126 Tlie American Geologist. August, i9ao 
fluenced, and sometimes severely pained by a misinterpretation 
of what had been long before said to him, and at the time un- 
noticed by him. He used to say "I take a long time to get 
mad," but this does not quite express the fact. In the course 
of an animated conversation he enjoyed being opposed by log- 
ical argument, which only sharpened his mental faculties. The 
defect was that long subsequently and when in a different 
mood, he recalled the words without the accompanying cir- 
cumstances; and thought he was remembering all; while a tem- 
porary morbidity invested these words with a meaning entire- 
ly different from what was intended, or what could have been 
understood when they were uttered. This weakness naturally 
increased with his years, and frequently precipitated acrimoni- 
ous controversies at particularly inopportune times with per- 
sons who had the power to do him great injury. In his earlier 
years, his forbearance, in some cases of wanton and unmerited 
attack, was a matter of surprise to his friends. He would fre- 
quently say, 'T am too busy to get angry. While — is 
abusing niQ, I am getting through lots of important work." 
Had he been able to retain this power of self control through- 
out his life, when his eminence became incontestable, he 
would have accomplished even more than he did — marvelous 
as that is — and with a great deal less difficulty and mental suf- 
fering, but he would not have been the Cope we have known. 
His capacity for work, was, at all periods of his life, prodi- 
gious though his methods were peculiar to himself and like 
those of some of the strongest prosecutors of original research 
erratic. When asked in the early eighties how he could get 
through such an enormous amount of diversified labor, he re- 
plied: "By eschewing liquor and tobacco and minimizing 
nervous storms." 
Within the ten years he began the moderate use of both 
liquor and cigars, but he used them sparingly, as aids to di- 
gestion, or sedatives, rather than convivially or as stimulants. 
With excellent capacity to understand any subject what- 
ever, he was, like many scientific men, inexperienced in busi- 
ness affairs, and what is called knowledge of the world. On 
the death of his father, he was struggling, with the aid of a 
very scanty allowance, to carry on extensive field operations 
for several great scientific exploring expeditions, (Wheeler's, 
