XXXII LIFE AND WORKS OF COPE. 



suspected in the "Odontologies" of Cuvier and Owen, con- 

 necting the most ancient Mesozoic mammals with the most 

 modern and specialized types, and applying even in the 

 teeth of man. The force and application of the tritubercular 

 law Cope clearly perceived, but left to others fully to work 

 out and demonstrate. It promises ultimately to give us the 

 key to the entire phylogeny of the mammalia, extending to 

 every division of the Marsupialia and Placentalia, and will 

 probably be found among the Monotremata. 



Thus the final philosophical working basis for the evo- 

 lution of the hoofed, as well as the cla>ved, animals has been 

 gradually established, for, as Professor Marsh observes in 

 his monograph on the Dinocerata, " the characters of most 

 importance in the evolution of the Ungulates are the teeth, 

 the brain and the feet." 



It now only remained for Cope to take another step 

 beyond Huxley and Kowalevsky, and, aided by fortunate 

 discoveries in the field, he demonstrated that the ancestors 

 of the hoofed animals were clawed animals, establishing 

 the Seventh Law : 



VII. — The Hoofed Orders Converge towards the Clawed types 

 of Creodonta and Insectivora. 



So much for the great generalizations which establish 

 Cope historical position in Mammalian Paleontology. These 

 are the mountain peaks, the points where exploration and 

 discovery were followed by happy inspiration in a chain of 

 contributions which includes his exposition of the faunal 

 succession of the Mammals from the base to the summit of 

 the Tertiary, as well as two or three discoveries of great 

 interest in Cretaceous. His most conspicuous work relates 

 to the Puerco, with its extremely primitive hoofed and 

 clawed animals and primates. Here he established the 

 existence in this country of the Plagiaulacidse and defined 

 the order MuUituberculata. That from the Wasatch is- 

 perhaps next in value, and in succession rank his contribu- 



