Othfiiel Charles Marsh. — Beecher. 141 
signal success, resulting in the complete routing of the Indian 
Ring, and the downfall of the Secretary of the Interior as 
well as in his political death. 
The rapid settlement and development of the West ren- 
dered it no longer necessary to lit out expensive expeditions, 
especially as many of the localities were easily accessible by 
railroad. Therefore, after 1876, local collectors and small 
parties were employed in continuing the work of collecting 
fossils so successfully begun by the Yale Scientific Expedi- 
tions. Nearly every season, however, Marsh visited the locali- 
ties where work was being carried on, and some time each 
year was spent in reconnaissance for new fields of labor. 
The national Government had not altogether neglected its 
opportunities for scientific research in the West during this 
period, though the results in the way of substantial collections 
were far inferior to those Marsh had obtained. For some 
time previous to 1878, there were four separate surveys, two 
under the Engineer Department of the army and two others, 
extensions of private expeditions, under the Department of the 
Interior. In the reorganization ordered by Congress in 1878, 
Marsh, as acting president of the National Academy of Sci- 
ences, was the chief instrument in efifecting a consolidation and 
in defining the relations of the present United States geologi- 
cal survey with the general Government and with the United 
States National ^Museum. The wisdom of this change w-as at 
once apparent, and the survey is now often considered one of 
the most economical, best managed, and productive depart- 
ments of the Government. 
After repeated solicitation and with prornises of material aid 
in the way of publication and collections, Marsh, in 1882, 
accepted the appointment of vertebrate paleontologist to the 
United States geological survey. This position he held to the 
time of his death, although the field work for the survey was 
terminated in 1892. His connection with the Survey gave him 
increased facilities for publication and for prosecuting explora- 
tions in the West. He successively projected the publication 
of a number of large monographs on various groups of verte- 
brate fossils. It is a great misfortune that but two of these 
were ever finished by the author. The monograph of the 
Odontornithes appeared in 1880, and that of the Dinocerata in 
