Edward Drmker Cope. — Frazer. 127 
Hayden's, and several special expeditions); to maintain several 
collecting parties of his own in distant fields on this and other 
continents; to prepare his reports on the collections thus ob- 
tained; and to contribute largely to the scientific and popular 
magazines. With the inheritance of more than a quarter of a 
million of dollars it never occurred to him to seek a life of ease, 
nor even to invest this fortune securely and use the income ju- 
diciously in behalf of the enterprises in which he was engaged. 
He immediately conceived the idea of investing it in a manner 
to procure much larger returns, all of which "he would utilize 
in investigations of pure science. With child-like confidence 
he accepted the statements of glowing prospectuses and inter- 
ested promoters, and scattered his capital in many directions 
on insecure guarantees, where he had neither the time 
nor the ability to guard it. In consequence of this he was al- 
most immediately confronted with losses which alarmed and 
confused him. Instead of accepting these as severe warnings 
that he was entering upon unknown dangers, and withdraw- 
ing on the best terms available, with a diminished but still 
handsome fortune, he plunged deeper into these investments 
and lost so heavily that his whole subsequent life was 
harassed,^ and even the moderate requirements of himself and 
his family inadequately met. Add to this, and to the embit- 
tered warfare with those who should have shown him more 
consideration, a series of misfortunes with successive publish- 
ers of the American Naturalist, a journal, which he had bought 
and brought down from Salem, Mass., to Philadelphia, misfor- 
tunes which no one could have foreseen; and the wonder 
grows that in the last two years of his useful life he should 
have been able to produce a tithe of what his record shows; 
or indeed, that he should have been able to survive these mul- 
tiplied worries and cares. 
In spite of all, however, he persisted in a rugged and vigor- 
ous health, broken by attacks of gradually increasing frequen- 
cy, involving intense pain and much exhaustion, and lasting 
from one to three weeks at a time. Nevertheless, his natural 
buoyancy of spirits, and his optimism carried him through 
them all till the last one which proved fatal. 
Even during this last sickness he confidently believed he 
would recover and had made plans for the immediate future, 
