Send the fossils to me in Philadelphia: Support for early Kansas paleontology by United States Geological Survey of the Territories

Abstract

The United States Geological Survey of the Territories published several landmark works of paleontology that dealt with fossils found in Kansas during the decade after the Civil War. Such works appeared as volumes of the Hayden and King Surveys. There were also lesser known USGS publications on Kansas paleontology that preceded these important works. Cope's Vertebrata of the Cretaceous Formations of the West (1875) and Marsh's Odontornithes (1880). This study concerns the contents of USGS publications concerning paleontology in Kansas to 1875, as well also the role that the USGS publications play today in the study of the history of paleontology in the state as that support is recorded in the publications. “By examining the publications of the survey, it will be seen that much attention has been given to the ancient fauna and flora of our Western Territories. The value of [the] studies in connection with geological explorations and surveys is often in danger of being underestimated by not being correctly understood.” F. V. Hayden, Eleventh Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories Embracing Idaho and Wyoming, 1877. “As it is desirable to develop the science of geology, the writer would be glad if his friends in the West would forward to him, in Philadelphia, at his expense, specimens of bones or teeth which they may find. He will return to them determinations of their nature and credit them with discoveries which may result from their care and interest in preserving them, in the publications of scientific bodies.” Edward Drinker Cope, Preliminary Report of the United States Geological Survey of Wyoming, And Portions of Contiguous Territories, 1872.