68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BALTIMORE MEETING 



posits since determined as belonging to the Lower Permian. Following 

 school, he entered the State Agricultural College in 1866. At the age of 

 fifteen he came under the rare influence of Prof. Benjamin F. Mudge, 

 who loaned him a copy of LyelFs Antiquity of Man. Professor Mudge 

 conducted all the courses in natural history, and through his splendid 

 character and example exerted a great influence on young Williston. It 

 was quite by accident, however, that seven years later Williston was in- 

 cluded in Professor Mudge's party to northwestern Kansas (Smoky Hill 

 Valley Cretaceous), where Professor Mudge, already famous through his 

 discovery, in 1872, of a specimen of Ichthyornis, was collecting. He 

 writes : 



"We left on the fifth [July, 1874]. It ivas this accidental and tlwughtless^ 

 decision that led to my life's devotion to paleontology. Had I not gone with 

 him, in all probability I would today have been a practitioner of medicine 

 somewhere in Kansas. We joined Mudge about the fourteenth and started 

 almost immediately south. In a few days I found a good specimen of ptero- 

 dactyl and became an enthusiastic lover of the sport of collecting fossils — for 

 sport it seemed to me. I had planned that autumn to go East, if I could bor- 

 row a couple of hundred dollars, to attend a medical college. And so I re- 

 turned to Manhattan by rail in September, but did not succeed in getting the 

 necessary funds. Mudge thereupon asked me to return, which I did about the 

 first of October, and remained until we returned in November. . . . For my 

 season's work Mudge paid me $25, which bought me a suit of clothes and other 

 things badly needed. My total cash income this year was not more than $50. 

 It was the hardest year of my life. My board I worked for in part, in part I 

 had it paid for by my parents, but I did not have a second whole shirt, and 

 when I gave my address I had to borrow clothes to wear, for my clothes were 

 ragged and patched. 



"Times now began to improve. Professor Marsh and Professor Cope, as is. 

 well known, were rivals and very jealous of each other. They had been quar- 

 reling with each other for two or three years, with mutual criminations and 

 recriminations. Because of the discoveries Marsh was making in the Creta- 

 ceous of Kansas, Cope grew eager to participate in them, but could find no one 

 to undertake these collections, for Marsh was afraid to have too many learn 

 about the region for fear that Cope would seduce some of the assistants by the- 

 offer of higher pay. He therefore instructed Mudge to retain his assistants, 

 of the previous summer. Brous and I were engaged for the following season 

 at $35 a month and our expenses. -We accepted the offer gladly and started 

 for the field overland in early March, meeting Mudge at Ellis, on the railroad.. 

 We stipulated that I should quit in September to allow medical lectures. . . . 



"We collected chiefly along the Smoky Hill Valley that season, as far west 

 as Fort Wallace, and got many valuable specimens. . . . By Marsh's direc- 

 tions, each had signed his name to the specimens he had collected. Perhaps 

 that was the reason he invited me in February to come to New Haven. I 

 promptly accepted his invitation and sold my watch and borrowed enough to» 

 take me there in March. ... It was thus with feelings almost of awe that 



