THE LIFE AND WORKS OF COPE 



ILLUSTKATING THE TRAINING OF A NATURALIST AND THE 



ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A GpEAT 



COMPARATIVE ANATOMIST. 



BY HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN. 



The work of Professor Cope began in 1859, a most favor- 

 able year, when Comparative Anatomy first felt the impetus 

 of Darwin's " Origin of Species." He was then only nine- 

 teen, and for thirty-eight years thereafter his active genius 

 hastened our progress in the knowledge and classification 

 of all the great divisions of the Vertebrata. 



He passed away upon April 12th, 1897, at the age of fifty- 

 seven, in the full vigor of his intellectual powers, leaving 

 a large part of his work incomplete. Almost at the last 

 he contributed several reviews to the American Naturalist, 

 and upon the Tuesday preceding his death he sent to the 

 press this Syllabus of his Lectures before the University of 

 Pennsylvania, containing his latest opinions regarding the 

 arrangement and evolution of the Vertebrata. It seems 

 appropriate in this posthumous edition of the Syllabus, is- 

 sued by the University, to give a brief account of such inci- 

 dents in Professor Cope's life as are worthy of imitation by 

 coming generations of students; also to set forth some of 

 the monumental features of his contributions to Compara- 

 tive Anatomy. 



The most conspicuous feature of his character from 

 boyhood upwards was independence ; this was partly the 

 secret of his venturesome and successful assaults upon all 

 traditional but defective systems of classification. 



As a comparative anatomist he ranks both in the range 



