matters; vertebrate palaeontologists were few, a feeble folk, and they 

 were already against Marsh, who had a strong following, especially in 

 New England, of men in other branches of science. He was President 

 of the National Academy of Sciences, a position of great influence, 

 from which newspaper squibs were not likely to dislodge him. 



For the remainder of Marsh's life, he and I did not speak and all 

 relations between us ceased; he had also quarrelled with Osborn, whose 

 position in New York was far too strong to be affected by anything 

 that Marsh could say or do. With all his scientific following. Marsh had 

 very few personal friends and it is significant that, at the Century Club, 

 his nickname was "the Great Dismal Swamp." He revenged himself 

 upon me by keeping me out of the National Academy and told Hatcher: 

 "I should Hke to make friends with Osborn; I don't care anything about 

 Scott." Not long before his death. Marsh wrote me a letter, in which 

 he threatened me with a libel suit for certain derogatory statements 

 which I was alleged to have made about him in my lectures. I got a 

 lawyer to write to tell him that I declined to have any correspondence 

 with him. The letter itself I sent on to Osborn, part of whose answer 

 under date of February 19, 1898, is as follows: "I had a long interview 

 with Marsh in my study — we went over all the old ground. He is evi- 

 dently very anxious to make up with me, but I gave him no encour- 

 agement. . . . P. S. He is simply trying to bluff you to keep you quiet." 



During the year 1890, I published several more or less elaborate 

 papers, including one with Osborn, upon a second collection of fossil 

 mammals from the Harvard Museum. This was the last of our cooper- 

 ative productions. In the summer I made another short trip to the White 

 River bad lands of Nebraska and South Dakota, as has been described 

 in Chapter XVI. In the autumn, I lost my old friend and associate, 

 Dr. F. C. Hill, a loss which was not repaired for many years, for, per- 

 sonal feeling aside, his assistance to us in the preparation of our fossils 

 was invaluable. Our third daughter was born in November 1890. 

 Alas! we were not to have her long. 



The year 1891 was a black one indeed, for then my dear friend Osborn 

 accepted a call to Columbia University and the American Museum of 

 Natural History, in New York. His leaving Princeton was a great grief 

 to me and I never entirely recovered from it. In a letter to my Wife, of 

 July 5, I wrote: "Morning and afternoon at the museum, where I saw 

 the last of Harry, as he left in the afternoon for Garrisons, never to 

 return, except as a visitor: 'Oh! miserie'." I must recognise that Osborn's 

 moving to New York was of immense benefit to that city and to Amer- 



[ 220 3 



