world of ideas and to the very last moment of his life drew constant 

 refreshment from the mysterious regions of the unexplored. 



In every one of the five great lines of research into which he ven- 

 tured, he reached the mountain peaks where exploration and discovery 

 guided by imagination and happy inspiration gave his work a leadership. 

 His studies among fishes alone would give him a chief rank among 

 zoologists, on amphibians and reptiles there never has been a naturalist 

 who has published so many papers, while from 1868 until 1897, the 

 year of his death, he was a tireless student and explorer of the mammals. 

 Among animals of all these classes his generalizations marked new 

 epochs. While far from infallible, his ideas acted as fertilizers on the 

 minds of other men. As a palaeontologist, enjoying with Leidy and 

 Marsh that Arcadian period when all the wonders of our great West 

 were new, from his elevation of knowledge which enabled him to sur- 

 vey the whole field with keen eye he swooped down like an eagle upon 

 the most important point. 



In breadth, depth and range we see in Cope the very antithesis of 

 the modern specialist, the last exponent of the race of the Buffon, Cuvier, 

 Owen and Huxley type. Of ability, memory and courage sufficient 

 to grasp the whole field of natural history, as comparative anatomist 

 he ranks with Cuvier and Owen; as palaeontologist with Owen, Marsh 

 and Leidy — the other two founders of American palaeontology; as 

 natural philosopher less logical but more constructive than Huxley. 

 America will produce men of as great, perhaps greater genius, but Cope 

 represents a type which is now extinct and never will be seen again. 



Guide Leaflet No. 25 

 American Museum of Natural History 



