404 Othniel Charles Marsh. 



it was impossible for him to do more than seize on what 

 appealed to him as the most salient. The work of the hour 

 was to him of prime importance, whether it w r as for the deter- 

 mination of a new order of mammals or a new cusp on a 

 tooth. Still, he seems to have had a just conception of relative 

 values, for it will be found that he plucked the most luscious 

 plums from the paleontological tree, and left chiefly the smaller 

 or unripe and imperfect fruit untouched. 



Another element in his success was seen in the improve- 

 ment he made in the methods of collecting, preserving, and 

 developing vertebrate fossils, so that even forms long known 

 only from fragmentary remains were represented in his collec- 

 tions by almost complete specimens, presenting nearly the 

 same degree of novelty shown in forms actually new. 



In illustration of this, the Brontotheridas, Ceratopsia, and 

 the Mosasauria furnish excellent examples. Prout, in 1846. 

 described, as Palceotherium, the fragment of a lower jaw from 

 the Miocene of Nebraska, but Marsh first showed the affinities 

 and range of forms in the group, through his splendid restora- 

 tion of Brontojps and the description of a number of allied 

 types from nearly perfect material. Cope, in 1875, figured 

 some pieces of bone of unknown relationships, which long 

 remained in the paleontological scrap-basket/"" Marsh, by his 

 descriptions of the marvelous series of genera and species 

 belonging to the Ceratopsia, demonstrated what these reptiles 

 really were, and gave to science a nearly complete knowledge 

 of one of the most bizarre monsters known. The first 

 Mosasaur was obtained in Holland previous to 1785. It 

 remained imperfectly known for nearly a century, when Marsh, 

 by his contributions to its anatomy, made possible a clear 

 understanding of its structure and affinities. In the same way 

 it could be shown that to many old descriptions of genera and 

 species based upon single teeth, he was enabled to add a 

 knowledge of the remainder of the animal. Not only did he 

 thus contribute the missing information in regard to many 

 previously described forms, but he brought out a host of 

 entirely new types, and made his science one of the most com- 

 plete exponents of the doctrine of evolution. 



* Polyonax. 



