306 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



Republic of Panama. These antiquities came mainly from prehis- 

 toric graves and represent the culture of Indians who in this 

 respect ranked next to the Aztecs and the Peruvians under the 

 Incas. The collection, said to be by far the most valuable and 

 complete of the kind owned by any institution, has never been 

 placed on exhibition, although received at the museum years ago. 

 Another noteworthy series in the archaeological collection is made 

 up of a large number of Egyptian scarabs, which an eminent 

 authority has recently declared the most comprehensive in America. 

 In recognition of his genius and of his zeal for science, Marsh 

 won distinction both in this country and abroad. The apprecia- 

 tion of his ability as a collector has steadily grown, until he holds 

 a foremost place among makers of vast scientific collections. 

 What has not been so fully recognized is his great ability as an 

 anatomist and the unerring certainty with which he seized on the 

 characteristic features of a specimen and its relation to other 

 forms. 



Marsh was either a correspondent or an honorary member of 

 many learned societies, the last honors of this kind coming to him 

 in 1898, when he was elected correspondent of the Institute of 

 France (Academy of Sciences) and foreign member of the Geolog- 

 ical Society of London. Harvard University conferred upon him 

 the degree of LL.D. in 1886, and he received an honorary Ph.D. 

 from Heidelberg University the same year. At the time of his 

 death he still held the position of Honorary Curator of Vertebrate 

 Paleontology in the United States National Museum and of Verte- 

 brate Paleontologist on the Geological Survey. 



He became a member of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science in the summer of 1866, while attending 

 the Buffalo meeting, reading his first paper before that body at 

 Burlington the following year. Two years later he was elected 

 Secretary of the Association, and in 1876 its Vice-President, 

 succeeding the next year to the position of presiding officer. His 

 celebrated Nashville address on the Introduction and Succession 

 of Vertebrate Life in America was delivered at the time of his 



