Review: The Gilded Dinosaur, Mark Jaffe
American science was largely a phenomenon of the latter half of the 19th Century. Before the Civil War, Harvard and Yale held an almost complete monopoly on university science in the United States, though their own scientific output was still dwarfed by the work of scattered amateurs in local academies and traveling Europeans. Through the efforts of a few important men, Louis Agassiz, James Dwight Dana, Henry Bache, Asa Gray, and others, university science departments began to become both commonplace and diversified. As the “naturalist,” polymaths like Darwin or Agassiz, passed into history, new specialists took their place. This is where Mark Jaffe’s story in The Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War Between E.D. Cope and O.C. Marsh and the Rise of American Science picks up.
The two principle actors are Edward Drinker Cope and Othaniel Charles Marsh. These were America’s first professional paleontologists. They were proceeded in their craft by the occasional work of Agassiz and Dana and most importantly by Joseph Leidy. Leidy enters into the story as Cope’s mentor at the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia, at the time the nation’s center of paleontological research (mostly because of Leidy). Cope was the son of wealthy Quaker farmers and possessed a lot of education under various scientists (Agassiz in addition to Leidy). The younger Marsh had quite a different history. He was a Yallie, followed by an extensive and pedigree German training. When he returned from Europe he took up a position at his Alma Mater.
The first meeting of the two occurred in Philadelphia. Cope had reconstructed a fossil Elasmosarus recently recovered in Kansas, an ancient sea reptile. Cope had put the head at the end of a short neck giving the animal a long tail. Marsh quickly realized that the head was on the animal backwards. To Cope’s mortification, he picked up the skull and moved to the end of the long ‘tail,’ where it articulated perfectly. Not an auspicious start.
As the two began mounting parallel field expeditions to the opening fossil fields of the West, ill-feeling intensified into a real professional rivalry. The story of these expeditions take up a substatial part of the book, and are often engaging reading, even if they feel a little dragging at times. The story of Marsh and Cope weave through Western praries, Indian wars, stage routes, and mining towns, populated by characters like Sitting Bull, General Custard, and even Wild Bill Hickock. The links between the opening of Americna science and the opening of the American West run deep and profound. The major fossil strikes of at Bridger Basin, Cannon City, Como Bluff, and other sites are well documented. Anecdotes like how Marsh went to battle with the Indian Bureau over their ill-treatment of the Sioux at the behest of Chief Red Cloud, and the friendship that developed between then as a consequence, form interesting linkages to the broader politics of the age. Where Jaffe neglects to give enough attention, it seems, though, is in how the fued actually developed. By the end of the book, the two are going to great lengths to do each other harm. Cope endangers his odds of getting published a series of monographs essential to his financial stability just to attack the US Geological Survey headed by a Marsh ally, John Wesley Powell. I didn’t put the book down really understanding why it got to that point.
I was impressed with Jaffe’s ability to link sequences of events kicked off by either Cope or Marsh and the profound impacts they could sometimes have. Cope attacks Marsh and the USGS, anti-science senators use the controversy he kicks up to cut Powell’s funding, his plan for the development of the American Southwest (one that would have denied the doctrine of the “rain following the plow” that led to the later dustbowl and current water crises) dies in the womb. In this way, the book largely lives up to its ambitious subtitle. The book is an intriging and comprehensive, if sometimes less than intellectually probing, account of two extremely interesting personalities and the age they helped shape.
global RSS feed. 
Powered by FireStats
Thanks for the review. I’m about 2/3 through the book and finding it an interesting read. I do believe that the famous General featured in this book was named “Custer,” not “Custard.” You might want to change that.
Dear Sir,
I just read your review, and have a few comments which I hope will benefit a later edition.
Line one. Without a qualifier, this sentence ignores all the science of the twentieth century, which produced among other things: the airplane, Salk vaccine, laser technology, the harnassing of atomic energy, CAT scans, MRIs, heart transplants, space flight, radio, television, cell phones, discoveries of genetics and DNA, artificial lenses for implantation, air conditioning, heat pumps, fiber optics, and penicillin, among others.
Line eight. “when,” rather than “where.” “When” refers to time; “where” refers to place.
Line eleven. “principal,” rather than “principle.”
Line eleven. “Othniel,” rather than “Othaniel.”
Line twelve. first professional “vertebrate” paleontologists.” The science of “invertebrate” paleontology was well-established in North America, Europe, and Great Britain by the turn of the 19th century.
Line twelve. “preceded,” rather than “proceeded.”
Line eighteen. “pedigreed,” rather than “pedigree.”
Line twenty-four. what is the antecedent of the personal pronoun, “he”? Do you mean Cope, or Marsh?
Line twenty-nine. “takes up,” rather than “take up. “Story,” a singular noun, is the subject of the verb.
Line twenty nine. “substantial,” rather than “substatial.”
Line twenty-nine. “is,” rather than “are.” “Story,” a singular noun, is the subject of the verb.
Line thirty. “even if it feels,” rather than “even if they feel.” Parallel construction and agreement of subject and verb.
Line thirty. “weaves,” rather than “weave.” Story,” a singular noun, is the subject of the verb.
Line thirty-one. “prairie,” rather than “prarie.”
Line thirty-two. “General Custard” already noted by another reader.
Line thirty-three. “American science,” rather than “Americna science.”
Line thirty-four. “Canon City” (with a tilde over the “n”), rather than “Cannon City.” “Canon” in this case is Spanish in origin and is pronounced “Canyon.”
Line thirty-seven. “them,” rather than “then.”
Line thirty-nine. “feud,” rather than “fued.”
Line forty-three. A misplaced modifier, “didn’t,” gives the sentence a meaning opposite to what I think you intended. It should read, “I put the book down not really understanding why the feud got to that point.”
Line fifty. “intriguing,” rather than “intriging.”
I hope this information will be useful. Unfortunately, the lack of careful editing in this review tends to mar the merits of its message.
Sincerely,
Raymond Rye