Othniel Charles Marsh

“ THE origin of life and the order of succession in which its various forms have appeared upon the earth offer to science its most inviting and most difficult field of research. Although the primal origin of life is unknown, and may perhaps never be known, yet no one has a right to say how much of the mystery now surrounding it science cannot remove. ”

“ By this same method of research the more ancient strata of the earth have been explored, and in our Western wilds veritable battlefields, strewed with the fossil skeletons of the slain, and guarded faithfully by savage superstition, have been despoiled, yielding to science treasures more rare than bronze or gold. ”

“ Paleontology, therefore, is not a mere branch of geology, but the foundation on which that science mainly rests. This fact is a sufficient excuse, if one were wanting, for noting the early opinions in regard to the changes of the earth's surface, as these changes were first studied to explain the position of fossils. The investigation of the latter first led to theories of the earth's formation, and thus to geology. When speculation replaced observation, fossils were discarded, and for a time the mineral characters of strata were thought to be the key to their position and age. ”

“ Cuvier's definition of a species, the dominant one for half a century, was as follows: "A species comprehends all the individuals which descend from each other, or from a common parentage, and those which resemble them as much as they do each other." ”

“ In this long history of ancient life I have said nothing of what Life itself really is—and for the best of reasons—because I know nothing. Here, at present, our ignorance is dense, and yet we need not despair. Light, Heat, Electricity, and Magnetism, Chemical Affinity, and Motion, are now considered different forms of the same force; and the opinion is rapidly gaining ground that Life, or vital force, is only another phase of the same power. ”

“ It is an interesting fact that all the Jurassic birds known, both from Europe and America, are land-birds, while all from the Cretaceous are aquatic forms. The four oldest known birds, moreover, differ more widely from each other than do any two recent birds. These facts show that we may hope for most important discoveries in the future, especially from the Triassic, which has as yet furnished no authentic trace of birds. ”

“ Authority guarded with still greater power the secrets men in advance of their age sought to know. The dominant idea of the first sixteen centuries of the present era was, that the universe was made for man. This was the great obstacle to the correct determination of the position of the earth in the universe, and, later, of the age of the earth. The contest of astronomy against authority was long and severe, but the victory was at last with science. ”

“ The influence of Aristotle's views of equivocal generation, and especially the scholastic tendency to disputation, so prevalent during the middle ages, had contributed largely to the retardation of progress, and yet a real advance in knowledge had been made. The long contest in regard to the nature of fossil remains was essentially over, for the more intelligent opinion at the time now acknowledged that these objects were not mere "sports of Nature," but had once been endowed with life. ”

“ IN the rapid progress of knowledge, we are constantly brought face to face with the question. What is life? The answer is not yet, but a thousand earnest seekers after truth seem to be slowly approaching a solution. This question gives a new interest to every department of science that relates to life in any form, and the history of life offers a most suggestive field for research. One line of investigation lies through embryology, and here the advance is most encouraging. ”

“ To-day, the animals and plants now living are believed to be genetically connected with those of the distant past; and the paleontologist no longer deems species of the first importance, but seeks for relationships and genealogies, connecting the past with the present. Working in this spirit, and with such a method, the advance during the last decade has been great, and is an earnest of what is yet to come.
The progress of paleontology in Great Britain during the present period has been great, and the general interest in the science much extended. ”

“ Returning now to our subject from this geological digression—which will hardly be deemed unprofitable, since I have given you in few words the results of a great deal of my own hard mountain work—let us consider the Tertiary mammals, as we know them front the remains already discovered, and attempt to trace the history of each order down to the present time. We have seen that a single small Marsupial, from the Trias, is the only mammal found in all the American rocks below the Eocene; and yet in beds of this age, immediately over the Chalk, fossil mammals of many different kinds abound. ”

“ So too in considering the different groups of reptiles, which seem to make their first appearance at certain horizons, flourish for a time, and then decline, or disappear, every day brings evidence to show that they are but fragments of the unraveled strands which converge in the past to form the mystic cord uniting all life. If the attempt is made to follow back any single thread, and thus trace the lineage of a group, We are met by difficulties which the science of to-day can only partially remove. ”

“ Leonardo da Vinci, the renowned painter and philosopher, who was born in 1452, strongly opposed the commonly accepted opinions as to the origin of organized fossils. He claimed that the fossil shells under discussion were what they seemed, and had once lived at the bottom of the sea. "You tell me," he says, "that Nature and the influence of the stars have formed these shells in the mountains; then show me a place in the mountains where the stars at the present day make shelly forms of different ages, and of different species in the same place." ”

“ It is certainly within the domain of science to determine when the earth was first fitted to receive life, and in what form the earliest life began. To trace that life in its manifold changes through past ages to the present is a more difficult task, but one from which modern science does not shrink. ”

“ As we have here the oldest and most generalized members of the group, so far as now known, we may justly claim America for the birthplace of the order. That the development did not continue here until it culminated in man, was due to causes which at present we can only surmise, although the genealogy of other surviving groups gives some data toward a solution. Why the Old World apes, when differentiated, did not come to the land of their earlier ancestry, is readily explained by the then intervening oceans, which likewise were a barrier to the return of the horse and rhinoceros. ”

“ IT remains now to consider the highest group of the animal kingdom, the class Mammalia, which includes man. Of the existence of this class before the Trias we have no evidence, either in this country or in the Old World, and it is a significant fact that, at essentially the same horizon in each hemisphere, similar low forms of mammals make their appearance. Although only a few incomplete specimens have been discovered, they are characteristic and well preserved, and all are apparently Marsupials, the lowest mammalian group which we know in this country, living or fossil. ”

“ For such missing links, we must look to the caves and later Tertiary of Africa, which I regard as now the most promising field for exploration in the Old World. America, even in the tropics, can promise no such inducements to ambitious explorers. We have, however, an equally important field, if less attractive, in the Cretaceous mammals, which must have left their remains somewhere on this continent. ”

“ As time never fails, and the universe is eternal, neither the Tanais nor the Nile can have flowed for ever. The places where they rise were once dry, and there is a limit to their operations: but there is none to time. ”

“ As a cause for many changes of structure in mammals during the Tertiary and Post-Tertiary, I regard as the most potent, natural selection, in the broad sense in which that term is now used by American evolutionists. ”

“ The brilliant discoveries of Cuvier in the Paris Basin excited great interest in England, and, when it was found that the same Tertiary strata existed in the south of England, careful search was made for vertebrate fossils. Remains of some of the same genera described by Cuvier were soon discovered, and other extinct animals new to science were found in various parts of the kingdom. König, to whom we owe the name Ichthyosaurus, and Conybeare, who gave the generic designation Plesiosaurus, and also Mosasaurus, were among the earliest writers in England on fossil reptiles. ”

“ His contributions have enriched almost every department of paleontology, and of extinct vertebrates especially, he has been, since Cuvier, the chief historian. The fossil reptiles of England he has systematically described, as well as those of South Africa. The extinct Struthious birds of New Zealand he has made known to science, and accurately described in extended memoirs. His researches on the fossil mammals of Great Britain, the extinct Edentates of South America, and the ancient Marsupials of Australia, each forms an important chapter in the history of our science. ”

“ The Cetacea are connected with the marine Carnivores through the genus Zeuglodon, as Huxley has shown, and the points of resemblance are so marked that the affinity cannot be doubted. That the connection was a direct one, however, is hardly probable, since the diminutive brain, large number of simple teeth, and reduced limbs in the whales, all indicate them to be an old type, which doubtless branched off from the more primitive stock leading to the Carnivores. Our American extinct Cetaceans, when carefully investigated, promise to throw much light upon the pedigree of these strange mammals. ”

“ If the history of American mammals, as I have briefly sketched it, seems, as a whole, incomplete and unsatisfactory, we must remember that the genealogical tree of this class has its trunk and larger limbs concealed beneath the débris of Mesozoic time, while its roots doubtless strike so deeply into the Paleozoic that for the present they are lost. A decade or two hence we shall probably know something of the mammalian fauna of the Cretaceous, and the earlier lineage of our existing mammals can then be traced with more certainty. ”

“ It had now become clearly evident, moreover, that the fossils from the older formations were all extinct species, and that only in the most recent deposits were there remains of forms still living. The equally important fact had been established that in several groups of both animals and plants the extinct forms were vastly more numerous than the living, while several orders of fossil animals had no representatives in modern times. Human remains had been found mingled with those of extinct animals, but the association was regarded as an accidental one by the authorities in science ”

“ The Cheiroptera, or bats, have not been found in this country below the middle Eocene, where two extinct genera, Nyctilestes and Nyctitherium, are each represented by numerous remains. These fossils all belong to small animals, and, so far as they have been investigated, show no characters of more than generic importance to distinguish them from the bats of to-day. No other members of this group are known from our Tertiary. In the Post-Tertiary, no extinct species of bats have been found in North America, but from the caves of Brazil quite a number have been reported. ”

“ A claw, a shoulder-blade, a condyle, a leg or arm bone, or any other bone separately considered, enables us to discover the description of teeth to which they have belonged; so also reciprocally we may determine the form of the other bones from the teeth. Thus, commencing our investigation by a careful survey of any one bone by itself, a person who is sufficiently master of the laws of organic structure may, as it were, reconstruct the whole animal to which that bone had belonged. ”

“ The discovery of fossil bones in the gypsum-quarries of Paris by the workmen, who considered them human remains; the careful study of these relics by Cuvier, and his restorations from them of strange beasts that had lived long before, is a story with which you are all familiar. Cuvier was the first to prove that the earth had been inhabited by a succession of different series of animals, and he believed that those of each period were peculiar to the age in which they lived. ”

“ In looking over the records of paleontology, its history may conveniently be divided into four periods, well marked by prominent features, but, like all stages of intellectual growth, without definite boundaries.
The first period, dating back to the time when men first noticed fossil remains in the rocks, and queried as to their nature, is of special historic interest. ”

“ A comparison of the peculiar Eocene mammals which I have called the Tillodontia, with the least specialized Edentates, brings to light many curious resemblances in the skull, teeth, skeleton, and feet. These suggest relationship, at least, and possibly we may yet find here the key to the Edentate genealogy. At present, the Tillodonts are all from the lower and middle Eocene, while Moropus, the oldest Edentate genus, is found in the middle Miocene, and one species in the lower Pliocene. ”