When Kopp excavated the hadrosaurs in Hadfield, Professor Osnier Charles Marsh of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was studying dinosaur footprint fossils in the Connecticut Valley. Marsh visited Pu Ke and observed the mud pit dug by Duckbilled Dragon. After that, Kopp and Marsh dug up some new fossils together, but Marsh bribed the manager of the company privately to inform him of any newly discovered fossils first, so the competition between them began.
1870s, the excavation of dinosaurs turned to the western United States. Especially 1877, many fossils have been found in the Morrison Formation, which spans Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. Morrison Formation is Cretaceous, which is located on the inland sea coast in the west. Because both Kepu and Marsh are rich, Kepu was born in a wealthy Quaker family, and Marsh is the nephew of george peabody, a famous entrepreneur and philanthropist, so every summer, Kepu and Marsh put their assets into the work of excavating fossils and publish their research results in winter.
Their excavation work is accompanied by many accusations of spying, robbing workers, stealing fossils, bribery and so on. Popular Science accused Marsh of stealing his fossils many times, so he stole a train of Marsh fossils and sent them to Philadelphia. Marsh responded in the same way, stealing fossils from native American cemeteries and causing violence. Marsh protected his own fossil excavation and even buried explosives in one of them to prevent popular science from stealing.
Popular Science and Marsh also tried to destroy each other's professional reputation. When Marsh pointed out that a thin-plate dragon of Popular Science rebuilt its skeleton and its head was wrongly placed on its tail, Popular Science tried to cover up the mistake and even tried to buy all scientific journals that mentioned it. Marsh, who first pointed out this mistake, still announced this scientific mistake. Marsh later made a similar mistake. He put the wrong skull on the skeleton of Lei Long (also known as the confusing dragon). But it was not until 198 1 year later that the Peabody Museum of Natural History of Yale University discovered this mistake.
On many levels, Marsh should be the winner of this fossil war. Their contribution is very great. A total of 142 new specimens were found. Marsh found 86 specimens, most of which were unearthed from the cliff of Como, Wyoming, while only 56 were discovered by popular science. Most of the new dinosaurs discovered by popular science have been named or unclear. Famous species discovered by Marsh include Triceratops, Allosaurus, Liang Long and Stegosaurus. The famous species discovered by popular science are: Allosaurus, Camarasaurus, Kawagulong and One-horned Dragon. Before the fossil war, there were only nine named dinosaurs in North America. Then it increased to nearly 150 species. Both of them put forward important theories: Marsh once suggested that birds are descendants of dinosaurs, while popular science put forward the "law of popular science": in geological history, organisms evolved in an increasingly large direction.
Popular science is considered a better scientist, but he is impatient and careless. However, popular science is also quite productive, exceeding the scientific research of 1200, and this record has been maintained to this day. In contrast, Marsh is a more careful scientist and has better political relations. He was able to enter the upper class easily, and got to know American President Grant, Ross Schild family, Buffalo Bill, Lakota leader Hong Yun and other dignitaries.