BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



turn a profit to the authors and publishers by 

 a sale beyond scientific circles. 



No government publication had yet ap- 

 peared devoted exclusively to science except 

 some small reports on geology and mineralogy 

 in relation to the economical value of certain 

 public lands. 



No college yet recognized natural sciences, 

 except as applied to the arts or to medicine, 

 and the investigator was obliged to pay his 

 own expenses, besides a great part of the cost 

 of the publication which was undertaken by 

 the few scientific societies then existing. 



Continuing meanwhile his studies of fossil 

 bones, Mr. Cooper determined the important 

 geological fact of the former extension of 

 the vertebrate fauna of South America, since 

 the tertiary age, as far north as the Middle 

 United States. 5 



The abundance of large fossil bones found 

 at Big-Bone Lick, Kentucky, which had been 

 collected to some extent by General M. Lewis, 



5 Further discovery of fossil bones in Georgia and remarks 

 on their identity with those of the Megatkertui?i of Paraguay, 

 1827. 



