Aveust 13, 1897.] 
At the age of ten he was taken upon a 
voyage to the West Indies.* What were 
the impressions he derived from that voyage 
we have not been told. But what has been 
communicated amply justified Professor Os- 
born in his declaration that “‘ the principal 
impression he gave in boyhood was of in- 
cessant activity in mind and body, reaching 
in every direction for knowledge, and of 
great independencein character and action.” 
His school education was mostly carried on 
in the Westtown Academy, a Quaker insti- 
tution about 23 miles west of Philadelphia. 
One of his instructers was Dr. Joseph 
Thomas, a well known literary worker of 
Philadelphia and future author of a‘ Uni- 
versal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography 
and Mythology’ (1870), and said to be an 
“excellent linguist.’ Under his guidance 
Cope obtained a passing knowledge of Latin 
and Greek. He appeared to have had no in- 
struction in any biological science and had 
no regular collegiate training. He did, 
however, enjoy the advantage of ‘‘a year’s 
study (1858-9) of anatomy and clinical 
instruction at the University of Pennsyl- 
vania,” in which the illustrious Leidy was 
professor of anatomy. But, in the words of 
his literary executor (Professor H. F. 
Osborn), ‘“‘it is evident that he owed far 
more to paternal guidance in the direct 
study of nature and to his own impulses as 
a young investigator than to the five or six 
years of formal education which he received 
at school. He was especially fond of map 
drawing and of geographical studies.” 
While a school boy he relieved his studies 
of the classics and the regular course in 
which boys of his age were drilled by ex- 
cursions into the fields and woods. Reptile 
life especially interested him, and he sought 
salamanders, snakes and tortoises under 
rocks, stones, fallen trees and layers of 
leaves, as well as in the ponds and streams 
of his vicinage. The trophies of his excur- 
* Osborn in SCIENCE, N. S., V., 706. 
SCIENCE. 
227 
sions were identified from descriptions in 
the works in which they were treated, as 
well as by comparison with identified speci- 
mens in the museum of the Academy. He 
early and almost without guidance learned 
to use the library and collection of the 
Academy, although he did not become a 
member until he came of age in 1861. 
Cope’s first contribution to the Proceed- 
ings of the Academy appeared in the part 
covering April and was ‘On the Primary 
Divisions of the Salamandridz, with de- 
scriptions of the New Species.’* In this 
maiden paper he instituted important modi- 
fications of the systems previously adopted 
in the United States. He soon afterwards 
catalogued the serpents preserved in the 
museum of the Academy of Natural Sci- 
ences and likewise improved upon the sys- 
tems previously in vogue. He continued 
with various papers, describing new species 
and giving synopses or brief monographs 
of sundry genera of lizards and anurous 
amphibians. 
For five years his publication was confined 
almost exclusively to the reptiles and am- 
phibians. (The continuity was only inter- 
rupted once in 1862, when he described a 
new shrew caught by himself in New 
Hampshire.) Not until 1864 did he be- 
gin to extend his field. In that year he 
described various fishes and a supposed new 
whale, and gave his first contribution to 
paleontology in the description of the 
stegosaurian amphibian called Amphibamus 
grandiceps. But although his attention 
had become thus divided, he never lost 
his interest in herpetology and continued 
to the end of his life to devote much 
attention to that department. His studies 
extended to every branch of the subject, 
covering not only specific details and gen- 
eral taxonomy, but also the consideration of 
anatomical details, the modifications of dif- 
ferent organs, geographical distribution, 
* Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1859, pp. 122-128. 
