Omaha daily bee., 1899-04-09
FAN US MAN OF MANY GIFTS
Remarkable Career of th' Late Prof. Marsh
of Yale College.
UNIQUE STORIES OF THE GREAT SCIENTIST
How Two Small Bones Laid the
Foundation for His RenOwn-Ex-
posure of Scientific Fakes
and Frauds.
UNIQUE STORIES OF THE GREAT SCIENTIST

Only two or three men in a century pos
sess the regal gift of being a genius in
many things. Prof O. c. Marsh of Yale
university, who died recently, was endowed
with such a gift to a remarkable degree.
Besides being one of the most distinguished
of American scientists and perhaps the
most famous paleontologist in the world,
he won wide renown outside OF his scien-
tIfc work as daring and successful eX-
plorer as a connoisseur in Japanese art, as
a lover and collector OF rare orchids, as
champion of the American Indians and,
supremely. as story teller and writer OF
many scientific works.
More than that, he was able to read and
speak many languages, among them the
curious jargons of the western Indians ana
he had made a unique reputation as an
unrelenting foe of scientific fallacies and
fakes" He spent a long life and con-
siderable fortune in building up great
public museum at Yale college. He never
drew penny of salary for his services as
professor and about a year ago, when his
health began to fail, he made over all his
vast and priceless collections to the uni
yersity and died a comparatively poor man.
His Foundation for Fame.
Fame and science are supposed to come
with gray hairs. Prof Marsh was known
everywhere In the scientific world at the
age of 81. This sudden rise to fame was
the result OF discovery which he made
while he was yet a student at Phillips
academy, Andoyer. During one OF his
summer vacations he was tramping among
the cliffs OF Nova Scotia and he picked up
by accident two odd bits OF fossil bone. He
found them lying close together like two
checkers, one partially overlapping the
,lys,,
with saucer like hollows at each end and
so insignifcantly small that man might
close his hand around them,
Young Marsh, already deeply interested in
geology and mineralogy, dropped the bones
into the pocket OF his shooting jacket and
carried them with him. He passed from
Andover to Yale, where he was graduated
with honors in 1860. and then he entered the
Sheffieli Scientific school. All this time he
treasured the two fossil bones and their
significance a geological discovery became
palmer TO him with every added year OF
study From the shape, size and relative
position in which they were discovered, he
knew them to be the vertebrae OF some
enormous animal OF prehistoric origin but
he had found them in a coal formation, and
! the authorities gave no hint of creatures so
highly developed in a geological age 50 re-
mote. He believed that the two yertebrae
indicated hitherto unknown link between
the fishes and the reptiles, He showed the
bones to the famous geologist Dana and to
Prof Jefiries Wyman OF Harvard. They
told him 10 see Agassiz. who knew more
about fishes, living and extinct, than any
other man. Agassls examined the bones
with keen interest and inquired where they
were found. When young Marsh told him
the story OF their discovery and yentured TO
outline his theories the great scientist shook
his head emphatically:
impossible" he said.
But young Marsh was certain that he had