Kansas Skirmishes in the Cope/Marsh War

Abstract

Few scientific rivalries of the past century engendered greater hostility than that between Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. These giants of vertebrate paleontology fought bitterly from the 1860's until their deaths in the 1890's. Kansas was the origin for many of their jousts. By Marsh's account, the casus belli was in 1869 when he pointed out Cope's error in placing the head on the tail end of a restored Kansas plesiosaur. Cope explained the feud as stemming from his beating Marsh to publication on paleontological discoveries in the eastern United States. Marsh visited Kansas' Smoky Hill region in 1870, 1871, and 1872; Cope made his only visit in 1871. After their expeditions, future fossil collecting was undertaken by teams of Kansans who included the pioneers of Kansas geology. Collecting for Marsh were Benjamin F. Mudge, Samuel W. Williston, and others. Cope's team of collectors was led by Charles H. Sternberg. The two groups, friendly enough at supply stations, vied in the field for the best fossils. Kansas specimens were of extreme importance. Marsh's discovery and description of Hesperornis in 1870 was the zenith of his finds in Kansas; that and another avian fossil furnished by Mudge were the first toothed birds recognized. Their discovery enhanced Marsh's reputation in the scientific world. Both Cope and Marsh had a profound impact on vertebrate paleontology and the fossils they described from Kansas were instrumental in establishing their influence.