
298 The American Naturalist. [March, 

SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
A Review of the Charges Against the Paleontological 
Department of the U. S. Geological Survey, and of the 
Defence made by Prof. O. C. Marsh. 
To the Editor of the Naruratisr:—‘‘I am glad that the — 
matter has at last come out. It will clear the atmosphere. 
The truth will be sifted out from the falsehood, and great 
good will be accomplished.’ ‘This was the answer given by Prof, 
H. F. Osborn, of Princeton, to a NY. Herald correspondent, when 
asked for his opinion about the Cope-Marsh seabed I fully agree 
with Prof. Osborn in these remarks. 
I will now give a short review of the charges made against Professor 
Marsh, and of his defence, based on an experience of nearly six years, 
during which I was an assistant of Prof. Marsh, paid by the U. S. 
Geological Survey. 
1. In the New York Herald of January 12th, Prof. E. D. Cope, of the 
University of Pennsylvania, stated, ‘‘ The collections made by Prof. 
Marsh, as the vertebrate palzontologist of the Geological Survey, . - - 
are all stored at Yale College, with no assured bis se as to what belongs 
to the Government and what to the College.’ 
To this Professor Marsh replied that ‘‘ every specimen belonging 
to the government is kept by itself, and no mixing with the Yale Mu- 
seum collections is possible.’’ Prof. H. F. Osborn and Dr. O. Meyer 
have sustained this fully, and I am glad to say that great care is taken _ 
at the Yale Museum in this regard. But this is irrelevant to the ques- _ 
tion raised by Prof. Cope, for, of course, the labeling is entirely in the 
hands of Prof. Marsh, without any control from the Geological Survey. 
In this connection there is one thing that I can not quite understand ; — 
how it is that the splendid specimens of horned dinosaurs became the 
property of Prof. Marsh, and not of the government. Can Prof. — 
Marsh pay his collectors this month out of his own pocket, and the i 
Tor out of the pocket of the government? 7 
. The next statement made in the Ara/d is, that these collections — 
_ ‘are locked away from the people, and no one is allowed to see them, © 
not even visiting scientists.” This Prof. Marsh admits is in part true. 
He says, that ‘‘visiting scientists of good moral character are always 
come,” Now I may mention, that : a scientist of ee 4 ‘good E 

