Omaha daily bee., 1899-04-09

clusively that it was sloth and not man
that had strolled slowly along the shore Of
this prehistoric lake and left his footprints
on the sands of time.
Prof Marsh had a real scientific passion
encyclopaedia article which was commended
to his attention. The writer wishing to
give modern man a graphic idea of the ap
pearanCe of his remote ancestors, had made
a restoration of an extinct animal in flesh
and blood, but unfortunately he had placed
the head on the end of the tail.
Business Coup.
Prof Marsh had real scientific passion
for new fossils. When he was studying
pterodactyles, flying dragons" which he
had discovered in the chalk of Kansas he
saw notice in a German scientific maga-
zine that a very perfect pterodactyle had
been discovered in Bavaria. 1t was de-
scribed as having well preserved wings and
a long tail with membrane at the end,
evidently used as a rudder in flying. Real
izing the great Importance of the discovery
and knowing that the museums of Europe
would strive to secure the fossil, so essen
tial just then to his own Investigations, he
at once cabled to the magazine editor:
Buy Eichstadt Pterodactyle for Yale Col
lege. Marsh
The editor, quiet German professor. was
lost in amazement. The price of the fossil
was more than his annual salary, but the
message was buy and he bought and the
precious pterodactyle was on its way to New
Haven before the European museums
ceiYed answers to their written inquiries.
The fossil dragon was entirely new to sci
ence and Prof Marsh described it at length
under the name Rhamphorphncus phylurus.
For more than thirty three years he
served Yale college wholly without salary
or other remuneration from the university
corporation. Moreover, during the first four
teen years of his explorations in the west
his expeditions were fitted out entirely at
his own expense Beginning with 1882 he
was for ten years paleontologlst TO the
United States government, but all of the
salary he received was probably expended
in extending the scope of his work and in
enlarging the records of ancient life in
America.
He was able to carry forward such ex-
tensive enterprises through the generosity
OF his uncle. George Peabody
"If / make you rich" said the famous
philanthropist, you will never do anything;
but 1t is bad thing to be poor"
Prof. Marsh was instrumental in securing
| the gifts which built the Peabody Museum
OF Natural History at Yale the Peabody
| Museum Of Archaeology and Ethnology at
! NeIilDI IlSt anu lLIt tdDOlg Atdltuy VI
| Science at Salem, Mass in all of which he
has taken the keenest personal interest.
| As He Was Personally.
| Personally, Prof Marsh wore few OF the
! conventional airs of the scientist. He was
a rugged -shouldered firmly built man, a
| little under medium height. with white hair
and full white beard, a high forehead ris-
| ing above pair Of engaging blue eyes. You
met him with a golfng cap pulled down COM
| fortably over his head, long. black coat
hanging loosely from his shoulders and bit
of color in his neck-clOth. He
moved with certain nervous energy that be-
spoke his active mind and upon the first
provocation he told you q story-and a very
| good one, too.
stranger was usually long in discovering
the greatest passion OF Prof, Marsh's life,
! for he possessed a wide and human interest
| in many different things; and when at last
! he spoke Of his precious fossils II was with
the simple, unscientifc language OF the lay
man; he would not puzzle one with technical
! descriptions, for his own conceptions Of pre-
/ historic life were dressed with the trappings
| OF a rare scientific imagination and he was
4 able to make one see what he saw. This
! quality Of simplicity, so unusual among
! scientists, was also a marked attribute OF
! his technical publications. the mere cata-
! logue OF which fills a book Of fifty pages
| Prof MARSH never allowed himself to fos-