the centenary of othniel charles marsh

The Centenary of Othniel Charles MarshAuthor(s): Richard S. LullSource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Jan., 1932), pp. 94-96Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/15166 .

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OTHNIEL, CHARLES MARSH



THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 95

THE CENTENARY OF OTHNIEL CHARLES MARSH

AT the recent meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, at Yale Univer- sity, very proper recognition was made of the centenary of one of America 's most famous men of science, Othniel Charles Marsh.

Marsh was born on October 29, 1831, at Lockport, New York. He was edu- eated in the schools of Lockport and the Wilson Collegiate Institute, at Wilson, New York, in surroundings replete with minerals and fossils, which in turn gave the initial trend to his tastes and stimu- lated his lifelong passion for collecting everything that could possibly be of in- terest in nature and in art. Marsh 's further training was at Phillips Acad- emy, at Andover, where he prepared for Yale. Graduating from Yale College in 1860, he spent the next two years in graduate work at the Sheffield Scientific School, followed by three years of study abroad, at Berlin, Heidelberg and Bres- lau, where he came in contact with some of the master minds of scientific Europe. With this educational background, Marsh was ready to fill the first chair of paleontology ever established, which he ,did with eminence, from 1866 until his death in 1899. Marsh's work, however, was not professorial in the pedagogical sense; rather was he a collector and in- vestigator whose researches had a far higher educational value-due to their -world-wide appeal-than is often true of direct classroom instruction.

The material enumerated in Marsh 's deed of gift, when on January first, 1898, he presented his collections to Yale University, included the following: vertebrate fossils, fossil footprints, in- v-ertebrate fossils, recent osteology, American archeology and ethnology and minerals, and shows the range of objects wvhich his acquisitiveness prompted him to secure. Beside these there were fossil plants, and, in his residence, which to- gether with its contents was later willed

to Yale, there were paintings, and numerous examples of J apanese and other forms of art, as well as a rare col- lection of living orchids and the very ex- tenisive series of trees and shrubs which beautified his estate.

It was largely through Marsh's in- fluence that his uncle, George Peabody, founded and endowed the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale, in 1866. One great aim of Marsh's career was the completion of the museum edi- fice, only the northern wing of which he lived to see, and which, at the time of his death, was so crowded with treasures that when, years afterward, they were moved into the present much larger building, the more than 600 vanloads of material completely filled it as well.

Marsh's principal interests lay in the three higher classes of vertebrates, as he published comparatively little on either fishes or amnphibians, although his collections of these are rich, especially in the former group. Of reptiles, his chief concern lay with the dinosaurs, and it is a matter of profound regret that he never completed his study of the group, especially in its philosophical aspect for which his comprehensive knowledge so ably fitted him. His "Dinosaurs of North America" (1896) served to clarify greatly the existing knowledge of the anatomy, not only in part but in whole, of this diversified group. Marsh had planned no fewer than 27 monographs, but two of which he lived to complete. Of these the principal ones were to be on the Sauropoda, Stegosauria, Theropoda, Ornithopoda and Ceratopsia among the reptiles, as well as one on the fossil footprints and one on the toothed birds. Of the mammals he proposed to treat the Mesozoic mammals, Dinocerata, and Brontotheridae, as well as the evolution of the brain, and other subjects. Two quartos, the Ceratopsia and the Titano- theres (Brontotheridae), have been corn-



96 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

pleted by his successors. In preparation for this stupendous work not only were the large collections made, both by his own means and through aid from gov- ernment funds, but much in the way of preliminary description, illustrated by beautiful woodcuts which were later to form the text figures of the several volumes, was published in the American Journal of Science. There were also prepared a large number of lithographic plates in anticipation of future publica- tion, and these are models of precision and execution. Marsh's aim in collecting was twofold, first to determine the geological horizon of each locality where a large series of vertebrate fossils was

found, for he hoped to extend their utility as horizon markers, which had not, until that time at least, been recog- nized, and second, to secure from these localities large collections of the more important forms, sufficiently extensive to reveal, if possible, the life histories of each.

Even though the completion of the task he set for himself was beyond the powers of any one man and thus fell far short of attainment, nevertheless, what Marsh did accomplish and what will yet be learned from the unstudied part of his collections will add greatly to the sum of the world's scientific knowledge.

RICHARD S. LULL



the centenary of othniel charles marsh

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