520 Reviews — Prof. Cope — Tertiary Vertebrata of the West. 



Government Department which issues them, and will always make 

 this work one of the standard landmarks in the history of Mammalian 

 life. 



As we close the book, it is with an earnest desire that the same 

 devotion of the Department of the Interior to the interests of Science 

 which has placed this magnificent contribution before the world, 

 may at no distant date be able to secure the publication of the 

 remainder of the author's contributions to a knowledge of the fossil 

 Vertebrata of the United States Territories. It is, we believe, known 

 that the materials for these histories have been in part gathered by 

 many adventurous explorations, and not inconsiderable expenditure 

 by the author ; and that the United States Government has already 

 spent large sums of money in preparing plates to accompany the 

 text, which remains in their hands unused. We venture to believe 

 that the gratitude which scientific men feel for the work already 

 published, emphasizes the hope that it may be speedily completed ; 

 for it is one of the most valuable contributions to knowledge ever 

 made by an individual, and its publication reflects honour on the 

 nation. 



When we survey the enormous range of Professor Cope's 

 work, which has enriched every department of the Vertebrata with 

 new materials, often interpreted with strikingly original conceptions, 

 it is impossible not to bear witness to the magnitude of labours 

 which derive their chief value from the genius which directs them. 

 Shortcomings are easily detected, but when balanced against valuable 

 achievements, may well be passed over. Most of the great writers 

 on similar subjects in the Old World have secured honour by select- 

 ing for their labours, materials more or less perfect, which left no 

 doubt on their interpretations. Obscure and difficult specimens have 

 been laid on one side until later discoveries or maturer powers in the 

 writer, removed the obscurities. Professor Cope, on the other hand, 

 has never shrunk from any difficulties which his materials presented. 

 A tooth, or a fragment of a mandible, or an ankle bone in his hands 

 has revealed a new type of life. The discoveries which other men 

 have waited for, for half a lifetime, he has utilized as the fossils 

 successively came to hand, so that the nomenclature of his species 

 has changed, and the interpretation of organic structures has 

 gradually unfolded results of increasing value. There is hardly any 

 writer whose work, looked back upon after a quarter of a century, 

 does not show that, here and there, interpretations might be 

 improved. Such improvements Prof. Cope has been able, in many 

 cases, to make in a much shorter time by unceasing industry, and 

 vigilance to seize new truths as they appeared. Work like this, 

 upon fragmentary fossils, appeals with most powerful interest to 

 those whose knowledge enables them to appreciate this daring faith 

 in scientific methods, which is hedged round with reasons for the 

 results proclaimed. And it is only when these earlier judgments are 

 in so many cases sustained by later work on better specimens, that 

 the discriminating insight manifested justifies such methods of work. 



The results at which the author has arrived in this first book of 



