Smithsonian Institution Dinosaur Museum/DINOSAUR_MUSEUM.ISO/pc/mswin/archives/hist1.txt

Text File | 1994-06-05 | 27KB | 498 lines

1546
Georgius Agricola uses the word fossil for the first time in his book, "De Natura Fossilium."
He defines it as "anything dug out of the ground."  In its early usage, FOSSIL meant "anything
dug out of the ground, including troublesome gnomes."

1763
In his book, "A New and Accurate System of Natural History," Richard Brookes publishes a
figure of a fossil he calls Scrotum humanum, based on Reverend Robert Plot's 1676 figured
specimen.  This fossil, long since believed to be the distal end of a femur, is now considered
to be that of a megalosaurid dinosaur.

1787
The first-known dinosaur in the United States is found in Gloucester County, New Jersey, by
Timothy Matlack and Caspar Wistar of Philadelphia, and read before the American
Philosophical Society on October 5, 1787, but not published for 75 years.  The find was
reported at a meeting with Benjamin Franklin, held at Franklin's house.  The specimen is
now at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.

1802
Pliny Moody, a student at Williams College, plowed up a slab of rock containing fossils on his
father's farm in South Hadley, Massachusetts.  They were dinosaur footprints, but at the
time they were called "footprints of Noah's Raven" by scientists from Harvard and Yale, even
though the prints were one foot long.

1812
The Academy of Natural Sciences is founded in Philadelphia.  It is the oldest such institution
in the United States.

1818
Solomon Elsworth collects dinosaur bones from Triassic rocks in the Connecticut River
valley, but mistakes them for human bones.  They are now in the collections at Yale
University.

1822
James Parkinson publishes the name, Megalosaurus, but without description.  This predates
by two years the presentation by Reverend Buckland before the Geological Society of London
in 1824, in which he announces the name, Megalosaurus, and provides a description.

1824
William Buckland, a professor at Oxford, announces Megalosaurus, the first named
dinosaur, which is based entirely on jaws and teeth.  This was done before a meeting of the
Geological Society of London on February 20.  This date is accepted as the premiere of the
genus, even though Parkinson published the name (without description) in 1822.

Richard Owen names Cetiosaurus, but regards it as a marine reptile.  Cetiosaurus is not
transferred to the Dinosauria until 1869.

1825
Gideon Mantell, a country doctor, names Iguanodon based on a tooth supposedly found by his
wife while he was attending a patient.  The tooth was later named Iguanodon anglicus by Holl.
Georges Cuvier earlier said the tooth is that of a rhinoceros, but Mantell publishes it as a
"lizard," and Cuvier later admits he was wrong.  Eventually Mantell gives up his practice,
moves to London, and hunts fossils full time.  His house was so jammed that his wife left
him.  Mantell subsequently sold it all to the British Museum of Natural History for
$24,000.  His Coat Of Arms for Maidstone, his residence, has an Iguanodon.

1829
James Smithson, an Englishman, dies on June 27 at Genoa, Italy, and leaves his entire estate
to "The United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of Smithsonian
Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men."

1830
Charles Lyell's publication of "Principles Of Geology" made geology a SCIENCE instead of a
gentleman's hobby.  Lyell was taught by Reverend William Buckland (Megalosaurus).  Lyell
coined the word PALAEONTOLOGY ("discourse on ancient
things") as its own science.

1831
Richard Owen attends Georges Cuvier's lectures in Paris.

Charles Darwin sails on H. M. S. "Beagle" as naturalist for a royal surveying expedition that
lasts five years.  He takes a copy of Lyell's book (1830) with him.

1833
Gideon Mantell names Hylaeosaurus.

1836
Edward Hitchcock, president of Amherst, publishes a book on the Triassic footprints of the
Connecticut River valley and calls them "giant ground birds."

Richard Owen is appointed first Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and
Physiology of the Royal College of Surgeons in London.

1841
Richard Owen coins the word, DINOSAUR, based only on three partially known genera
(Megalosaurus, Iguanodon, and Hylaeosaurus).  Six other fossil reptiles have already been
named that will later be transferred to the Dinosauria.

1842
The name DINOSAURIA is published for the first time by Richard Owen.

1846
The Act of Congress organizing the Smithsonian Institution is signed by
President Polk on August 10.

Joseph Henry is elected the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution on December 3.

1847
Cornerstone of the Smithsonian building is laid on May 1.

1848
Edward Hitchcock publishes his monograph on the Triassic footprints of the Connecticut
River valley.

1850
Joseph Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, nominates Spencer Fullerton Baird
as Assistant Secretary in the Department of Natural History to take charge of the Museum
and aid in research, publications, and other matters as approved by the Regents.

1852
Gideon Mantell describes the first-known dinosaur skin from the forelimb of Pelorosaurus.

Joseph Leidy arranges with Spencer Fullerton Baird of the United States National Museum,
Smithsonian Institution, to have all fossils from the government surveys of the west be sent
to him at the Academy of Natural Sciences so he could study them.  Leidy had this exclusive
prerogative until 1866.  After that time, Marsh and Cope pushed him out.

1853
December 31, 1853, Richard Owen presides over a New Year's Eve dinner inside the model
of the partially completed Iguanodon sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins.

Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden gets his medical degree from Albany Medical College and goes on
a fossil collecting expedition out west to the Big Badlands of the Missouri River for James
Hall, State Paleontologist for New York.  Fielding B. Meek is in charge, and the mammalian
fossils are sent to Joseph Leidy.  While attending college in Albany, Meek and Hayden both
lived in James Hall's house.

1854
The Crystal Palace dinosaurs, based on Waterhouse Hawkins' sculptures, move to Crystal
Palace Park in the suburbs of Sydenham.

Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden returns west as a free-lance collector, only to be caught up in
the Sioux war which began with a clash at Fort Laramie.  The Sioux called Hayden "the man
who picks up stones while running," thought he was insane and therefore sacred, and they let
him alone.  Hayden finds the first American dinosaur in the Judith River watershed, but it
goes undescribed until the time of Edward Drinker Cope.

1855
Joseph Leidy engages Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden to collect for the Academy of Natural
Sciences.  Hayden discovers dinosaur teeth in the Montana territories near the confluence of
the Judith River with the Missouri.  In 1856 Leidy publishes them as the first American
dinosaurs to be named, Palaeoscincus and Troîdon.

1856
Trachodon is named.

Richard Owen becomes superintendent of the Natural History Section of the British Museum.

Gouverneur Kemble Warren, a Lieutenant in the Corps of Topographical Engineers, gets
$50,000 from Congress to explore Sioux country, and hires Hayden as his assistant in the
capacity of geologist.

1857
Warren and Hayden get orders from the War Department to look for new wagon routes north
of the Platte River, and to explore the Black Hills.  In his report, Warren's candid
assessment of the indians' point of view led to his being sacked, and replaced in 1859 by
Captain William Raynolds.

1858
Hadrosaurus is named.

1859
Charles Darwin publishes "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection."

1860
At age 19, Edward Drinker Cope goes to the Smithsonian as a visiting scholar, where he
publishes 31 papers!

While Cope and Marsh are still friends, Cope names a fish after Marsh - Ptyonius marshii.

1862
A transcontinental railroad is authorized by Congress.  The government promises about $50
million in bonds and 22 million acres of land.  Outbreak of the Civil War causes the start of
construction to be delayed until 1865.

Marsh studies in Europe, either so he won't be drafted into the Civil War, or because his
poor eyesight disqualified him from being drafted.  Marsh chooses Darwinism as a political
move.  He used it to meet famous European scientists, including Darwin himself.  Marsh
meets Cope in Berlin in 1863, and doesn't return to New Haven until 1865.

1863
Othniel Charles Marsh writes to Benjamin Silliman from Germany, saying that his Uncle
George Peabody will give Yale $100,000 for a museum, and it surely would be nice if Marsh
got a chair in Palaeontology to go with it.

1866
On July 24, O. C. Marsh is appointed Professor of Palaeontology at Yale, the first one in
North America.  His appointment was without salary.

George Peabody's deed of gift to Yale's Trustees in the amount of $150,000 is made on
October 22.  $100,000 is for the building, the extra $50,000 is for its care and
maintenance.

1867
Both E. D. Cope and O. C. Marsh publish papers noting the similarity of dinosaurs to birds.
Thomas H. Huxley later picks up on their observations.  Cope and Marsh publish again on
this subject in 1871.

The friendship between Joseph Leidy and Spencer Fullerton Baird of the Smithsonian works
to F. V. Hayden's advantage.  Upon the recommendation of Baird, Hayden heads up one of the
four Geological Survey units of the United States, established to ascertain the natural
resources of western lands.  The surveys, and their years of official field activity are:

    Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden   1867-1878   Western Territories
    Clarence King                           1867-1877   40th Parallel
    George. M. Wheeler                 1869-1879   West of 100th Meridian
    John Wesley Powell                 1874-1877   Uinta and Henry Mountains

These surveys competed with each other, and eventually they were drawn into the feud
between O. C. Marsh and E. D. Cope.  Everyone took sides as follows:

        Hayden sided with Cope
        Wheeler sided with Cope
        King sided with Marsh
        Powell sided with Marsh

The Hayden Survey of 1867 was funded by the General Land Office to ascertain the geology of
the territories of Nebraska, with a budget of $5000.

1868
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, already in the United States from England, accepts an
invitation from New York City in May to build a "Paleozoic Museum" in Central Park.

From September through December at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia,
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins erects Hadrosaurus, the first dinosaur in North America to
be free-mounted.  It is a cast.  E. D. Cope and Joseph Leidy assist.  The first specimen of real
dinosaur bone to be mounted for exhibit in North America does not occur until 1901.  Not
only was Joseph Leidy's restoration of Hadrosaurus as a free-mount a first, it was mounted
as a biped, the first dinosaur to be so restored anywhere, and it caused a furor.  Edward
Drinker Cope's involvement helped him to decide to become a paleontologist.

Othniel Charles Marsh takes advantage of the new railroad, and begins his field work in the
west.  Among other things, he is particularly interested in bringing back living specimens of
the tiger salamander, whose larval stage had been reported from Lake Como, Wyoming, right
on the Union Pacific Railroad.  Marsh finds the mud puppies, but somehow fails to notice the
dinosaur bones lying everywhere like logs in the bluff behind the railroad station (Como
Bluff).

1869
American Museum of Natural History created due to the efforts of Albert S.
Bickmore and Samuel Tilden.

First dinosaurs found at Garden Park, Colorado.

First American transcontinental railroad is completed, fulfilling a centuries-old dream of a
direct western route from Europe to Asia.  On May 10, the Central Pacific building east from
Sacramento, California, and the Union Pacific building west from Omaha, Nebraska, meet at
Promontory Point, Utah.  Vast reaches of the American west are now accessible to
exploration and exploitation of the natural resources.

Ulysses S. Grant is a good friend of General Grenville M. Dodge, the Chief Engineer in charge
of construction for the Union Pacific Railroad, who in turn is a good friend of F. V. Hayden.
Two months after Grant is elected president, the Hayden Survey becomes the core of the
future United States Geological Survey, with an annual federal budget of $10,000.

1870-1873
O. C. Marsh is the leader of four annual expeditions of Yale students to the west.  Thirty-
eight students altogether, not always appreciative participants, went on these bone-hunting
expeditions at their own expense.  Marsh arranged military protection for his party by
going to the top Washington brass, Generals Sherman, Sheridan, and Ord.  He drew free
provisions from military garrisons, and had cavalry escorts for his collecting forays into
territory occupied by hostile Indians.

F. V. Hayden saw himself as a publicist for the wonders of the American west.  In 1870, his
survey reports of the area around Green River, Wyoming, started a stampede of fossil
hunters to pilfer the region for fish fossils.  They dynamited huge chunks of rock and split
out slabs with specimens of fossil fish to sell to the railroad passengers as the trains came
into Green River Junction Station.  Day coach passengers paid $5.00 for a fossil while
stateroom passengers could lean out their window and buy slabs at $100.00 apiece!

1872
Benjamin F. Mudge, a professor at Kansas Agricultural College and the founder of Kansas
vertebrate paleontology, finds Mesozoic birds (birds with teeth), and sends them to O. C.
Marsh at Yale for description.

O. C. Marsh's published claim of a three-toed horse no bigger than a dog, and photos from the
Hayden Survey made world headlines and made the west seem like paradise.  The new
dime-store novels made the west seem adventurous.  The railroads were funding all kinds of
exploration for land deals and profits.

1874
The American Museum of Natural History begins construction of its building at Central Park
West in New York.  President Grant lays the cornerstone.

George Mercer Dawson collects dinosaur bones from Saskatchewan and Alberta.  E. D. Cope
later publishes these finds.  These are the first Canadian dinosaurs.

General George Armstrong Custer ramrods a scientific party through the Sioux country into
the Black Hills with an escort of about a thousand troops, including a military band mounted
on white horses.  The Black Hills are a sacred place to the Sioux, and this invasion by
outsiders known to be mad for gold starts to unravel the uneasy peace that had held since
1868.  Marsh refused two requests to participate, but accepted the third, put to him by high
army brass.  On November 4, Marsh arrives at the Red Cloud Agency in northwest Nebraska
with General Ord and Colonel T. H. Stanton, where he tries to convince the Sioux he is not
after gold.  He met Red Cloud and other tribal leaders, who that same day had concluded a
council of chiefs.  Marsh gave a feast for these men and told them he was looking for the
"thunder horse" or "ghost horses" (fossils).  They let him collect on the reservation land
because he was fat and harmless-looking.  He collected just one day, and packed the
specimens on the day following, under duress of either impending snow or an attack by a
large war party of hostile northern Sioux.  After he finished, Marsh came back to the agency
to show the chiefs his fossils and prove that he was not collecting gold.  Red Cloud trusted
him ever after.  When Marsh returned from the badlands, he and his friends at the New York
Herald blew the whistle on the corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the Red Cloud
Agency.  In 1883 Red Cloud came to visit Marsh at New Haven, and even addressed Congress!
In his western travels, Marsh became widely known among the Sioux, who called him "Heap
Whoa Man" at first, then "Bone Medicine Man," and finally, "The Big Bone Chief."  1874 was
the last season Marsh himself went into the field.

1876
Cope goes to Montana to join Charles H. Sternberg, who was refused employment by Marsh.
Cope's timing could have been much better, since Sitting Bull had just wiped out Custer.
Cope counts on the Sioux not getting to the Judith River country in Montana until October,
and that the tribes already in the area (among them the Crow, bitter enemies of the Sioux)
would be peaceful.  Cope was jealous of Marsh's friendship with the Sioux and Marsh's
exclusive collecting rights to their territory.  Cope befriended the Crow at dinner, and
entertained them by taking out his false teeth and putting them back.  This so amazed his
guests that one brave rode several miles to request a repeat performance.  Hence, Cope
became "Magic Tooth" and had free reign of Crow Indian Lands.

1877
The American Museum of Natural History opens its doors to the public.

The first bone from the Morrison area is named by Leidy as Poikilopleuron, based on partial
caudal collected by the Hayden Survey.

Arthur Lakes, a Reverend from England (a graduate of Oxford) at Morrison, Colorado, is also
a teacher in a Denver mission school, and a painter.  This gentleman sends bones he found in
the Dakota Hogback at Morrison first to Marsh at Yale, but gets no reply, and then writes to
Cope.  When Marsh finds out about the letter to Cope he sends Benjamin Mudge to Colorado.
Marsh outbids Cope.  A few weeks later Marsh is already publishing some results based on
this scrappy material!  Atlantosaurus immanis is the result, and it is based on a single
vertebra.

Ormel W. Lucas, a graduate of Oberlin College and superintendent of schools for Fremont
County, Colorado, sends bones from near Ca§on City to both Marsh and Cope (@ 10
cents/pound), and Cope hires Lucas immediately.  The quarry is in an area known as Garden
Park.  Cope names this material Morosaurus, which later winds up being called
Camarasaurus supremus.

Cope is getting better material at Garden Park near Ca§on City than Marsh is getting at
Morrison, so Benjamin Mudge asks Marsh to send Samuel Williston to Garden Park and
abandon Morrison.  Marsh decides to send both Mudge and Williston to Garden Park to dig in
the same beds (at $40/month) that Cope is working.  Marsh then sends Williston to Como
Bluff, Wyoming, to investigate rumors he just received about bones there, based on letters
from William Harlow Reed and William Edward Carlin, who use the pseudonyms of "Harlow
& Edwards."  Several HOURS after Williston arrives in November he writes Marsh about a
bone-bed 7 MILES long!  Marsh hires Reed and Carlin to dig at Como for $90/month, each.
Williston is placed in charge.  Como Bluff is near the VIRGINIAN SALOON at Medicine Bow,
Wyoming, the place Owen Wister immortalized in western lore in "The Virginian."  Reed is a
section foreman for the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and later curator at the University
of Wyoming Museum.  Carlin is the station agent.

Based only on SAMPLES from Reed and Carlin, Marsh names Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus,
Allosaurus, and Nanosaurus!

Marsh believes that Como Bluff is 7 million years old, and that sauropods could rear-up on
their hind legs like kangaroos.  See "History of the Arkansas Valley" by a Chicago firm in
1881.

1877 or 1878
Henry Fairfield Osborn and William Berryman Scott, both graduate students at Princeton, go
to Yale to see fossils.  Marsh thinks they are spies for Cope so he hides the good stuff and has
a student show them only mediocre material.  Marsh hides behind crates giving hand signals
to his technician to guide the visitors through the collections without letting them see the
new and choice fossils.

1878
Dinosaurs are discovered in the Fosse Sainte-Barbe coal mine near the town of
Bernissart in Belgium.  Thirty-nine articulated skeletons of Iguanodon are
discovered at a depth of 1056 feet.  The mine is closed for 3 years to dig out the dinosaurs -
with the full cooperation of the management!  They were studied by Louis Dollo for most of
the rest of his life.  Dollo took the spike off the nose of Iguanodon where the English had put
it and made it the thumb spike.  He also made Iguanodon a biped like Leidy's Hadrosaurus.

Spencer Fullerton Baird is appointed second Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution on
May 17, four days after Joseph Henry dies.

1879
Arthur Lakes (Marsh's man) arrives at Como Bluff from Morrison because Marsh wants to
speed up the work.  Lakes and Reed feud often because Lakes draws maps and pictures and
does not dig all the time like Reed does.

Samuel W. Williston leaves O. C. Marsh to work for him no further, and William H. Reed is
put in charge of the quarrying at Como Bluff.  Carlin and Frank H. Williston (S. W.
Williston's brother) sell out Marsh, and go over to Cope.  Reed guards Como Bluff so well
that Carlin and F. H. Williston had to move out of the area to prospect - they later went
farther north and discovered the Bone Cabin and Freeze Out Hills area, northwest of Como.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) becomes formalized as a Federal Agency on July
1, consolidating the four previous surveys.  A provision of the act of establishment states:
"And all collections of rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, and objects of natural history,
archaeology, and ethnology, made by the Coast and Interior Survey, The Geological Survey,
or by any other parties for the Government of the United States, when no longer needed for
investigations in progress, shall be deposited in the National Museum."  This act provided
the basis for all fossils collected by federal agencies to come to the U. S. National Museum of
the Smithsonian Institution.

    1st USGS Director = Clarence King     1879-1881
    2nd USGS Director = J. W. Powell      1881-1894
    3rd USGS Director = C. D. Walcott     1894-1907
    4th USGS Director = G. O. Smith        1907-1931

1880
Henry Fairfield Osborn and William Berryman Scott are hired on the faculty at Princeton
University.  They are Assistant Professor of Natural Sciences and Assistant Professor of
Geology, respectively.

1881
W. H. Reed's brother is killed while swimming in the Little Medicine Bow River.  Marsh's
lack of sympathy (he sent $100 for burial and told him to get back to work) causes Reed to
lose interest.

George Mercer Dawson and R. G. McConnell find dinosaur bones on the Red Deer River, and
near Lethbridge.

Richard Owen opens the new building of the British Museum (Natural History) in South
Kensington, London, after many years of lobbying the British Government and Queen
Victoria.

1882
A fully mounted skeleton of Iguanodon is completed at Bernissart.

O. C. Marsh becomes vertebrate paleontologist to the United States Geological Survey, with
federal funds for field work and laboratory research.  By virtue of this appointment, Marsh
is in charge of all work on vertebrate paleontology done by the USGS.

1883
Reed resigns at Como Bluff and John L. Kennedy takes over until 1885.  Fred Brown then
takes over until 1889, when all work stops.

1884
Joseph B. Tyrell finds Albertosaurus sarcophagus, which is named by Cope.

Marsh publishes his classification of the dinosaurs.  It is not the first classification
presented, but it is the one that formed the basis of the modern classification.

Richard Owen knighted by Queen Victoria upon Owen's retirement.

1887
Harry Govier Seeley names the two Orders of dinosaurs, the ORNITHISCHIA and SAURISCHIA,
based on features of the pelves.

1888
Dinosaur bones found only miles away from Pliny Moody's farm in Connecticut are labeled
"giant killed in Noah's Flood."

Thomas Chesmer Weston reports dinosaur bones in large numbers along the Red Deer River
in Alberta, and he collects another Albertosaurus skull from the Edmonton Formation.

Marsh names the first of the horned dinosaurs, "Bison" alticornus, based on a pair of horns
from the Denver Formation in Colorado.  They will subsequently become assigned to
Triceratops.

1889
Cope ordered to turn all his fossils from the Hayden Survey over to the United States
National Museum at the Smithsonian Institution.  He thought they would all wind up at Yale,
because Marsh was the official vertebrate paleontologist to the United States Geological
Survey.  Cope called the New York Herald and blew the whistle on Marsh and charged that he:
(1) published the work of his assistants without acknowledgement, (2) plagiarized the
work of others, and (3) used government funds to get fossils for Yale instead of forwarding
them to the Smithsonian.

T. C. Weston finds many skeletons of dinosaurs along the Red Deer River.
John Bell Hatcher begins his legendary collection of Triceratops in the Lance Creek
Formation of Wyoming.

1890
John Wesley Powell has been Director of the United States Geological Survey since 1881,
and it was he who appointed Marsh as vertebrate paleontologist to the Survey in 1882.
Altogether during the ten years Marsh was in the Survey, Powell saw to it that Marsh
received nearly $150,000 for research.  January 12, 1890, Cope charges Marsh with
collusion with John W. Powell and the USGS.
On January 19, 1891, Marsh, in response to Cope's charges in the New York Herald, fills an
entire page with Cope's blunders and says it is all due to jealousy.

H. F. Osborn leaves his position as Professor of Natural History and Anatomy at Princeton
and starts work at the American Museum of Natural History in October.

1891
In mid-April, H. F. Osborn receives his curatorial appointment at the American Museum of
Natural History, one week after his joint appointment at Columbia University as a professor
in the newly organized Department of Zoology.  Osborn founds the Department of Vertebrate
Paleontology at AMNH by virtue of his appointment there.  Samuel H. Williston, now on the
faculty at the University of Kansas, eventually recommends his star student, Barnum
Brown, to work at AMNH (1897).  Cope recommends Dr. Jacob L. Wortman, his former
assistant, who becomes Osborn's principal assistant (1891).  Oscar A. Peterson is hired
away from O. C. Marsh and also starts in 1891.  Walter Granger was already on board, hired
in 1980 in the taxidermy department as a janitor and helper!

1892
Fundamentalists and a Congressman from Alabama, Hilary A. Herbert, get federal funds cut
off for the USGS for doing "silly research on birds with teeth."  O. C. Marsh's appropriation
is cut and he is asked to resign his position as vertebrate paleontologist to the USGS.  He had
to give up his fossils to the United States National Museum at the Smithsonian.

Sir Richard Owen dies on December 18.