208 Lull — Development of Vertebrate Paleontology. 



for few of his contemporaries appreciated the value of 

 vertebrates as horizon markers. The result of the ful- 

 filment of his second purpose saw the accumulation of 

 huge collections from all horizons above the Triassic and 

 some Paleozoic and Triassic as well. These contained 

 some very remarkable series, each of which Marsh hoped 

 to make the basis of an elaborate monograph to be pub- 

 lished under the auspices of the Survey. One can vis- 

 ualize the scope of his ambitions by the fact that no fewer 

 than twenty-seven projected quarto volumes, to contain 

 at least 850 lithographic plates, were listed by him in 

 1877. These covered, among other groups, the toothed 

 birds (Odontornithes), Dinocerata, horses, brontotheres, 

 pterodactyls, mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, monkeys, car- 

 nivores, peris sodactyls and artiodactyls, crocodiles, 

 lizards, dinosaurs, various birds, proboscideans, eden- 

 tates and marsupials, brain evolution, and the Connecti- 

 cut Valley footprints. Much was done towards the prep- 

 aration of these memoirs, as evidenced by the long list 

 of preliminary papers, admirably illustrated by woodcuts 

 which were to form the text figures of the memoirs, 

 which appeared with great regularity in the pages of the 

 Journal for a period of thirty years. Of the actual 

 memoirs, however, but two had been published at the 

 time of Marsh's death in 1899 — the Odontornithes in 

 1880 and the Dinocerata in 1884. One must not overlook, 

 however, the epoch-making Dinosaurs of North America, 

 which was published by the Survey in 1896, although it 

 was not in the form nor had it the scope of the proposed 

 monographs. This was not due to lack of application, 

 for Professor Marsh was an indefatigable worker, but 

 rather to the fact that the program was of such magni- 

 tude as to necessitate a patriarchal life span for its con- 

 summation. As it is, Professor Marsh's fame rests first 

 upon his ability and intrepidity as a collector, ready him- 

 self to brave the very certain hardships and dangers 

 which beset the field paleontologist in the pioneer days, 

 and also by his judgment and command of men to secure 

 the very adequate services of others and so to direct 

 their endeavors that the results were of the highest value. 

 The material witness to Marsh's skill as a collector lies 

 in the collections of the Peabody Museum at Yale and in 

 the Marsh collection at the United States National 

 Museum, the latter secured through the funds of the 

 United States Geological Survey. Together they consti- 



