6 The American Geologist. January, i899 
( c . ) Mammalogy. 
Prof. Cope's greatest claim to fame undoubtedly rests on his 
investigations of extinct Mammalia, and as a vertebrate pale- 
ontologist he may justly be ranked with Cuvier, Owen and 
Huxley. From the time he began his western explorations 
until his death, Prof. Cope devoted himself almost exclusive- 
ly to the study of extinct vertebrate forms. He was one of 
the first to deduce the Ungulata from ancestors with quadri- 
tubercular molars and five-toed plantigrade feet. He then 
maintained that the quadri-tubercular molar in the upper jaw^ 
is derived from a tri-tubercular type, and in the lower jaw 
from a quinque-tubercular type or a tri-tubercular type with a 
heel supporting two additional tubercules. This view was tri- 
umphantly confirmed b\' the discovery of Phenacodus, the 
celebrated fossil ancestor of the Ungulata. The sub-order to 
which it belongs, the Condylarthra of the Lower Eocene, 
"staifds to the placental Mammalia in the same relation as the 
Theromorphous order does to the Reptilian order. It gen- 
eralizes the characteristics of them all, and is apparently the 
parent stock of all excepting, perhaps, the Cetacea." 
Prof. Cope has contributed much to our knowledge of the 
Anchitheriidse, Felidse, and Canida:^ of the upper Oligocene, 
and practically all we know of the extinct horses, camels, 
rhinocerosesand otherruminants and Carnivora of America. 
He has written a number of papers on the fauna of the Tertiary 
beds of Texas, of the Wind River, and the Washakie moun- 
tains. His paleontological work in the west is summarized 
in "The Vertebrata of the Tertiary Formations of the West," 
(407), Volume HI., of the Hayden geological survey, which 
appeared in 1883. Since then the evolution of the mammalian 
types has been the chief subject of professor Cope's reseaches. 
and in most of his later writings he has attempted to trace the 
passage from the most ancient Vertebrata to the more recent 
forms. 
(d.) Philosophy. 
Professor Cope's work as a scientist began in the same year 
that Darwin's epoch making "Origin of Species" was given 
to the world. He early expressed his firm belief in the doctrine 
of the transmutation of species, and a greater part of his work 
