Ohio History Journal

REVIEWS, NOTES AND COMMENTS

 

BY THE EDITOR

COPE: MASTER NATURALIST. The Life and Letters

of Edward Drinker Cope, with a Bibliography of His Writings

Classified by Subject. A Study of the Pioneer and Foundation

Periods of Vertebrate Palaeontology in America. By Henry

Fairfield Osborn, Senior Geologist, U. S. Geological Survey;

Honorary Curator, Department of Vertebrate Palaeontology,

American Museum of Natural History. With the co-operation

of Helen Ann Warren [and others]. Illustrated with Drawings,

and Restorations by Charles R. Knight under the Direction of

Professor Cope. 1931. (Princeton University Press,) Prince-

ton, N. J. (London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University

Press.) 740 pp. $5.00.

 

 

REVIEWED BY WILLIAM HARPER DAVIS

American biography and the history of natural sci-

ence are both distinctly enriched by the publication of

this extensive and really adequate Life of one of the

country's -- and of the world's -- greatest naturalists

and natural philosophers.   The idiosyncratic quality,

variety, and abundance of the subject's genius are cap-

tured and exhibited for the reader with remarkable skill

and gratifying success. The book is the outgrowth of

years of knowledge and experience of general and spe-

cial studies, and figures against a uniquely suitable

background of familiarity alike with Cope and with the

field -- or fields -- of his labors.

Cope visited Ohio as a naturalist and fossil hunter

as early as 1865, when 25 years of age, working for the

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Notes                   669

Illinois and Ohio State Geological Surveys and reporting

the coal measures of the State, in which he found his first

fossil, the amphibian Amphibamus grandiceps, which ap-

parently awakened his serious interest in vertebrate pa-

leontology, the pursuit of which was destined to become

his major passion and occupation, after a productive

period of the original study of living batrachians and

reptiles, to which however, he repeatedly returned. In

this and other connections, Ohio figures not inconspicu-

ously in the record of Cope's achievement. Several pa-

pers appeared on "New Batrachia and Fishes from the

Coal Measures of Linton, Ohio," in 1873 and after.

 

 

 

 

 

CELEBRATION OF WASHINGTON'S JOURNEY DOWN THE

OHIO IN 1770

On October 20, 1770, George Washington and seven

men in a large rowboat, followed by a canoe and two

Indians, started down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh

on a voyage of exploration. They reached the mouth

of the Great Kanawha River October 31. On Novem-

ber 4 they started on their return voyage. They reached

Mingo Town (Mingo Junction) November 17. Here

they remained until November 20, when the party left

the large boat and proceeded overland to Pittsburgh

where they arrived November 21.

In this month, October 20, 1932, a replica of this

voyage on the Ohio will start from Pittsburgh and pro-

ceed down the river, stopping at the camp sites of

Washington in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West

Virginia. At these points celebrations will be held.

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670     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications The people should come forth and make this the climax of the George Washington Bicentennial celebra- tion west of the Alleghany Mountains. DEPRESSION Because of the financial depression and the curtail- ment of appropriations for printing, this month's QUARTERLY has been reduced about two-thirds.

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