Editorial 



. Othniel Charles Marsh has left for himself as conspicuous 

 a name and fame as could be desired by the most ambitious 

 student of science. He had the advantages of a strong constitu- 

 tion, a clear intellect, indefatigable industry, a liberal fortune, a 

 love of nature and the beautiful, a single purpose, and had no 

 one dependent upon him for a share of his devotion. He began 

 life in Lockport, New York, in October 29, 1831; as a boy was 

 fond of hunting and fishing and out-door life ; went to Phillips 

 Andover Academy in 1852, graduated in Yale College in i860, 

 and took two more years of graduate work in the Sheffield Scien- 

 tific School. In those days he was chiefly interested in chem- 

 istry and mineralogy. Then he went to Europe, where he spent 

 three years studying mineralogy and paleontology, and in 1866 

 was appointed professor of paleontology in Yale University. 

 From that time to the day of his death, March 18, 1899, he was 

 devoted to original research, chiefly in the accumulation and 

 study of fossil vertebrates, and to the building up of the Peabody 

 Museum at Yale University, to which he gave at the close of his 

 life all his collections and the great bulk of his fortune. 



The contributions Professor Marsh made to science during 

 his busy life are chiefly remarkable for the large number of 

 startling new types of fossil vertebrates which he either first 

 announced or brought to conspicuous notice by the number and 

 perfection of the specimens representing them. His earlier 

 investigations were in the Cretaceous deposits of the East ; but 

 his most remarkable discoveries were in the Jurassic, Cretaceous, 

 and Tertiary beds of the Rocky Mountain regions, and in the 

 plains east of them. In this latter region he conducted several 

 expeditions of Yale students or graduates ; and after the fossil- 

 bearing beds were discovered, employed many collectors for 



401 



