Beaudoin, Alwynne B.

English

University of New Brunswick: Centre for Digital Scholarship Journals

GEOSCIENCE CANADAREVIEWThe Legacy of theMastodon: The Golden Ageof Fossils in AmericaKeith ThomsonYale University Press, New Haven (2008)xvii + 386 p.ISBN 978-0-300-22704-2US $23.00  paperbackReviewed by Alwynne B. BeaudoinRoyal Alberta Museum12845-102nd Avenue Edmonton, AB,  Canada, T5N 0M6E-mail: abeaudoi@gpu.srv.ualberta.caIn this scholarly and thoughtful book,written as a tribute to his teacher,Alfred S. Romer, Keith Thomson sur-veys the history of  vertebrate fossilcollecting in North America betweenabout 1750 and 1890. Thomson hashad a long and distinguished career inbiology, palaeontology, and natural his-tory that includes stints on faculty andin museum administration at severalinstitutions including Oxford and Yaleuniversities and the Academy of  Natu-ral Sciences, Philadelphia. Perhaps notcoincidentally, these institutions housemany of  the historically important fos-sil specimens that are the focus of  hisaccount. During the past twenty yearsor so, he has written more than tenother well-received books, mainlyfocusing on the history of  science andnatural history, ranging from The YoungCharles Darwin (2009) to Living Fossil:The Story of  the Coelacanth (1991). Thomson characterizes thestudy of  fossil vertebrates as a “uniquelyAmerican science” that is marked by threethemes, comprising a “straight forwardpractical empiricism”, “the adventure ofexploration and discovery” and the grow-ing professionalization of  geology as itemerged from natural science (p. 7).Thomson situates fossil collectingwithin the American western expan-sionist movement during the late eigh-teenth and especially nineteenth centu-ry. As it partakes of  the restless urgefor exploration, he regards it as“in every sense tied directly to, and con-tingent upon, the greater history of  theopening and population [sic] of  theAmerican West” (p.7).Appropriately enough, Thom-son begins his survey with a tale that ispart of  this frontier mythos: the kid-napping in 1755 of  Mary DraperIngles from her pioneer homestead inthe Appalachians by a group of  raidingShawnee. She was set to work process-ing salt at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, aplace that, as its name suggests, yieldedabundant large animal bones. This siteand the faunal remains collected thereform the starting point for Thomson’snarrative. In 1752, mineralogist Jean-Étienne Guettard described one largetooth specimen that had been collectedfrom this site by a French military offi-cer in 1739. Thomson explains thatthis tooth, which we now know to befrom a mastodon, stimulated a greatdeal of  interest because of  its puzzlingcharacteristics. It was similar to but dif-ferent from elephant teeth and it alsodiffered from the mammoth teeth thatwere already known from Siberia.Speculation abounded as to what ani-mal produced this strange knobblytooth. A peculiar species of  elephant?A different type of  elephant-like ani-mal? A hippopotamus? Perhaps somekind of  carnivore? And, more to thepoint, did this strange animal still roamNorth America? Thomson continues bydescribing how this and similar findsraised questions among the educatedand scientific elite, generating interestand stimulating exploration and fossilhunting in America. More discoveriesprompted more scientific scrutiny,including some perceptive observationsby Benjamin Franklin. The finds alsoattracted the attention of  the intellec-tually curious and politically powerfulThomas Jefferson. Jefferson wanted tofind evidence to repudiate the Comtede Buffon’s supercilious 1766 dismissalof  America’s fauna and peoples asundersized and degenerate. Discover-ing a large elephant-like, possibly car-nivorous, American animal would defi-nitely be one way to squelch thepatronizing Europeans! Jeffersonthought he had found his carnivore inthe remains of  the ‘great claw’ foundin 1797, until this was identified byCaspar Wistar as a giant sloth, nowknown as Megalonyx. As has happenedat other times, science got mixed upwith politics. As Thomson sees it, Jef-Volume 37  Number 3 September 2010 141ferson had an“almost visceral need to describe Ameri-can creatures in terms of  their ferocityand power” (p. 37). In this way they“could then be projected as powerful sym-bols of  the new nation and described interms matching the belligerence andstrength that allowed America to becomeindependent from its European forefa-thers” (p. 37).Of  course, neither the browsingmastodon nor the massive but herbivo-rous ground sloth really projected theimage of  ferocity and energy that Jef-ferson wanted to cultivate! Perceptively,Thomson notes that “the same issues ofsize, strength and aggressiveness” came intoplay again with the dinosaur discover-ies of  the nineteenth century and, hesuggests, continue today. Jefferson wrestled with thesame conundrum that struck everyonewho examined the mastodon and otherremains. Did these represent animalsthat were still in existence? And, if  so,where were they? When Jefferson sentout Lewis and Clark in 1805 to explorethe American west, their mandateincluded instructions to search for liv-ing representatives of  these animals (p.60). Nevertheless, it was starting todawn on observers that these animalsmight be extinct. Extinction, however,was a difficult concept for many peo-ple, including Jefferson, to fit into theirexisting belief  systems, as Thomsonexplains in the second section of  hisbook, called ‘Fossils and Geology’. Here Thomson switches hisattention to what was happening innatural philosophy in the late eigh-teenth century and early nineteenthcentury, especially in Britain andEurope. Thomson traces the origin ofideas on stratigraphy from Steno toWilliam Smith and describes the grad-ual recognition that the record of  therocks indicated immense intervals oftime. This again flew in the face ofreligious tradition, which held that theearth was only a few thousand yearsold. In Europe, Georges Cuvier wasthe recognized authority on ancientanimal remains and he began charac-terizing strata around the Paris Basinby their included fossils. In England,the discovery of  large animal bones,notably by Mary Anning and GideonMantell, generated much popular andscholarly interest. However, these ani-mal bones showed greater affinitieswith lizards than with mammals, lead-ing to the definition of  the Dinosauriaby Richard Owen in 1842. As Thom-son’s account shows, the discovery ofanimals so different from anything liv-ing had already predisposed most sci-entists and educated people to acceptthe reality of  extinction and specieschange by the time of  Darwin’s formu-lation of  evolution in 1859, althoughthis provided the conceptual frame-work or “intellectual underpinning” (p.298) for the developing discipline ofpalaeontology. As exploration of  the westernareas of  the North American continentcontinued in the early and mid nine-teenth century, more evidence of  largefossil animals was found. From hereon, Thomson’s narrative becomes alitany of  famous names as geologistsand fossil collectors move from regionto region, locality to locality: the Dako-ta Badlands, the Black Hills, NebraskaTerritory, Green River Basin, PowderRiver Basin, Wasatch Basin, BridgerBasin, parts of  Kansas, and ComoBluff, Wyoming. Throughout the 1850sand 1860s, many of  the collected fos-sils found their way east to the labora-tory of  Joseph Leidy in Philadelphia,where he described and publishedaccounts of  them, identifying andnaming many new species, notably ofmammals found in the Tertiary strataof  the badlands in the upper Missouri.Unlike most modern palaeontologists,he did not specialize in any one fossilgroup or geologic interval; he also rec-ognized and described fish, turtles, andmarine reptiles. Many of  these fossilswere sent to him by Ferdinand Vandi-veer Hayden, one of  the most colour-ful, prolific, productive and influentialgeologists working in the west. Theinformal partnership between Hayden,as fossil collector, and Leidy, as fossildescriber, is one of  the main stories toemerge from Thomson’s account ofthis era. Leidy is perhaps best remem-bered now for two studies: the namingof  Hadrosaurus foulkii in 1858 from aspecimen found in New Jersey (p. 44)and his description of  fossil horsespecimens in 1846 (p. 107). He loomslarge in Thomson’s story, playing a sig-nificant role in raising awareness offossil finds. Thomson clearly feelsadmiration for his skills and expertise,observing that he practiced science in a“restrained and gentlemanly style” (p. 126),although, as he regretfully comments,Leidy’s “reputation [has] been eclipsed byothers with a keener feel for self-promotion”(p. 106).By the late 1860s, Haydenbecame increasingly impatient withwhat he perceived as Leidy’s slow pacein working his way through the cratesof  fossils being generated from eachfield season. Hayden still sent fossils toPhiladelphia, including some to anambitious young zoologist, EdwardDrinker Cope, but he also began dis-tributing fossils to Professor OthnielCharles Marsh at Yale University. Thismarked a shift from Philadelphia as thedominant centre of  palaeontologicalactivity. And so the ‘fossil rush’ of  the1870s and 1880s began, with fieldcrews competing to discover new fos-sil-bearing localities, extract the speci-mens, and transport them back east. Despite Thomson’s avowedintent not to make this story a rehashof  the Cope and Marsh rivalry (p. 165),much of  the third and longest part ofthe book (called Giant Saurians andHorned Mammals) inevitably devolvesinto an account of  the unedifying‘bone wars’ between these two schol-ars. Thomson’s analysis of  this rivalryshows that the rush to publish is noth-ing new. Competition to claim prece-dence for naming new species even ledCope to advance telegrams sent fromthe field as evidence of  prior publica-tion (p. 233). Although they dominatethis story, several other colourful per-sonalities, especially Hayden but alsoBenjamin Mudge, Theophilus Turner,Sam Smith, James Van Allen Carter,and George M. Sternberg, playedprominent roles in the extraction andstudy of  fossils from the west.Inevitably, many people in the geo-science world were dragged into thesqualid Cope–Marsh enmity. Much ofthis story treads over familiar groundthat has been extensively covered inother books dealing with the history ofpalaeontology. Nevertheless, Thomsonprovides a literate and well-document-ed account of  this important interval,especially the 1870s when the pace ofdiscovery seems almost breathtaking. Thomson winds up this storyin the fourth section with a view for-ward towards the twentieth century. By1421890 in the USA, he concludes, thefrontier phase of  exploration and fossilcollecting was ended. A new genera-tion of  palaeontologists was takingover, of  whom perhaps the bestknown is Henry Fairfield Osborn,based for much of  his career at theAmerican Museum of  Natural Historyin New York. The era of  synthesis hadbegun, as “scholars had turned from simpledocumentation of  the fossil record to under-standing what it all meant” (p. 318). ForCanadian readers, Thomson’s booknicely sets up the background for the‘Great Canadian Dinosaur Rush’ of  theearly twentieth century in westernCanada, another interval of  intensefield and collecting rivalry that can beseen as an outgrowth of  this westernUSA story.Thomson concentrates on thefieldwork and collecting aspects ofpalaeontology. He describes field con-ditions and collecting methods, high-lighted by extracts from journals keptby students involved in the four YaleCollege collecting expeditions led byMarsh between 1870 and 1873 (p. 181-190). Interestingly, one of  those stu-dents was George Bird Grinnell, laterto become well known for his work inethnology. Some personalities and fieldsites are shown in a section of  28black-and-white photos, while a fewuseful maps help make sense of  thetravels. Even now, many of  these col-lecting areas are in remote and sparselyinhabited areas of  the USA, but in themid-nineteenth century fieldworkrequired considerable fortitude and tol-erance of  discomfort. Yet, these expe-ditions occurred as cross-country travelwas becoming easier and quickerthrough expansion of  the railway net-work and the telegraph system madecommunication faster. Rail cuts alsoproved useful in regions wherebedrock exposures were otherwise few.Nevertheless, field conditions wereoften harsh and difficult, made moretrying by ongoing conflicts betweenaboriginal people and the US military.After the Civil War, Thomson says,field parties needed an army escort (p.175) and the situation remained tensein 1876, marked by the Battle of  theLittle Big Horn, when Cope headed toMontana (p. 273). Cope remainedundaunted by the possibility of  vio-lence, airily writing to his wife that theSioux would be preoccupied elsewhere.Marked threads running through thisaccount are the close connectionbetween fossil collectors and the mili-tary in the west and the way in whichpaleontological work was piggybackedonto what was regarded as the moreserious and economically importantwork of  various geological surveyexpeditions. Nowadays, no natural historymuseum is complete without adinosaur exhibit or two. Thomson’smuseum background is reflected in hisinteresting discussion of  the displayhistory of  the fossils. These includeLeidy’s Hadrosaur specimen, assem-bled for display in lifelike pose by Ben-jamin Waterhouse Hawkins in 1868,and Charles Willson Peale’s travellingmastodon exhibit of  the early 1800s.Showmanship formed an early associa-tion with fossils, although Thomsonidentifies the greatest mania for fossildisplays as occurring in the late nine-teenth century. Thomson includesinformation about where some of  themost famous fossils are now. Indeed,several are still on display. A cast ofLeidy’s Hadrosaur can be viewed at theAcademy of  Natural Sciences inPhiladelphia, while the original bonesare part of  that institution’s collection.It is heartening to realize that new gen-erations of  scholars can re-examineand re-interpret these specimens. Iwould have liked more, though, aboutthe post-field aspects of  the fossils’history. How were they prepared? Howwere they curated? How were theyrecorded and preserved? How were theidentifications done? Clearly, identifica-tion of  fossils was often difficult, giventheir fragmentary nature and the limit-ed comparative material available.Thomson includes several examples ofmisidentifications, including a whalethat, in 1834, Richard Harlan thoughtwas a plesiosaur. Thomson remarksthat “any odd variant fossils that were foundtended to be described as new species or gen-era” (p. 84), which created some diffi-cult work for later palaeontologistswho sorted out the confusion. For me,the most interesting parts of  Thom-son’s account are those dealing withthe early fossil discoveries in NorthAmerica and how these encouragedthinking about ‘former worlds’ andstimulated the search for more fossils.From this perspective, North Americanpalaeontology can indeed be seen asspringing from, or the legacy of, thediscovery of  that first mastodon speci-men.GEOSCIENCE CANADA Volume 37  Number 3 September 2010 143

The Legacy of the Mastodon: The Golden Age of Fossils in America

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The Legacy of the Mastodon: The Golden Age of Fossils in America

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