1881-1883 Marsh and Felch Letters

Synopsis of Letters (1881-1883)

These are the earliest days that the letters capture. Prior to this time, Samuel Williston and Benjamin Franklin Mudge dug at the Felch Quarry in 1877. Then at the time of the 1881-1883 letters, two key workers in the quarry were J.A. Smith, a Garden Park farmer and neighbor of Felch (interview), and Fred Brown, another of Marsh's "bone diggers" of later Como Bluff notoriety who came up from New Mexico.

Here, letters can be found pertaining to Marsh's proposition to Felch about continued digging in the quarry (3/30/1882), the difficulties of working in very hard material (5/25/1883), problems surrounding both the "spoils" dump via thrown out fossils (like mammal jaws) and the scrambled remains of long dead dinosaurs (7/5/1883), and the mental processes of Felch working out the natural history of the quarry as best he can (9/18-19/1883 & 10/10/1883). During this period Marsh often told Felch to "say nothing" about the discoveries.

Some specimens excavated, partially, or otherwise in full:

  • Skeleton 1, NMNH 5384: "Morosaurus agilis" (Camarasaurus sp.); skull and cervicals 1 through 3 described by Gilmore
  • Skeleton 2, NMNH 5370: Brachiosaurus skull recently described by Carpenter and Tidwell
  • Skeleton 3, NMNH 2672: Diplodocus skull described by Marsh, in display at the NMNH, SI
  • Skeleton 4, NMNH 4734: Ceratosaurus nasicornis described by Marsh and Gilmore, skeleton on display at the NMNH, SI
  • Skeleton 5, NMNH 8423: Allosaurus fragilis partial skeleton described by Gilmore

Other letters of note

9/11/1881: Of course, the first letter Felch writes to Marsh is worth a place in the story. Coincidentally, it is dated September 11. [Felch to Marsh]

3/17/1883 & 4/13/1883 & 6/27/1883: Marsh goes from emphasizing the importance of every fossil large or small to mentioning that "a (dinosaur) skull is worth more than anything else" to saying that the small mammal fossils "are the most important of all." [Marsh to Felch]

6/21 & 27/1883: This letter emphasizes a red crayon method used for labeling fossils that come out in blocks and need to be related together. [Marsh to Felch]

7/13/1883: One of the many floods mentioned throughout the letters. This one took out their passage to the quarry so they went prospecting to other sites (Quarry # 2 and "White Hills").

7/31/1883: Mention of Lucas working for E.D. Cope (Marsh's nemesis) in the canyon below.

9/18-19/1883: In this letter is a sketch Felch made of Diplodocus teeth of a Diplodocus skull ("Skull No. 3" in the letters) on display at the Smithsonian. Because Marsh had recently become the senior Vertebrate Paleontologist for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) before Felch began digging at the quarry, all fossils paid for through this affiliation were collected by the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) in Washington D.C. from where they were located at the Peabody Museum at Yale University after Marsh died in 1899. Additionally, the Dinosaur Depot in Cañon City, Colorado receives a "block" of the "Mystery Dinosaur" from the Smithsonian warehouse to work on. The word "block" will have meaning later. [Felch to Marsh]

10/6/1883 & 10/15/1883 & 10/16/1883: These letters refer to a gun powder method used to break up the rock in the quarry being used too excessively, description of carnivore bones as smooth, fine-grained, and more or less hollow, and another method called "soluble glass" AKA "water glass," but the most descriptive way to think of it is as "liquid glass" (Sodium silicate Na2SiO3 used in cement). This "water glass" method would have been used to harden the fossils so they do not crumble on being excavated. [Marsh to Felch]

11/17/1883 & 11/23/1883: This letter illustrates the economic interests in the area of Garden Park in the 1880's. The first letter mentions "oil fever" from Denver and a mineral claim by a man named Weston (who is believed to be Thomas Chesmer Weston of the Western Survey put on by the USGS). The second letter talks of Felch taking a "placer" claim out on part of acclaim Mudge took during the first excavation. [Felch to Marsh]