VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY 235 



Leidy than with Marsh. The beginning of Cope 's scien- 

 tific labors dates from 1859, the year made famous in the 

 annals of science by the appearance of Darwin's Origin 

 of Species. It is not surprising, therefore, that matters 

 evolutional should have interested him to the very end of 

 his career. Cope was not merely a paleontologist, but was 

 interested in recent forms, especially the three lower 

 classes of vertebrates, to such an extent that his work 

 therewith is highly authoritative and in some respects 

 epoch-making. Thirty-eight years of almost continual 

 toil were his, and the mere mass of his literary productions 

 is prodigious, especially when one realizes that, unlike 

 those of a writer of fiction, they were based on painstaking 

 research and philosophical thought. The greater part of 

 Cope's life was spent in or near Philadelphia except for 

 his western explorations, and he is best known as pro- 

 fessor of geology and paleontology in the University of 

 Pennsylvania, although he served other institutions as 

 well. 



Cope's early work was among the amphibia and rep- 

 tiles, his first paleontological paper, the description of 

 Amphibamus grandiceps, appearing in 1865. This year 

 he also began his studies of the mammals, especially the 

 Cetacea, both living and extinct, from the Atlantic sea- 

 board. The next year saw the beginning of his work on 

 the material from the Cretaceous marls of New Jersey, 

 describing therefrom one of the first carnivorous dino- 

 saurs, Lcdaps, to be discovered in America. In 1868 

 Cope began to describe the vertebrates from the Kansas 

 chalk and three years later made his first exploration of 

 these beds. This led to his connection with the United 

 States Geological Survey of the Territories under Hay- 

 den, and to continued exploration of Wyoming and Col- 

 orado in 1872 and 1873. The material thus gained, 

 consisting of fishes, mosasaurs, dinosaurs, and other 

 reptiles, was described in the Transactions of the 

 American Philosophical Society as well as in the Survey 

 Bulletins. In 1875 these results were summarized in a 

 large quarto volume entitled "Vertebrata of the Creta- 

 ceous formations of the West." Subsequent summers 

 were spent in further exploration of the Bridger, Washa- 

 kie, and Wasatch formations of Wyoming, the Puerco 



