Tertiary Vertebrata of the West. 411 



the benefit of the people. It is impossible to express too strongly 

 admiration for the administrative discernment which has recognized 

 that organized knowledge of the geographical, geological, botanical, 

 zoological, and anthropological conditions of the newly-settled lands 

 of the West, is the necessary foundation for their commercial, social, 

 and political prosperity. But when we contemplate the library in 

 which the achievements of this great conception stand recorded, with 

 all the elaboration which the best science of our time could com- 

 mand, we yield homage to those who have planned and have carried 

 out this work, for a service to their country and to humanity, which 

 in its way has no parallel. 



The branches of science are so interrelated, that none can be said 

 to be less or more important than the others. And if to the popular 

 imagination geology and palaeontology do not seem quite so engrossing 

 as other matters among life's interest which develope from them, as 

 a foundation, it is manifest that they have engaged the enthusiasm 

 and life-long labour of intellects among the most remarkable which 

 modern times have produced. And the great American Eepublic 

 may be congratulated on having commanded the services of men of 

 genius, whose courage and industry have been equal to grappling 

 with this gigantic work. 



The latest of the United Survey Eeports, by Professor Cope, issued 

 as a first part of a brief history of the fossil remains of Vertebrata, 

 found in the Tertiary rocks of the Western Territories, extends to 

 more than a thousand quarto pages of text, illustrated with some 

 woodcuts and one hundred and thirty-four quarto plates, and gives 

 in a noble and connected form a panorama of the life which the 

 author had studied during the preceding ten years. Professor Cope's 

 previous contributions to the same series of publications have pre- 

 pared us for these matured studies, which are well described by 

 Major Powell, the Director of the United States Geological Survey, 

 as a "valuable contribution to palaeontology, and a monument tO' 

 the labour and genius of the author." 



Professor Cope is a naturalist in the largest sense of the term;, 

 not undervaluing the great results which reward the comparative 

 anatomist, but conspicuous among those who have cherished the 

 traditions of zoologists, he has known well how higher results 

 depend upon detailed work, and clear, full, and accurate description 

 of the variable elements in organic structures. No man has a keener 

 appreciation of the order of nature ; and it is manifested again and 

 again in new grouping, or the definition of new groups, or the inter- 

 calation of new types in their places among well-known tribes, — a 

 power which is rare, because it can only flow from a knowledge of 

 the extent to which the structures of any extinct type may vary, 

 consistently with the preservation of its group plan, or the elimina- 

 tion from that plan of a series of characteristics. The gifts and 

 attainments in which the analytical and synthetic powers are evenly 

 balanced, and by which the extinct and existing life have been 

 examined by the same methods, have long made the author of this 

 work conspicuous as one of the most successful palaeontologists who 

 have yet adorned the science. 



