PREFACE 



VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY IN THE NATIONAL 

 SURVEYS 



Joseph Leidy, Edward Drinker Cope, and Othniel 

 Charles Marsh, who successively served as members of 

 United States Government surveys of the West, were 

 the founders of American vertebrate paleontology. 

 Leidy's memoir of 1869, entitled "The extinct mam- 

 malian fauna of Dakota and Nebraska, including an 

 account of some allied forms from other localities, 

 together with a synopsis of the mammalian remains of 

 North America," marked the end of the first period of 

 exploration. Cope's great memoir of 1885, entitled 

 "The Vertebrata of the Tertiary formations of the 

 West," marked the end of the second period of explor- 

 ation. 



Meanwhile the subject had become too broad to be 

 comprehended in a single work. Accordingly Marsh, 

 as vertebrate paleontologist, planned a series of ex- 

 haustive monographs on special groups of extinct 

 birds, reptiles, and mammals, which should treat in 

 great detail the anatomical structure and form the 

 basis of a systematic classification. For these mono- 

 graphs he carried out the most intensive field explora- 

 tions known to science and published a large number of 

 preliminary papers, which fairly revolutionized our 

 knowledge of these and many other groups. In 1880 

 the Fortieth Parallel Survey published his monograph 

 on the Odontornithes, an extinct group of birds of North 

 America. In 1883 the United States Geological Sur- 

 vey published his paper entitled "Birds with teeth," 

 and in 1886 his monograph on the Dinocerata, an 

 extinct order of gigantic mammals. This was the 

 first of the series of five monographs projected for pub- 

 lication by the United States Geological Survey on 

 the Dinocerata, the Stegosauria, the Sauropoda, the 

 Ceratopsia, the Brontotheridae. The monograph last 

 indicated has developed into the present monograph 

 on the titanotheres, which covers a much broader field 

 than that contemplated by Marsh for the monograph 

 on the Bronototheridae. 



For the monographs on the Ceratopsia and on the 

 Brontotheridae exploration on an unprecedented scale 

 was begun by the United States Geological Survey 

 under the direction of Marsh. For the four mono- 

 graphs on the Stegosauria, Sauropoda, Ceratopsia, and 

 Brontotheridae 204 superb lithographic plates were 

 completed under Marsh's direction. Altogether he 

 had been engaged on this work nearly 17 years when 

 death interrupted his monumental labors on March 

 18, 1899. 



PREPARATION OF THE PRESENT MONOGRAPH 



The first important step taken by Marsh in his series 

 of contributions to our knowledge of this extinct fam- 

 ily was the publication of his paper on "The structure 

 and affinities of the Brontotheridae," published in 

 1874, based on the collections at Yale University. 

 The second was his paper entitled "Principal charac- 

 ters of the Brontotheridae," published in 1876. In 

 the meantime he had made a geologic excursion to 

 White River in South Dakota, in the vicinity of the 

 Red Cloud Agency. This visit marks an interesting 

 epoch in the history of paleontologic exploration for 

 the titanotheres. 



Late in the autumn of 1875 Marsh, accompanied by 

 an escort from Fort Laramie to the Red Cloud Agency, 

 went to the Badlands of Nebraska and Dakota. The 

 consent of the Indians was deemed necessary to permit 

 safe search for fossil bones in their country. This con- 

 sent was obtained with difficulty, and after it had been 

 obtained the Indians withheld their assistance. An 

 account of Marsh's visit is given in a manuscript en- 

 titled "Sketches of the life of Red Cloud," by Capt. 

 James H. Cook, of Agate, Nebr., at that time serving as 

 a scout for the United States Army. Captain Cook 

 writes: 



It was in the autumn of 1875 that I visited the Red Cloud 

 Agency, which was at that time located on the White River, in 

 the northwestern part of Nebraska, the agency buildings stand- 

 ing about 2 miles up the river from the place where the city of 

 Crawford is now situated. The chief of the Sioux, Red Cloud, 

 made me welcome to his lodge. 



It was on this visit that I first learned of the petrified bones 

 of strange creatures that had once occupied the lands to the 

 eastward of the agency. Two of Red Cloud's subchiefs, 

 American Horse and Little Wound, took me to the lodge of 

 Afraid of Horses, where I was shown a piece of bone, perfectly 

 petrified, containing a molar tooth .3 inches or more in diameter. 

 American Horse explained that the tooth had belonged to a 

 "Thunder Horse" that had lived "away back" and that then 

 this creature would sometimes come down to earth in thunder- 

 storms and chase and kill buffalo. 



His old people told stories of how on one occasion man_v, 

 many j^ears back, this big Thunder Horse had driven a herd 

 of buffalo right into a camp of Lacota people during a bad 

 thunderstorm, when these people were about to starve, and 

 that they had killed many of these buffalo with their lances 

 and arrows. The "Great Spirit" had sent the Thunder Horse 

 to help them get food when it was needed most badly. This 

 story was handed down from the time when the Indians had 

 no horses; 



While I was the guest of Red Cloud on this occasion, Prof. 

 O. C. Marsh, of the Smithsonian Institution and Yale Uni- 

 versity, came over from Fort Laramie to Camp Robinson and 

 the Red Cloud Agency to get permission to collect fossils in 



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