RE: cope and marsh

What I find amusing is how people a century later look at their work as one large mass, not as a sequence of events and a progression. They are often ridiculed for the speed of their work, but I suggest people who make these commenets watch famelies with young kids walking around a dinosaur museum one day. The parents are generally the ones who want to stand and give the skeleton in front of them a good look, but the kids are urging, even pulling them on...wanting to see what's next around the corner. To a young kid it is a world of discovery. They are probably seeing these things for the first time. Now imagine opening a crate and finding the most amazing skull, from an animal no one has ever seen before. Then think you have another 20, 40, 100 boxes over in the corner, waiting for you to just open them up.

Problem is, these things are huge and take up a lot of space. To get at the next box is not always a case of pushing some aside to get at others. With limited space you need to open and file away. Thats simple storeman logic 101. And the best way to do that is take the stuff out, dump the boxes, and place what ever it is on show or in storage. You'd be knocking these dinosaurs off as fast as possible to get at the next one, the the next, then the next.

and as for the haste they used in pulling them out of the ground. Most of these fossils come from the badlands, where Custer and his troop had been killed ( I hate the words massacre or slaughtered or any of the rest that hint at the 7th cavarly being the ones that suffered at the hands of the sioux. Custer asked for that fight and he sure got it! better to say defeated or simply killed as these words at least hint at giving credit to the indian tribes for a job well done :) ) that very year. I want any paleontologist to tell me that they would stand there and carefully brush a bone at of the ground, knowing at any mintue a hord of extremely unhappy sioux warriors that you know just beat up the cavalry could come riding over the hill. I'm suprised they stopped long enough to water their horses in that enviroment much less dig/blast out some of the best fossil ever found.
and as for the arguments the two had. As they say, friends make the best enemies! You always w! an! ! t to get one up on the guy you fell did you wrong. Simple human nature and I guess we should look at what would have happened if they didn't drive each other on with their animosity towards each other, but instead were pals, wandering the back stretches of america.

" I say Cope old boy, I think I found a bone."

"I say Marsh old fellow, I do believe your right, let's have a spot of tea to celebrate."

"Capital idea old bean."

Yeah I know....there not british, but the joke doesn't work if you replace it with an american twang and replace tea with coffee...or bourbon.

Phil Hore

National Dinosaur Museum

Canberra, Australia

ph (02) 62302655

A child was brought into this world. A child of light and innocence. A beautiful child of with talent, grace and integrity. A child to lead us into a glorious future....his name...John Wayne.

I've seen all his movies!