1897.] Editor’s Table. 415 
was his introduction into the field of Paleontology, in which, for years, 
even to his death, he stood facile princeps in America, if not in the 
world. From this time on he was primarily a vertebrate paleontologist. 
At times, it is true, he turned to other fields and studied recent forms. 
He classified the snakes and lizards of North America; published a 
masterly synopsis of our frogs and toads, salamanders; he studied the 
fauna of our caves; he classified the fishes; and his work in each of 
these lines alone would have given him a reputation which many might 
envy. They were with him but side issues; hestudied the recent forms 
for the light which they could throw on the forms of the past. And it 
was just this knowledge of forms both living and fossil—a knowledge 
which was wonderful in its detail and its accuracy, and even more sur- 
prising in the ease with which its minutest points were called forth when 
needed—it. was just this knowledge which placed him asa peer of Hux- 
ley and Owen in the paleontological field. 
From the New Jersey Dinosaurs he turned next to the Miocene fauna 
of Maryland and Virginia, and in 1868 he undertook the study of the 
air-breathing vertebrates of the Ohio Geological Survey. Here his 
studies showed that labyrinthodons and other huge monsters of the past 
must be grouped together as a distinct order Stegocephali, a generaliza- 
tion which has obtained world-wide acceptance. 
In 1870 began bis studies of the wonderful fauna buried in the rocks 
of our territories west of the Mississippi. Some little was known of these 
strange forms through the labors of Owen and Leidy, but Cope was in 
reality to open up a new field. In the year just mentioned he visited 
the Cretaceous of western Kansas and brought to light the huge reptiles 
so characteristic of that region. In 1872 the Bad Lands about the 
head waters of Green River, in Wyoming, were investigated; and in 
1873 Colorado was the scene of his labors. Then followed his appoint- 
ment as Vertebrate Paleontologist of the U. S. Geological and Geo- 
graphical Survey of the Territories, under the direction of the late Dr. 
F. V. Hayden; and a year later (1874) the appointment to a similar 
survey, under the direction of Lieutenant Wheeler, of the lands west of 
the 100th meridian. Both of these positions were held by Cope con- 
tinuously until all the surveys were merged in the present organization. 
ring these years Cope was in the field every summer, and in his 
investigations he visited and collected in every State and territory west 
of the Missouri. Not only did he collect himself, but he organized 
parties at his own expense, which were also almost continuously in the 
eld. Asa result he amassed a collection of vertebrate fossils from our 
