2 The American Geologist. January, i899 
direction of Friends. He also studied for several years with a 
private tutor, Dr. Joseph Thomas, under whose instruction his 
natural aptitude in the use of language developed into that 
remarkable power of lucid and fluent expression for which 
he was later noted. 
In 1859, having determined to be a naturalist. Cope went 
to Washington where he studied reptiles in the Smithsonian 
Institute under Spencer F. Baird. This same year his first 
contribution to scientific literature, "On the Primarv Divisions 
of the Salamandridae with a Description of Two New Species," 
(3),* appeared in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences. 
Returning to Philadelphia after a few months, Cope received 
his only collegiate training — a year at the University of Penn- 
sylvania. During this time, and for the succeeding two years, 
l:c worked constantly in the Academy of Natural Sciences, 
cataloguing the serpents in the museum, describing new spe- 
cies and writing monographs on the different genera of reptiles 
and amphibians. As a result of these labors, he became, at the 
age of twenty-two, one of the leading herpetologists of the 
country. 
In i863-'64, Cope spent several months abroad where he 
visited the great museums in England, France, Holland, Au- 
stria and Prussia, and broadened his views as a. comparative 
anatomist. On his return, he accepted a professorship of Com- 
parative Zoology and Botany at Haverford College. In 1865. 
he married Miss Annie Pim, daughter of Richard Pirn of 
Chester county, Pennsylvania. Owing to ill-health, professor 
Cope resigned his position at Haverford in 1867, and for the 
next twenty-two years he devoted himself entirely to explora- 
tion and research. 
Professor Cope took up the study of the extinct Reptilia 
found in the green sands of New Jersey in 1866. This was " 
his introduction into the field of vertebrate paleontology, in 
which, until his death, he was considered by many as foremost 
in America, if not in the world. From the Dinosaurs of New- 
Jersey, he turned his attention to the Miocene fauna of Mary- 
land and Virginia, and in 1868, began his investigations on 
*Numbers in brackets refer to corresponding numbers in the ac- 
companying bibliography. 
