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|wikipedia = Othniel Charles Marsh
|edition = 1900
|extra_notes = The 1888 edition notes that his studies at the Yale scientific school lasted two years.
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'''[[Author:Othniel Charles Marsh|MARSH, Othniel Charles]]''', naturalist, b. in
Lockport, N. Y.. 29 Oct., 1831; d. in New Haven, 18
March, 1899. He was
graduated at Yale in
1860, and at the Yale
(now Sheffield) scientific
school. During this
time he showed himself
a devoted student in
mineralogy, and made
an important beginning
in paleontology in
the discovery and
description of Eosaurus
Acadianus, a large
reptile from the coal-formation
of Nova Scotia.
From 1862 till 1865
he studied zoölogy,
geology, and mineralogy
under Ehrenberg and
other eminent teachers
in the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Breslau,
occupying his vacations in field-work in {{hws|Ger|Germany}}
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{{hwe|many|Germany}} and the Alps. He returned to the United
States to accept the chair of paleontology, which
had been established for him at Yale in 1866, and
which he continued to hold. He afterward devoted
himself to the original investigation of extinct
vertebrate animals, more especially of those remains
that have been collected in the Rocky mountain
region by scientific expeditions organized and led
by himself, and, in later years, by trained parties
sent into the field under his direction. During
these researches Prof. Marsh has crossed the Rocky
mountains twenty-one times. His earlier expeditions
were carried into regions that had never
before been visited by white men, and were frequently
attended by much hardship and danger, as the
localities that he visited were often occupied by
hostile Indians, and explorations could be carried
on only under the protection of a strong escort of
U. S. troops. While on one of these expeditions
Prof. Marsh became aware of frauds that were
practised on the Indians, and his vigorous efforts
in their behalf at Washington, in 1875, resulted in
procuring for them better treatment. In Prof.
Marsh's various explorations more than 1,000 new
species of extinct vertebrates have been brought
to light, many of which possess great scientific
interest, and represent wholly new orders, and others
that were not before discovered in America. He
had already published descriptions of about 300 of
these, principally in papers in the “American Journal
of Science.” Among the more important of
them are a new sub-class of birds with teeth
(odontornithes), and the first known American pterodactyles,
including a new order (pteranodontia), from
the cretaceous strata of Kansas; two new orders
of large mammals from the eocene tertiary of the
Rocky mountains, the tillodontia, which seem to
be related to the carnivores, ungulates, and
rodents, and the dinocerata, which were huge
ungulates, elephantine in bulk, bearing on their skulls
two or more pairs of horn-cores; also, from the
same formation, eohippus, orohippus, and epihippus,
the earliest known ancestors of the horse, and
the first monkeys, bats, and marsupials that were
found in this country; from the miocene, the
brontotheridæ, a new family of great ungulates,
with their skulls armed with a single pair of horns;
and from the Jurassic, the first mammals of that
formation to be found in America, representing
two orders and many species, and several new
families of dinosaurs of most interesting character,
some of these reptiles being of enormous size, and
probably the largest land animals yet discovered.
Since 1876 Prof. Marsh had been engaged in
preparing a series of monographs containing full illustrated
descriptions of his western discoveries, which
are in course of publication under government
auspices. These include “Odontornithes, or Birds
with Teeth” (Washington, 1880), and a volume on
the “Dinocerata” (1884). A third large volume,
now in press, describes the gigantic dinosaurs of
the order sauropoda, and is illustrated by 90 plates
and over 200 wood-cuts. A fourth will describe
the stegosauria, another group of extinct reptiles
from the Rocky mountains, a fifth describes the
brontotheridæ, and other memoirs will follow.
These volumes will be issued by the U. S. geological
survey, of which Prof. Marsh was the paleontologist
in charge of the division of vertebrate
paleontology, but previous to 1882 all of his explorations
were made at his own expense. Charles Darwin
wrote to him: “Your work on these old birds,
and on the many fossil animals of North America,
has afforded the best support to the theory of
evolution that has appeared within the last twenty
<!-- p. 219 -->
years.” In 1878 Prof. Marsh was president of the
American association for the advancement of
science, and for many years he was president of the
National academy of sciences. He was a fellow of
the Geological society of London, from which, in
1877, he received the Bigsby medal for important
discoveries in paleontology, and also a member of
many other European and American scientific
societies. In 1886 the University of Heidelberg
conferred upon him the degree of Ph. D., and the same
year he received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard.