Post by Catsmate on Jan 20, 2016 13:57:23 GMT
The Bone Wars of the late nineteenth century were one of those odd public demonstrations of intense academic contention that attract huge attention to obscure areas of science. They involved a personal rivalry between two scientists in the, then relatively new, field of palaeontology that included not just the usual opposition in academic journals but bribery, spying, theft, fraud, slander, destruction of specimens and more. When the "war" finally ended, in 1892, both protagonists were ruined financially and socially from their actions, but 1421 new species of dinosaur had been discovered (seven were known when the "war" started)
The two men were Edward Drinker Cope (who represented the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia) and Othniel Charles Marsh (working for the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University).
Cope 
Marsh
The men had started as friends, meeting first in Berlin in 1864, but soon their rivalry grew until their fued sparked off in a small town in New Jersey in 1868 called Haddonfield. There a number of dinosaur skeletons had been unearthed in previous years, mostly in the mineral rich clay (called marl) which existed in deposits in the region. Still moderately friendly Cope introduced Marsh to the managers and foremen of the marl pits, who regularly sent word to his (Cope's) base of operations in Haddonfield. However Cope discovered that Marsh had bribed the contacts to whom he'd been introduced to send alerts and unearthed bones to him at New Haven rather than Haddonfield. The Bone Wars had begun.
The affair has produced numerous books, a few television programmes, a wargame scenario and a cardgame
The protagonists.
Edward Drinker Cope was a child prodigy born to a wealthy family, with a lifelong interest in the sciences (anatomy, zoology and later palaeontology). He was a field prospector rather than an academic, making frequent trips in the newly opened American West and worked with the United States Geological Survey. He was a prodigious writer, with more than 1,400 papers published during his lifetime, though many of them have been invalidated by later work. He was one of the first Neo-Lamarckians, opposing the Darwinian view of evolution
Othniel Charles Marsh was born to a more modest family than Cope and pursued an academic career at Yale. He entered palaeontology almost by accident, having earlier studied geology and mineralogy, as a career move given it was the only available professorial vacancy. However he dedicated his life's work to the field and persuaded his (extremely wealthy) uncle George Peabody to fund the creation of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. He was a firm supporter of Charles Darwin's theories on evolution by natural selection.
It has been said that the patrician Cope looked down on Marsh as not-quite a gentlemen, and the academic Marsh looked down on Copeas not-quite a professional. This is probably a reasonable summary of their relationship.
Timeline.
I'm not going to cover the events of the Bone Wars in detail, there are better sources for that, but here is a brief timeline.
Game Use.
Other than a fascinating piece of background to drop into a scenario set in the USA during the Gilded Age (perhaps the PCs are dragged into an argument about the affair while engaged in something completely different?) the Bone Wars offers a number of more direct possibilities.
In the Whoniverse the Dinosaur Age also included the Silurians; might one of the fossil rich areas yield discoveries stranger than unknown bones? Could elements of the Earth Reptile civilization have survived the cataclysm that supposedly destroyed it? Or is there a hibernation complex buried under the ground, sleeping unawares until the arrival of humans with their spades, steam engines and dynamite? Might Cope and Marsh have to unite (temporarily) to save humanity. While no doubt stealing anything they can find and backstabbing each other.
Of course not all the weirdness could be aeons old intelligent reptiles; there's room for purely human Mad Science, perhaps flavoured with some alien technology. It's a little early for Scareships but is a Mad Scientists experimenting, perhaps with government assistance, with powered flight? Plenty of room out in the west for experimental airships, death rays, mysterious minerals (radium isn't discovered until 1898) and more. Or even an ancient subterranean civilisation.
Or were aliens involved in the Bone Wars? Brett Davis has written two books (Bone Wars and the sequel Two Tiny Claws set in 1907) that add a pair of contending alien races to already bubbling mix of Cope, Marsh, the US Cavalry under Custer and Sitting Bull. A more conventionally Whovian scenario could have Cope or Marsh unearth an alien spaceship, in the manner of A Town Called Mercy, Quatermass and the Pit or The Hartlewick Horror, or just part of an alien (The Hand of Fear).
Westerns don't usually mix well with alien invasions (Cowboys and Aliens was pretty terrible) but that's not to say you couldn't do better.
For a campaign feel you could link in other elements of the history of the period; The Night America Burned could signal the arrival of an alien space ship (in the traditional fiery crash) that leads through the mysterious disappearance of the SS City of Boston, the strange deluge of 'water lizards' that fell on Sacramento in August of 1870 during a rainstorm, the Hayden Geological Survey of what would become Yellowstone National Park (was someone tampering with the Yellowstone Caldera?), the strangely brilliant aurora borealis that was visible in New York state on 14 October 1870, the spiritualism craze (what if the medium is really Psychic and taps into Something Nasty? Or just discovers that one of the circle isn't human?), the Lost Fleet, the rain of meat that covered hundreds of square metres near Bath, Kentucky, on 3 March 1876, the plot to steal Lincoln's corpse, the Great Epizootic of 1872, the Brooks-Baxter war in Arkansas (is someone egging the factions on?), the Yellow Fever outbreak in St. Louis in 1878 (was that really the cause of the thousands of deaths?), the Knock apparitions, the Montreal body snatchings of 1875, the revelations in the North American Review in 1879 by 'A Public Man’ about the Lincoln administration in the run-up to the US Civil War and the meteor display of 27 November 1872 over France and Italy.
Or maybe it's a time ship; 1870 is when Magnus Greel arrived in his Time Cabinet. Was the alone, or did other war criminals/refugees also leave the war torn fifty-first century? Or did someone pursue him? The Beautiful Daughter of the scientist imprisoned by Greel to build the Time Cabinet, and later murdered, would be de rigueur. Shades of The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. and Timestalkers...
Perfect for the USA's equivalent of Torchwood, the Shadow Bureau. They're looking for a few good men2
Prepare for desperate chases across the prairies, the corrupt politics of the Gilded Age and urban intrigue.
Links.
The Wikipedia articles on the Bone Wars, Cope and Marsh are a good start.
Wyoming Tales and Trails has a great deal of information including on the Bone Wars.
Haddonfield and The 'Bone Wars'
On the Shoulders of Giants has a relevant page.
PBS's Dinosaur Wars
1 Only 32 are considered valid today.
2 Though they're desperate enough to take women and aliens. Budget cuts...
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
The two men were Edward Drinker Cope (who represented the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia) and Othniel Charles Marsh (working for the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University).
Cope MarshThe men had started as friends, meeting first in Berlin in 1864, but soon their rivalry grew until their fued sparked off in a small town in New Jersey in 1868 called Haddonfield. There a number of dinosaur skeletons had been unearthed in previous years, mostly in the mineral rich clay (called marl) which existed in deposits in the region. Still moderately friendly Cope introduced Marsh to the managers and foremen of the marl pits, who regularly sent word to his (Cope's) base of operations in Haddonfield. However Cope discovered that Marsh had bribed the contacts to whom he'd been introduced to send alerts and unearthed bones to him at New Haven rather than Haddonfield. The Bone Wars had begun.
The affair has produced numerous books, a few television programmes, a wargame scenario and a cardgame
The protagonists.
Edward Drinker Cope was a child prodigy born to a wealthy family, with a lifelong interest in the sciences (anatomy, zoology and later palaeontology). He was a field prospector rather than an academic, making frequent trips in the newly opened American West and worked with the United States Geological Survey. He was a prodigious writer, with more than 1,400 papers published during his lifetime, though many of them have been invalidated by later work. He was one of the first Neo-Lamarckians, opposing the Darwinian view of evolution
Othniel Charles Marsh was born to a more modest family than Cope and pursued an academic career at Yale. He entered palaeontology almost by accident, having earlier studied geology and mineralogy, as a career move given it was the only available professorial vacancy. However he dedicated his life's work to the field and persuaded his (extremely wealthy) uncle George Peabody to fund the creation of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. He was a firm supporter of Charles Darwin's theories on evolution by natural selection.
It has been said that the patrician Cope looked down on Marsh as not-quite a gentlemen, and the academic Marsh looked down on Copeas not-quite a professional. This is probably a reasonable summary of their relationship.
Timeline.
I'm not going to cover the events of the Bone Wars in detail, there are better sources for that, but here is a brief timeline.
| 1869 | Following a mistake in the reconstruction of a plesiosaur skeleton Cope is humiliated when Marsh exposes an error (Cope placed the skull on the wrong end of the skeleton) and attempts to recall all copies of the paper. |
| The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad allows easier access for expeditions to the western United States. | |
| 1870 | Marsh excavates the first North American pterosaur during his first fossil-hunting expedition to the West (in Kansas). He is accompanies by Buffalo Bill Cody and a number of Yale undergraduates one of whom publishes a highly coloured account of the expedition in Harper's Monthly |
| 1872 | At Fort Bridger in Wyoming both Marsh and Cope find fossils of Uintatherium. Marsh uncovers examples of toothed birds in Kansas which he publishes as evidence of Darwin's theory of evolution. |
| 1873 | The first public signs of the feud occur when Cope and Marsh engage in a series of criticisms, defenses, and rebuttals in The Naturalist. |
| 1876 | In Montana Cope finds fossils of a creature he names Monoclonius. |
| 1877 | After the painter Arthur Lakes discovers bones in Morrison, Colorado, and sends samples to Cope and Marsh the two rush to the site and attempt to run simultaneous digs there and in Como Bluff, Wyoming. The bones eventually lead to the naming of Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus. |
| 1879 | The US Congress creates the United States Geological Survey by combining the four separate expeditions in the west; it has the mission of beginning a comprehensive national survey. |
| 1881 | After John Powell takes over the USGS he names Marsh Chief Paleontologist. |
| 1882 | Cope is again publicly found to be wrong after supporting the view that fossilised animal tracks found in Nevada are human. Marsh and other scientists determine that the tracks are around two million years old and belong to a giant ground sloth from the late Pliocene age. |
| 1883 | Marsh is named president of the National Academy of Sciences. |
| 1887 | The first ever Triceratops fossil is unearthed near Denver, Colorado and sent Marsh. Cope is annoyed. |
| 1889 | Cope takes a teaching position as Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania. |
| At the instigation of Marsh, Powell begins an audit of Cope's holdings; Cope will be required to return items retrieved using federal funds to the government. Cope is infuriated, especially given that most of his expeditions funding was from his own funds. | |
| 1890 | The highpoint of the Bone Wars; the Cope/Marsh feud escalates into a serious of personal attacks in The New York Herald. Each accuses the other of plagiarism, incompetence and fraud. |
| In response the US Congress cuts nearly 30% of the USGS's budget, eliminating Marsh's entire Department of Paleontology. The Smithsonian claims all fossils collected under USGS funded expeditions; Marsh is forced to hand over most of his collection to the institution. | |
| 12 April 1897 | With the death of Edward Cope the Bone Wars end. Marsh dies two years later. |
Game Use.
Other than a fascinating piece of background to drop into a scenario set in the USA during the Gilded Age (perhaps the PCs are dragged into an argument about the affair while engaged in something completely different?) the Bone Wars offers a number of more direct possibilities.
In the Whoniverse the Dinosaur Age also included the Silurians; might one of the fossil rich areas yield discoveries stranger than unknown bones? Could elements of the Earth Reptile civilization have survived the cataclysm that supposedly destroyed it? Or is there a hibernation complex buried under the ground, sleeping unawares until the arrival of humans with their spades, steam engines and dynamite? Might Cope and Marsh have to unite (temporarily) to save humanity. While no doubt stealing anything they can find and backstabbing each other.
- Better ensure there's no artefacts left over unless you want some changes in history; unless there's a handy US government agency to cover things up. Riders in Black perhaps?
- While Native Americans, hired ruffians, local political disputes and bear attacks are documented dangers of the Bone Wars, how would Cope, Marsh, their students and hirelings cope with a few live dinosaurs?
Of course not all the weirdness could be aeons old intelligent reptiles; there's room for purely human Mad Science, perhaps flavoured with some alien technology. It's a little early for Scareships but is a Mad Scientists experimenting, perhaps with government assistance, with powered flight? Plenty of room out in the west for experimental airships, death rays, mysterious minerals (radium isn't discovered until 1898) and more. Or even an ancient subterranean civilisation.
- Though there's no reason not to mix elements. That airship might come in handy if the Earth Reptiles start something; an aerial battle involving a couple dirigible hydrogen balloons, human Gatling guns and a few Velociraptor riding Silurians sounds like an excellent climax...
Or were aliens involved in the Bone Wars? Brett Davis has written two books (Bone Wars and the sequel Two Tiny Claws set in 1907) that add a pair of contending alien races to already bubbling mix of Cope, Marsh, the US Cavalry under Custer and Sitting Bull. A more conventionally Whovian scenario could have Cope or Marsh unearth an alien spaceship, in the manner of A Town Called Mercy, Quatermass and the Pit or The Hartlewick Horror, or just part of an alien (The Hand of Fear).
Westerns don't usually mix well with alien invasions (Cowboys and Aliens was pretty terrible) but that's not to say you couldn't do better.
For a campaign feel you could link in other elements of the history of the period; The Night America Burned could signal the arrival of an alien space ship (in the traditional fiery crash) that leads through the mysterious disappearance of the SS City of Boston, the strange deluge of 'water lizards' that fell on Sacramento in August of 1870 during a rainstorm, the Hayden Geological Survey of what would become Yellowstone National Park (was someone tampering with the Yellowstone Caldera?), the strangely brilliant aurora borealis that was visible in New York state on 14 October 1870, the spiritualism craze (what if the medium is really Psychic and taps into Something Nasty? Or just discovers that one of the circle isn't human?), the Lost Fleet, the rain of meat that covered hundreds of square metres near Bath, Kentucky, on 3 March 1876, the plot to steal Lincoln's corpse, the Great Epizootic of 1872, the Brooks-Baxter war in Arkansas (is someone egging the factions on?), the Yellow Fever outbreak in St. Louis in 1878 (was that really the cause of the thousands of deaths?), the Knock apparitions, the Montreal body snatchings of 1875, the revelations in the North American Review in 1879 by 'A Public Man’ about the Lincoln administration in the run-up to the US Civil War and the meteor display of 27 November 1872 over France and Italy.
Or maybe it's a time ship; 1870 is when Magnus Greel arrived in his Time Cabinet. Was the alone, or did other war criminals/refugees also leave the war torn fifty-first century? Or did someone pursue him? The Beautiful Daughter of the scientist imprisoned by Greel to build the Time Cabinet, and later murdered, would be de rigueur. Shades of The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. and Timestalkers...
Perfect for the USA's equivalent of Torchwood, the Shadow Bureau. They're looking for a few good men2
Prepare for desperate chases across the prairies, the corrupt politics of the Gilded Age and urban intrigue.
Links.
The Wikipedia articles on the Bone Wars, Cope and Marsh are a good start.
Wyoming Tales and Trails has a great deal of information including on the Bone Wars.
Haddonfield and The 'Bone Wars'
On the Shoulders of Giants has a relevant page.
PBS's Dinosaur Wars
1 Only 32 are considered valid today.
2 Though they're desperate enough to take women and aliens. Budget cuts...
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
Yep a classic cover-up, and very difficult to manage given those involved.