PROCEEDINGS OF THE CENTENARY MEETING. xxxvii 



and Tryon. Leidy was a handsome man of striking personality but somewhat 

 round-shouldered. He was a man of the widest range of knowledge and infor- 

 mation and was able to put his hand almost immediately on any book of reference. 

 He was familiar with all forms of life from Amceba to Man. I entered the Uni- 

 versity as a medical student under him. As a lecturer, he was not eloquent, but 

 he gave the facts in a trenchant, impressive way which arrested the attention and 

 gave direction to the thoughts of the student. In range of knowledge, he excelled 

 anyone that I have ever known even Cope was much inferior in that respect, 

 but Leidy was not a generalizer and did not care to consider questions from a 

 philosophical point of view. Cope, on the contrary, was willing to discuss any 

 philosophical question. One of the subjects of the day (that was before Darwin's 

 day, you know) in which Cope was deeply interested was the vertebrate theory 

 of the skull. That has been so completely buried that I fear many of you may 

 not be familiar with what the theory was. It held that the skull was composed 

 of four vertebra?. It was more especially advocated by Richard Owen, and 

 widely accepted in England. The first discussion of any length I had with Cope 

 was on the subject of this vertebrate theory. He strenuously advocated it; 

 I contended against it, and gave my reasons. We went to Leidy and appealed 

 to him, and he said: "I do not take any interest in these questions. I do not 

 believe in the theory." 



Dr. Conklin: 



Gentlemen: We have with us the director of another museum, one of the 

 greatest of this country, that of the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh. Wherever 

 you go, in the great museums in this country or abroad, you will see life sized 

 models of that prehistoric beast, Diplodocus carnegii, a creature which always 

 reminds me of the poet's description of the comet: "Ten thousand miles of 

 flaming head; ten million miles of tail." 



I call upon Dr. William J. Holland, of Pittsburgh. 



Dr. Holland : 



Through the kindness of the Toastmaster I have been spared the agony of 

 suspense, which sometimes afflicts those who are called upon to make after- 

 dinner speeches. You may have heard that Daniel accounted for his escape 

 from the lions by stating that they were to make an after-dinner speech and had 

 therefore lost their appetites. I have dined in peace and face you with a glad 

 heart and unimpaired digestion. 



When I was a boy of ten my mother brought me to Philadelphia. I had 

 in my pocket four gold dollars little gold dollars some of you remember them. 

 I went to the bookstore of J. B. Lippincott, and I bought Dr. Livingstone's 

 first volume. I have that book in my library to-day. It is the first book bought 

 with my own money, and stands first in a long list of thousands of volumes which 

 are in my library. It is on that account one of my treasures. My mother was 



