OTHNIEL CHARLES MARSH 311 



world he showed only his cheerful and optimistic spirit. The 

 financial stress of the early nineties reduced his private income and 

 unfavorable legislation at Washington cut off his salary from the 

 Geological Survey, even his allotment from this source being finally 

 discontinued. So straitened did he become for means with which 

 to carry on his researches that he finally mortgaged his property, 

 and in 1896, although he had served Yale for thirty years without 

 compensation, he was at his own request placed on the list of 

 salaried officers of the University. The vote passed by the Presi- 

 dent and Fellows at this time shows the estimation in which Marsh's 

 services were held: 



"The Corporation of Yale University desires to congratulate 

 Professor Othniel Charles Marsh upon arriving at the thirtieth 

 anniversary of his professorship in health and strength, and to 

 wish him a continuance of the same for many years. 



"And they further desire to express to him their appreciation 

 of and their profound sense of obligation for all that he has ac- 

 complished in the advancement of science, as well as for the repu- 

 tation of the University, by creating and building up under its 

 auspices the department of Paleontology and by generally carry- 

 ing on the elaborate and expensive system of original research, ex- 

 ploration and discovery, by which he has enlarged the boundaries 

 of scientific knowledge and has brought honor to the country, to 

 the University, and to himself." 



An English friend, in describing Marsh in 1882, pictured him 

 as "of middle height, with a robust well-knit frame and massive 

 head. Ruddy and of a fair countenance, he has blue eyes which 

 often twinkle humorously." Coming of a hardy race, he possessed 

 a vigorous physique and his consciousness of health was always 

 vivid. Long after middle life he could endure an amount of phys- 

 ical strain that would have tired a younger man, and it was only 

 within a year or two of his death that faith in his own length of 

 days deserted him. While in Russia in 1897, trouble in the leg 

 developed, virtually depriving him of the daily walks so necessary 

 to his health. Lack of exercise, therefore, combined with the 

 disturbance in the arterial system from which he suffered, rendered 

 him unfit to cope with the disease that caused his death. He was 



