Dictated

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

WASHINGTON, D. C. November 7, 1898.

Prof. O.C.Marsh,
Yale University,
New Haven, Connecticut.

My dear Prof. Marsh:

I am planning to go to New Haven next week and hope to get there on Thursday, the 17th. I shall be very glad to work up the additional collections that you have received since I was there last.

DEPARTMENT
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

New Haven, Conn., Nov. 25, 1898.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr.H.F.Wells, Sturgis, S. D.

My dear Mr. Wells:

I know from your telegram to Professor Marsh that you got my telegram to you and also one from him to ship the cycads to him. I did everything I could before I left Washington to induce the Museum authorities to accept your offers but they took no interest in the matter and had no appreciation of the importance of the collection. The day before I left I told them that I was coming here and would like a definite answer, because if there was no prospect of the Museum taking the cycads I had concluded to explain the whole matter to Professor Marsh and urge him to accept your offer. They finally declined to do anything about the matter and I did as I said I would. Professor Marsh at once took in the situation and accepted your offer. He asked me to send the telegram and paid for it himself. So you see it is all straight and he will do just as he agreed.

Your letter reached me after I got here and I showed it to him. In fact, he has had a copy made of it, so that he understands the agreement exactly. I understood that the $300 included all the cycads at your house, those from Sundance, and the other one we saw west of Sturgis. In your letter you

said you had not so understood it, but would agree to that.
Professor Marsh will expect you to include the ones at your
house. I said nothing to him about the one west of Sturgis,
but I would like to have you put it in if you can do so that
I can study it with the rest.

I am here working up your last invoice and others that
he has obtained since I was here before. Mr. Wieland had
sent a lot of fragments and one fairly good trunk and he has
bought the ones I saw in Stillwell's shop. He also has two
specimens from the Jurassic in Carbon County, Wyoming. Your
collection is fine.

I shall go back to Washington next week and you can write
me there. I am very glad to get a chance to work up the cycads
and Professor Marsh says I shall do the rest when they come.

Very truly yours,

Dictated

WASHINGTON, D. C. Dec. 5, 1898.

Prof. O.C.Marsh,

University of Yale,

New Haven, Connecticut.

My dear Prof. Marsh:

I of course knew nothing about any previous
contract you might have had with Mr. Wells, Unless it was made
since I was in the Black Hills I do not see how it could be binding
because he said you did not want any more cycads and had written
him to that effect, at least I so understood him.

As to the National Museum I do not propose to say anything to
them about cycads at all. If you can negotiate with them it is
all right, but I have got to the point where I would just as lief
they should be at Yale as here.

3

letta nella Sessione del 10 Gennaio 1892. The reprint I have
contains 56 pages and 5 plates, but also contains the pages of the
volume (161-215). If you cannot find the reprint look for it in
the volume. It is in this paper (pl.v) that Count Solms figures
the supposed anthers of C.Etrusca.

If there is any way in which I can help you in your work
please let me know.

Very sincerely yours,

( Copy )

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

DIVISION OF VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY

NEW HAVEN, CONN.,

January 17, 1899.

Prof. L. F. Ward,

Dear Sir:

Since I saw you in Washington, I have looked over our Cycads here, and think it very important that you describe as soon as possible the new species in the last collection of about one hundred specimens I showed you when you were last here. I have learned that there is danger in more than one direction, that we may not have the field to ourselves, and as you have full notes of all the new forms in the above series, I am sure it will be good policy for you to put them in print as soon as you can.

I have spoken to Prof. Dana, and he will give you ten pages, without figures, in the American Journal of Science, for March; and the leading place at that, if you can send your MS. to him in time.

The large collection now coming in in instalments may be tied up for some little time, owing to excessive freight charges, being first class instead of fourth as I had previously

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

DIVISION OF VERTEBRATE-PALEONTOLOGY

NEW HAVEN, CONN.,

January 23, 1899.

Received from M. W. Filley, eighty-three (83) negatives of Cycads taken for the Geological Survey. These I hold subject to the order of the Director of the Survey.

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Dictated

WASHINGTON, D. C. Jan. 27, 1899.

Prof. O. C. Marsh,
Yale University,
New Haven, Conn.

My dear Prof. Marsh:

Your letter and telegram received. I have not applied for space, for an article in the American Journal of Science. I am just now engaged on a pressing piece of work which will take a month or more and I could not leave it to write up the descriptions of the cycads. As I told you, when in New Haven, it would not be advisable to go to press with the material I have studied if there is any probability of my having an opportunity to work up the other large collections that I understand are soon to be ready. I saw the great bulk of this material in the field and I know that much of it is the same as that which I could not identify with previously described forms, and it is almost necessary to bring it all together before attempting to describe it.

I do not of course understand what you mean in saying "that there is danger in more than one direction, that we may not have the field to ourselves much longer". If anyone wants to enter the field I certainly have no objection, and provided he is competent, I am quite willing to withdraw from it in his favor. I expected Mr. Wieland to send me a figure or two of the fruits, which he cut

(COPY)
Confidential

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

NEW HAVEN, CONN.,

February 3, 1899.

Dear Professor Ward, -

I have your letter of February 1st, and write promptly in reply. You do not yet seem to understand me on one point, and that is, the serious danger of the invasion of the Cycad field in the West from several distinct sources that may cut under us here, unless our new species are named and described. I should not have said so much about this unless I was sure of my facts, and I still think it important for you to name and briefly describe the new forms already examined by you.

In regard to the second part of your letter, let me say confidentially and with equal frankness that after your last visit here I decided to follow your advice, and have the inner structure of our Cycads examined and worked up as soon as possible, and a good beginning has already been made.
Mr. Wieland has worked constantly and successfully, and we have called in other assistance and incurred large expense for apparatus. Mr. Beecher has also taken much interest in the subject, and aided materially, but Mr. Wieland especially has been studying up the subject enthusiastically and with great success, having made out two or three points of great importance (the male inflorescence and the leaf development) from marvelously preserved specimens). Under these circumstances, I have decided to let him publish the results of his work in the American Journal, in a series of papers, the first of which he is now preparing for the next number.

Prof. L. F. Ward.

Dictated

WASHINGTON, D. C. Feb. 6, 1899.

Prof. O.C. Marsh,
Yale University, New Haven.

My dear Prof. Marsh:

Yours of the 3d is at hand. I was expecting something of the kind and I do not know why you needed to withhold the information from me, as you have only done exactly what I so strongly recommended, and I feel that I was entitled to know all about it, although I admit it is no affair of mine. I am very glad you have taken this course, as it relieves me from further connection with the matter and the work will be so much better done than it was in my power to do it. I shall not now need to visit New Haven again. I am entirely satisfied with the sense of having been instrumental in starting so important a work.

Proofs of my paper are now coming in and if you get Mr. Wieland will inform me what he has decided to call the species represented by No. 77 I will make the change in the proof. I had intended to name it after him, but as his papers will appear long before the Nineteenth Annual comes out, this cannot now be done.

Very sincerely yours,

(4) In the work of investigating the inner structure of Cycads, I have followed your advice, but the work has been mainly on species you have already described, and it is only since I saw you in Washington that definite results have been obtained worthy of prompt publication. I will send you proofs of the figures as soon as they are completed, which will be in about two weeks, at least those that go in the next number of the Journal. Others will appear in the subsequent numbers, as we fully appreciate the importance of early publication.

I hope the above will make the whole matter clear to you, if not, kindly let me know.

Yours, very truly,
( Signed ) O. C. Marsh.

Professor L. F. Ward.

Dictated

WASHINGTON, D. C. Feb. 15, 1899.

Prof. O. C. Marsh,

Yale University, New Haven.

My dear Prof. Marsh:

I enclose herewith the new matter relating to
No. 77 of the Yale collection, which goes in to the galley proof of
my paper in the Nineteenth Annual. You can make any use of it
you choose and return the sheets at your leisure. If reference is
made to this matter in the papers to be published in the American
Journal, it should read as follows:

1899. Cycadeoidea Wielandi Ward, Nineteenth Annual Report U.S.
Geological Survey, Pt. 2, p. — pl. cxvi.

There are some things in your letter of the 7th that are as
obscure to me as they were before. I hardly see how anybody is
likely to undertake to work up cycads and publish descriptions of
species. I have already published 22 species, which will cover
nine-tenths of the species from the Black Hills, and Mr. Wells has
sent you everything else that could be found in the field. If
anyone should try to make any more new species out of material
that may happen to have got into his hands he would be sure to cut
into my species and his names would simply become synonyms. It
would be a miracle if he should really get a new species, so that
I am not at all concerned about that.

When you are ready I will, if you wish me to and I can do so,

2

come on to New Haven again and treat all the material you have in
the same way that I have treated the rest. It was my idea that I
could still do some of the rough blocking out and cooperate to
advantage with your internal structure experts, so as to secure the
best results. When I left there I supposed that if this work
was to be taken up, as I had suggested, it would be in some such
way. I furnished Mr. Wieland with all the information in my
possession as to how to go about his work, put him on track of the
literature of the subject, sent him all the papers I could get
hold of, and references to the balance, so that he would know
how to secure them. I supposed that if he went on he would
occasionally communicate with me on the subject and keep me posted
as to the results reached, in which, of course, I am deeply in-
terested. But after I had done this I heard nothing further, al-
though I several times inquired of you whether any figures of No.
77 had been drawn from the sections that Mr. Wieland cut while I
was there. I got no answer to this, and when you were here you did
not seem disposed to tell me anything about it. Your sub-
sequent statement that the work has been going on so successfully
is of course agreeable news to me, but why I should not have known
it before I am at a loss to understand. When I wrote my last
letter I felt that if it was to be a close-borough affair and I
was to be left out it would terminate my connection with the whole
business, for which I would care very little, as I should get rid
of all the bother. I am ready at any moment to turn the whole sub-
ject over to anyone that is more competent to do it than I am,

and I have always felt that I was only doing a little of the
coarse surface work with which I am not very well satisfied and
which I am ready to drop at any time.

I congratulate Mr. Wieland on his success and if there is any
way in which I can be of any service to him or to you I shall be
glad to do anything in my power.

Dictated

WASHINGTON, D. C. March 2, 1899.

Prof. O. G. Marsh,

Yale University,

New Haven, Connecticut.

My dear Prof. Marsh:

I have received both your letters, the proofs,
and the separate from the American Journal of Mr. Wieland's paper.
I am very much obliged to you for the latter.

I am not yet out of whirl of the hurry connected with the
proof reading and other work. Last week I did not have time to
look up and I shall be very busy for a long time to come.

I have not therefore had the time to give Mr. Wieland's paper
the attention it deserves and I hesitate to say anything about it
until I can look into it much more closely. The figures are cer-
tainly excellent and he seems to have done his work in a thorough
and painstaking way. I am very sorry however that he could not
have begun with the unquestioned seeds that were found in that
specimen No.77. It need not have been a microscopic work any
more than this because a figure like one of these, of the longitu-
dinal section of that fruit would have been perfectly conclusive
to everybody and would have instantly attracted the attention of
all specialists in this line, bringing Mr. Wieland's name into
enviable prominence on the other side of the Atlantic, and contributing
greatly to the credit to the Yale University and of all connected

2

with the matter, especially yourself. This the present paper
will not do, or at least only to a limited extent, and some may
even question whether Mr. Wieland has found what he claims.
If he had discovered undoubted anthers or even such questionable
ones as Count Solms found in *Cycadeoidea Etrusca*, the case would
be much better. As it is I think many will doubt whether the
figures and descriptions establish the fact that this is really a
male inflorescence. For my own part I must confess that I see in
it only a somewhat normal reproductive organ, the essential parts
of which have disappeared, as is almost universally the case.
I shall not say this in print, at least not at present, for I do
not wish to do anything to discourage Mr. Wieland in his work,
but those old discussions about male flowers and much that is said
about Williamsonia, based on macroscopic observations, is highly
equivocal and largely guess-work. Any undesirable criticism of
this kind should be averted at the earliest possible moment by
bringing forward some of the real and valuable results that have
already been reached to show the world that we have something of
importance in America in the cycad line.

The exact weight of the great type of *Cycadeoidea colossalis*
in the National Museum, as weighed by myself when it was first
unboxed, is 721 pounds and 8 ounces.

Very sincerely yours,