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Fossils were the object of some confusion for much of history, and were commonly misinterpreted as the remains of mythical or magical beasts. Toadstones, for instance, were believed to be semi-precious stones sprung from the forehead or belly of a toad, which could warn of the presence of poison by growing hot. In practice, toadstones were probably fossilized fish teeth.

Palaeontology as a science traces its roots back to the 18th century and the comparative anatomical researches of French anatomist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832), who established that some fossil animals did not resemble living species, thus demonstrating the fact of extinction. The increasingly sophisticated study of fossils went hand in hand with developments in geology, and led to a growing appreciation of ‘deep time’ (geologic time scales). The epicentre of fossil hunting was in Europe, especially in Britain, but fossils had been discovered in North America as early as 1705, when a mastodon tooth was found on the banks of the Hudson River (it was initially identified by American clergyman Cotton Mather as the tooth of an antediluvian giant).

The golden age for American fossil hunting came with the opening of the West. After the Civil War there was a massive expansion of railroads, military bases, trade routes and settlement outposts across mid- and western America, and the excavation involved brought to light the unique geology of the region that makes it, in the words of palaeontologist Keith Parsons, ‘a geologist’s dream and a vertebrate paleontologist’s paradise’. This region has been subjected to faulting, folding, uplift and erosion, exposing huge formations of sedimentary rock that contain some of the richest fossil sites in the world. Marine fossils, in particular, are in abundance because much of the mid-West had previously been submerged beneath a vast shallow sea (now known as the Western Interior Sea).

Notable sites include Como Bluff in Wyoming, where the conflict between Marsh and Cope came to a head. Fossils here were so richly abundant that a local trapper had built himself a cabin out of them, and Bone Cabin Quarry became one of the key fossil sites in the late 1890s. Another significant site is the Carnegie Quarry near Vernal, Utah. So many dinosaur bones were dug up from here that the collectors were exhausted before the quarry, and the site became Dinosaur National Monument, where fossils can now be viewed in situ. Many of the dinosaurs that take pride of place in the world’s great natural history museums, which have done so much to transform museums into objects of childish enthusiasm, date back to the great ‘bone rush’ of the late 19th-century West.

‘It is doubtful that any modern controversy among men of learning has generated more venom than this one did.’

WALLACE STEGNER, BEYOND THE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN, 1954

But Cope had struck a Faustian pact; Marsh and his supporters hit back, with the result that both men’s names were dragged through the mud. Marsh accused his detractors of being ‘little men with big heads’, prompting a former assistant Otto Meyer, to respond with a damning critique of his methods, concluding: ‘I presume that all true scientists have more regard for a little man with a big head than for a big man with a little head.’

The Herald peddled the story for another two weeks, by the end of which the reputations of both men were irredeemably tarnished. It had lasting effects, dividing the world of American palaeontology into warring camps for decades. According to William Berryman Scott, professor of geology and palaeontology at Princeton from 1884 to 1930: ‘[This] most important feud ... hindered and hampered the younger generation for years. Even yet, its effects persist ... and crop out when one is least expecting them.’

According to Wallace, the differing ideologies of Cope and Marsh reflected America’s own clash of ideologies: ‘In a way, the bone war was an intellectual variant on the Civil War that just preceded it, one largely enacted in that other great arena of North American conflict, the West.’ It also reflected two visions of the West, Cope’s ‘nativist’, individualistic, libertarian approach contrasting with Marsh’s urban, hierarchical, ‘imperialist’ bent. More concretely, the squabble had direct impact on how the West was won; the geological surveys in which Marsh and Cope were involved helped prepare the ground for eventual settlement, while the damage to Marsh’s reputation tarred by association his ally Powell and derailed Powell’s plans for limited, controlled colonization of the West and instead opened the way for the free-for-all that followed.