood supplemented with infusions of cash. covery of the geological structure of the up for the Sioux when they were being Marsh, meanwhile, had joined the fac- earth and its ancient inhabitants.” The cheated by unscrupulous federal Indian ulty of Yale, his alma mater—a tie that book was huge and open, all right, but also agents. While working nearby deposits, strengthened when his rich uncle donat- divided into far-flung chapters, making Marsh learned of the corruption from ed the money for what became Yale’s fossil-bearing strata coveted workplaces. Red Cloud himself and promised to bring Peabody Museum of Natural History. Even by train, travel to a promising locale it up with President Grant. Marsh kept The first hitch in the Cope-Marsh friend- was costly and time-consuming, as were that promise, pressing the case so hard ship occurred in 1867, when Marsh got preserving, packing, and shipping fossils that both the commissioner of Indian his hands on the remains of an ancient back East for study. Just as a prospector affairs and his boss, the secretary of the aquatic lizard from a New Jersey dig. He for gold or silver would call dibs on the interior, had to resign. named it Mosasaurus copeanus, but the area of his strike, so paleontologists devel- honor failed to assuage Cope’s sense of oped a first-on-the-scene possessiveness. lfred Cope died in 1875, leaving being scooped in his own backyard. The difference was that while the miner Edward roughly a quarter of a A year later, Cope made a costly blun- had recourse to laws that would protect Amillion dollars (about $5.4 mil- der. An army surgeon in Kansas sent the his investment and effort, the scientist did lion today). This allowed him to mount disarticulated skeleton of a “sea serpent” not. If Paleontologist A digs into a hillside his own expeditions without subordinat- to the ANS. Cope put the creature togeth- and Paleontologist B comes along, what ing himself to government surveyors. er literally ass-backwards, giving it an were the ethics? How much clearance was It was at this flush moment that Charles extremely long tail when, in fact, it had A entitled to? There were no easy answers Sternberg came along. As a teenager, had an extremely long neck. When Marsh to such questions. Sternberg had explored the badlands of came to town, Cope invited him to have The methodical Marsh went to work western Kansas, where the family had a look. Marsh noticed the mistake and in Kansas and Wyoming but was slow to moved from upstate New York so that pointed it out. Cope stood his ground, publish his findings. The speedy Cope the father, a minister, could run a Luther- and Leidy was called in to referee. The felt free to double-check formations his an college. Charles soon realized he had story goes that Leidy issued his verdict rival had moved on from, and then to a gift for reading landscapes and picking by silently picking up the head fragment rush what he discovered there into out fossils. Ignoring his father’s protests and walking 35 feet to the creature’s print—a habit Marsh viewed as poaching. that this was no way to make a living, other end, where he put the fragment On one occasion Marsh’s men went so the young man tried to catch on with back down. The mistake might have been far as to plant a skull and unrelated teeth Marsh’s 1876 expedition, but the last finessed if Cope, in a hurry to get on the in a site they were leaving. When Cope opening was already filled. As Sternberg scoreboard again, hadn’t already written came along, he assumed that the skull recalled in his high-spirited memoir The

64 MARCH | APRIL 2017 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Life of a Fossil Hunter, he sat down and on pushing ahead. He called it right; his black and treacherous defiles, where a “put my soul” into a letter to Cope, apply- party was not interfered with. single misstep meant certain death.” ing to be his fossil scout and requesting They found plenty of fossils, but what The implacable Cope dismounted and a $300 grubstake. stands out most from that season in the led the way. “He had to cut a stick to shove “I like the style of your letter,” Cope field is Cope’s stubbornness. One night in front of him, as his eyes could not pen- wrote back, enclosing a check for $300. in October, trying to reach the last sched- etrate the darkness a single inch ahead. I It was the start of a beautiful partnership. uled steamboat of the year, Cope and cut another [stick] to punch along his The Life of a Fossil Hunter offers a lively company drew up above a gorge that horse, which did not want to follow him. portrait of the impulsive and driven Cope. yawned between them and the Missouri Sometimes when we had climbed down That summer, he and Sternberg and their River. Cope decreed that they must reach several hundred feet, the end of the Profes- crew set out for Montana a few weeks after the rendezvous point, on an island below, sor’s stick would encounter only air, and Custer’s debacle on the Little Big Horn. that same night. a handful of stones thrown ahead would Naturally, Cope was urged to give the Sioux “I knew the uselessness of trying to be heard to strike the earth far below. Then a wide berth, but on the theory that white combat his iron will,” Sternberg wrote, we had to turn and climb back through the Americans’ outrage over the Last Stand “but I pleaded with him against the folly deep dust to the top, and circling a canyon, had left the Sioux in disarray, he insisted of trying to thread in the darkness those plunge down the other side.”

THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MARCH | APRIL 2017 65 They got down safely, but you can almost As Cope and Marsh leveled charges and How Osborn became Cope’s friend, and hear Sternberg gulp as he wraps up his counter-charges in learned journals, not Marsh’s, tells us something about the anecdote: “I have never known another their rhetoric turned acidic, as the fol- two older men. While Osborn was a senior man who would have attempted this jour- lowing examples attest. at Princeton, he and a classmate had ney. It was both foolhardy and useless, but Marsh: “[Cope’s errors] are without approached Marsh for advice in planning we could say that we accomplished what parallel in the annals of science.” their own dinosaur-hunting expedition no one else ever had in reaching Cow Island Cope: “It is plain that most of Prof. in the summer of 1877. Marsh brushed through the Bad Lands after dark.” Marsh’s criticisms are misrepresenta- them off, so they turned to Cope—who Cope’s willfulness had combined with tions, his systematic innovations are assumed they were in cahoots with Marsh overwork, bad food, and alkaline water to untenable, and his statements as to the and gave them the same treatment. When plague him with nightmares that summer. dates of my paper are either criminally Cope discovered his error, however, he “Every animal of which we had found ambiguous or untrue.” made an about-face, giving Osborn access traces during the day played with him at The editors of one journal had enough. to his collections and even traveling to night,” Sternberg recalled, “tossing him They announced that further rounds of Princeton to help the young men sort into the air, kicking him, trampling upon the bout would be consigned to appen- through the fossils they’d brought back. him. When I waked him, he would thank dices which the two boxers themselves Thirteen years later, Osborn was a ris- me cordially and lie down to another would have to fund. Cope and Marsh paid ing star (he eventually became president attack. Sometimes he would lose half the up and went on slugging. of the American Natural History Muse- night in this exhausting slumber. But the Things were no better out in the field. In um in New York). So when he came to next morning he would lead the party, the late 1870s you could have found Cope Philadelphia to plead Cope’s case, Pepper and be the last to give up at night. I have and company at work surrounded by listened—and resisted Marsh’s blackmail never known a more wonderful example Marsh’s men in the Como Bluff region of attempt, if indeed it was made. Cope kept of the will’s power over the body.” Wyoming. That was one of the sites where his job. Following its public airing, the For all his frenzies, Cope evidently spying allegedly took place (based on his Bone War cooled down, but Cope and knew how to relax. Sternberg spent the description, one snoop might have been Marsh never reconciled. winter of 1876-77 with the Copes, first Sternberg, although he says nothing about Cope needed his Penn job. He’d spent in Haddonfield, then in Philadelphia, spying in his book). Both principals were much of his inheritance on acquiring where they moved into a pair of adjoining now cranking out articles based on scanty fossils and squandered the rest on bad houses at 21st and Pine streets. “I shall information and battling over such nice- mining investments. He’d also overtaxed never forget those Sunday dinners,” ties as whether a detailed telegram quali- his wife’s patience; they lived apart dur- Sternberg wrote. “The food was plain, fied as a scientific publication. The result, ing the last years of his life. but daintily cooked, and the Professor’s according to 20th-century paleontologists When he died in 1897, at age 56, of a conversation was a feast in itself. He had David Berman and John McIntosh, was gastrointestinal illness, Cope had more a wonderful power of putting profes- “confusion and misconception about the than 1,400 scientific publications to his sional matters from his mind when he animals [Cope and Marsh] described that credit, five times as many as Marsh. left his study, and coming out ready to lasted long after their deaths.” Although Cope named “only” 56 dino- enter into any kind of merrymaking. He Unseemly as the brawling was, it had saurs compared to Marsh’s 86, most of used to sit with sparkling eyes, telling been mostly confined to the small world their peers considered Cope the more story after story, while we laughed at his of natural scientists. But in 1890 Cope brilliant thinker of the two. Besides his sallies until we could laugh no more.” went public, feeding his grievances to a finds, he is remembered for Cope’s Rule, Sternberg went on to collect fossils for freelance journalist named William which hypothesizes that as species many other scientists, Marsh included, Hosea Ballou, who sold a story on the evolve they tend to grow in size. (For and sold his finds to museums in New subject to the scandal-mongering New more on Cope and evolution, see “Dar- York, London, and Berlin. But he singled York Herald. “SCIENTISTS WAGE BITTER winism Comes to Penn,” Nov|Dec 2009.) out his work for Cope as his “most valu- WARFARE,” the piece was headlined. Cope could probably have gotten away able service to science.” The furious Marsh gave Ballou his side with coasting through his years as a of the controversy, and Ballou happily Penn professor. But that was not the he Bone War escalated. To Cope, wrote more articles. By then Cope was Cope way. “His memory was rich and Marsh was an imperious plodder; teaching at Penn—first geology, later accurate,” Osborn recalled, “and in addi- Tto Marsh, Cope was a grabby pres- comparative anatomy—and Marsh tion to his regular class work he fash- tige-hound. Marsh accused Cope of back- demanded that the University’s provost, ioned his varied experiences into instruc- dating his work so as to be recognized as William Pepper C1862 M1864, fire Cope tive and entertaining lectures … When the discoverer of species; Cope hotly for spreading libels. It was rumored that Cope began his courses … he soon dis- denied this. Since being first to describe Marsh had something scandalous on covered that his theories and materials a species entitled one to name it, some Pepper, which Marsh threatened to were far in advance of any text-book … creatures went by two names—one given expose if he didn’t get his way. Cope was he set about writing his own.”◆ by Cope and one by Marsh—until neutral worried enough to ask his protégé Henry Dennis Drabelle G’66 L’69 is the author, most recently, third parties sorted things out. Fairfield Osborn to intercede. of The Great American Railroad War.

66 MARCH | APRIL 2017 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE