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CHAPTER 1
THE BEGINNINGS OF GOVER NMENT SUPPORT FOR PALEONTOLOGY
Seventy years ago a young archaeologist named William G. Haag was working on a PhD in cultural anthropology and archaeology from the University of Kentucky. He had no prospects for a job upon completion of his degree, but like many during the tail end of the Great Depression, he had found work with the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Dr. Haag hired a crew of unemployed Appalachian coal miners to excavate ancient Native American sites that would soon be submerged by the rising waters of various Tennessee Valley Authority projects. Thirty years on, Dr. Haag would recall his experiences for me when I interviewed him in 1969 while writing a master's thesis on the WPA and Native Americans. He told me about how a government reclamation and flood control project had turned to an archaeological survey in order to preserve artifacts that would have been otherwise forever lost. And it provided a source of reliable income for him and the men he hired. He spoke of the dignity of his crew members who felt that they were "taking Mr. Roosevelt's money and not digging enough. We are strong miners, Professor. We can dig down that whole hill in one day. Some shovels full of dirt are not right. We are not working hard enough for the good money we are making." And so, somewhat out of necessity, Dr. Haag had trained his men to be field researchers and remembered how excited they would be when a trowel turned up a shard or a flint. They would proudly come to get him to show him their finds. "Look, Professor, is this important? I think it looks like a shard."
Dr. Haag did not comment on whether he knew that his project and his workers were part of a centuries-old history of support for science by governments.
This book is a history of governmental support for the science of paleontology and, since paleontology was combined with geology for a long time, provides a more specific history of geology per se where that is pertinent. Primarily, however, it is a history of important contributions to paleontology that were sponsored in some way by various government supports. Virtually every important contribution to paleontology, and not incidentally the careers of every important paleontologist, was related to government support. Designed as a historical outline of what these important contributions were, who made them, and how these persons were supported by a government entity, it is also by default a history of most of the important paleontologists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, because this is the time frame in which the science of paleontology blossomed. Thus, what is covered here is not only field research but important publications as well since, as indicated above, support ran the gamut from fieldwork and laboratory research to preparation of specimens and published outcomes. Some of the publication landmarks of paleontology were printed as US Geological Survey reports. Edward Hitchcock's Ichnology of New England (1858), Edward Drinker Cope's The Vertebrata of the Tertiary Formations of the West (1883), and O. C. Marsh's Dinosaurs of North America (1896) are examples. This book also discusses the ancillary support that surveys gave to paleontologists in the form of guides, drovers, and cavalrymen. As well, it discusses various members of government entities, from paleontologists to ordinary soldiers, who were involved in discoveries.
Paleontologists looked for sources of funding for their work right from the beginning of the science. But even before there were such persons as professional geologists or paleontologists, there were scientists who were searching for funding. Unless one was independently wealthy, scientific exploration, research, and the publication of results required money. And with a few exceptions, it seems that scientists were not usually well-to-do. Initially, wealthy individual patrons, not necessarily members of "government," may have provided most of the support for paleontology. These patrons appeared as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century. But from the beginning of paleontology there were also important discoveries that were made possible by components of government. For example, Robert Plot's Natural History of Oxfordshire (1676, which contained the first illustration of a dinosaur fossil (in the form of an engraving of a partial femur of Megalosaurus), was supported by a large number of British country gentry in the shire who had paid Plot to visit their lands and study its natural resources, and who then subventioned his book. Plot conducted what amounted to geological surveys. His patrons provided precedents for later governmental sponsorship of paleontology, and his work was a blueprint for survey publications. It even contained a very detailed map of towns, cities, and lands belonging to various members of the gentry. This was not a topographical map in the modern sense, of course, although Plot did talk about topographical features in his book.
Important government-sponsored contributions to paleontology from the late 1500s to the eighteenth century were the background for more organized governmental survey support in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. I will discuss various important nineteenth- and early- twentieth-century paleontologists and their discoveries as well as any important publications that were sponsored by "surveys," a term I use in the most general sense. Surveys may be local, state, or national in scope. All will be discussed here. Also, as a part of the study of how governments supported and, in fact, created paleontology, I will devote attention to institutional publishers, such as the Smithsonian (National Museum of Natural History), which brought out many noteworthy works, such as Joseph Leidy's Ancient Fauna of Nebraska (1853) and his Cretaceous Reptiles of the United States (1865). Included as a chapter or as parts of chapter will be discussions of why various government entities supported paleontology, and why paleontologists went to them for financial assistance or publishing outlets. This discussion enhances the premise of this book that without governmental assistance to paleontology, that field of science would have turned out vastly different.
University professors everywhere in the United States today are accustomed to filling out a form each year stating whether they had or did not have governmental monetary support or employment. It is a gentle annoyance to humanities professors who feel no need to state the obvious, which is no, of course they did not have financial conflicts of interest. This sort of support is for scientists. Many never stop to think that support from some form of "government," whether from a specific authority, a ruler, or a ruling body, is a characteristic of culture and science that has its roots as least as far back as the fifteenth century. Long before there was such a thing as paleontology, there was support for the study of fossils. We are able to demonstrate this by means of records, such as letters written by paleontologists to possible patrons, published accounts of support, and dedicatory statements in the texts.
The modern methodology of collecting fossils, displaying them, and disseminating information was established in Early Modern Europe by prominent political leaders and the scientists who worked for them. Here I am using the term "political leader" in a very broad sense. As was noted, some early patrons of paleontology were members of nobility, but others were leaders of the Catholic Church. They were persons of authority and rulers of various kinds. In some cases those who were patrons of paleontology were wealthy commoners. What all these individuals had in common was power, influence, and money.
This last was most likely the case of the individual for whom a very early depiction of fossil shark teeth was painted. About 1449 the Flemish master Petrus Christus (active about 1444; died around 1475 or 1476) painted a panel entitled A Goldsmith in His Shop, Possibly St. Eligius. This masterpiece of Flemish Renaissance painting is owned today by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The painting depicts a goldsmith who wears the traditional red cap of a physician or apothecary. By tradition, St. Eligius was both. He was also a veterinarian. There seems to have been an actual historical person, Eligius, who lived in France in the late sixth century. He came to the attention and enjoyed the patronage of the Frankish king. Christus's work was most likely not painted for royalty, although it could have been as he worked in Bruges. Bruges was the political capital of the French Netherlands provinces. Christus, like his contemporary, Jan van Eyck, enjoyed the support of wealthy and highly placed patrons. What is of interest herein is that Christus depicted the saint's goldsmith shop filled with all sorts of wonderful jewels and other rarities. Among the golden chalices, rock crystals, and coral branches in the saint's shop one sees two fossil shark teeth. These are probably the first depictions of fossils in European art. Their presence indicates the interest in such items as fossils among the wealthy upper classes of Europe. When Christus executed this painting, fossil shark teeth were not understood. People had certainly noticed that these items seemed organic in form, but they were stones. How could they have been a part of an animal that had petrified? Thus, fossil shark teeth were called "tongue stones" or glossopetrae. In German they were called Natternzungen, which means "adder tongues." Fossil shark teeth were valuable rarities to have in one's Kunstkamer, a collection of beautiful and rare items (the term translates literally as "a room of art"). They were also used in folk and established medicine, and as amulets. By default, the presence of fossils in a jeweler's shop also indicates support from "governmental" entities for at least the collection and the discussion of such items. These comments may seem like a stretch of logic, but they are not. Without question wealthy individuals would have wanted to possess fossil shark teeth. If it were otherwise, Christus would not have included them in his realistic depiction of a jeweler's shop. He may have even owned some fossil shark teeth. He certainly had seen them (Davidson 2008, 2–5).
One may well ask, in effect, where did all the geologists and paleontologists come from? As silly as it sounds, one could reply that Aristotle was interested in everything, including natural history and geology, so it just makes sense that these early Renaissance scientists would emulate him. And they did. Government patrons were also, at times, themselves very interested in gathering knowledge about many things. This knowledge could be useful in itself, but it could also help the patron gain financially or in power. Concomitant with the study of geological formations, forces, and fossils was the search for mineral wealth. As early as Georgius Agricola's (born Georg Bauer, 1494–1555) study of mining techniques (what we would now call "mining engineering"), early geoscientists and their sponsors were involved with purely economic concerns. De re metallica (Agricola 1556) was such a work. It was so important and extensive that it remains to modern times as a fine example of a synopsis, almost a textbook, on the state of sixteenth-century mining technology. The search for mineral wealth, or other valuable geological products, such as peat and coal, continued well beyond the Early Modern period. Indeed it continues still. Fossils were (and still are) sometimes by-products of surveys or explorations designed primarily to look for useful mineral deposits. But, and fairly early on, it became clear that fossils might be indicators of where to look. The concept of the "index fossil," which designated the age or content of various strata, developed early (though the term wasn't used formally for centuries). But this was not the only value attached to fossils by the scientists and their patrons.
In the Early Modern period there was an increasing interest in what we might today call "natural history." This could also include the study of rocks and minerals, fossils (although these were hardly understood per se in the sixteenth century), and geological formations. Early scientists like Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) studied all these aspects of the natural world. A man like da Vinci can certainly be considered an early geologist. His patrons, thus, were supporters of geology and the very beginnings of paleontology. Churchmen like Athanasius Kircher and Nicolas Steno followed in this tradition of scientists who were interested in a number of aspects of the natural world, including paleontology and geology. Their patrons were also unknowingly helping to establish a pattern of the wealthy and powerful "government" leader who supported paleontology. That pattern exists to this day.
Everyone is familiar with Leonardo da Vinci's early patrons, the Medici family, and it is well known that King Francis I supported da Vinci later in the scientist's life. He left Italy, moved permanently to France, and entered the king's service, living at court. The logic of one's approaching a wealthy and powerful patron who might support science or art seems overwhelmingly obvious. Of course one sought out wealthy patrons. This is how a man like da Vinci made a living. His collected drawings contain sketches for statues he was "pitching" to Lodovico Sforza (1452–1508), Duke of Milan, though they also contain designs for weapons of war, which might have interested Sforza far more. The Christus painting shows that while da Vinci was an early example of an artist, or for that matter a scientist, who had monetary support from some wealthy leader, he was not the first. Modern scientific thought and procedures were beginning in the late fifteenth century, but the concept of looking for a wealthy patron was well established. In the fifteenth century, those in power, whether secular or ecclesiastical rulers, were frequently also those who had money. From the beginning of "governmental" support, here defined as support by an individual or body with ruling powers, there was a connection with what would become the disciplines of paleontology and geology. Thus, a number of the earliest important paleontology discoveries were made because scientists had support from "governments." The pattern of support from government remains totally ingrained in how paleontologists do their work. It has just always been like that. These early patrons established the blueprint for modern scientific pedagogy as well as scholarship. They assembled collections of fossils, and then they had these exhibited and information about them disseminated.
It may come as a surprise to some that the Roman Catholic Church fostered geology and paleontology as early as the middle of the sixteenth century. Michele Mercati (1541–1593) was among the earliest geologists to study fossils and to have government support. Like many geologists and paleontologists who would come after him, Mercati was trained as a physician. These men were in essence those personified in the legend of St. Eligius. They were medical practitioners, alchemists, and experts on rocks and fossils.
Mercati served as a personal physician to no fewer than seven popes. Eventually he occupied the title of Head Papal Physician. Sometime in the 1570s, during the reign of Pope St. Pius V (r. 1566–1572), Mercati was appointed as director of the papal botanical gardens. Botanical gardens served as sources for medicinal herbs and other plants, but in his role as head of the gardens, Mercati began collecting rocks and fossils as well. Eventually Pope Sixtus V (r. 1585–1590) placed him in charge of the Vatican collection of geological specimens. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, Mercati was at work on a book about the papal geological collections that was to be called Metallotheca. We know this because the book was originally dedicated to Pope Clement VIII (r. 1592–1605) and some of its illustrations were used by Nicolas Steno (1667), though it wasn't published until the eighteenth century. Mercati gathered, supervised, and documented the Vatican geologic collections, which included fossils as well as various mineral specimens. Popes in the late sixteenth century were certainly interested in obtaining such unusual items for study and display, even though they and their museum directors did not always understand what fossils actually were. These are the attitudes of what would come to be called "amateurs," that is, collectors of rare, interesting, and unusual items. The Vatican museum was a large Kunstkamer. The popes whom Mercati served were typical of wealthy and powerful collectors, but they and he were more than just dilettantes. Mercati planned to present his patrons' specimens with accurate illustrations in his Metallotheca. Thus the book and even the collection itself were parts of the fledgling scientific method that was taking shape at this time. Items were presented and described for others to see and comment on. Descriptions included images of the items. These could be anything from botanical and geological specimens to such things as witches and poltergeists. The Metallotheca was intended to be both guidebook for the papal collections and a scientific treatise. In this respect, Mercati and his book were forerunners of many more future museum guides that doubled as treatises.
It is quite interesting that the papal collections and the Metallotheca would be such important influences on the development of the geologic sciences at a point when the Roman Church is not thought of as being particularly supportive of science. Clearly, despite its reaction to Galileo, the Church was not entirely in the dark (Davidson 2000, 339–40). Metallotheca cannot really be seen as a general readership text on geology, much less on paleontology, as the intended audience for this book would have been rather small. It would have comprised educated nobles and clergy. And in fact, there were no professional sciences of geology or paleontology at the time when Mercati wrote his original manuscript and commissioned the plates. So we are not quite comfortable with calling this a geology or paleontology book as such. Nonetheless, this book was to be a very expensive production and illustrated with exquisite engravings. The illustration pages were printed with the engraving, and then these pages were printed again with text accompanying the illustration. This was a large folio; it weighs seven pounds. Printing it took more than just a run through the press for the given illustrated page. The engravings were made either by Anthoni Eisenhout or Aloysius Gomen (the eighteenth-century artist).
Clement XI, pope at the time, spent a considerable amount on the publication. Metallotheca is more in the nature of a printed Kunstkamer and, as we noted, became a prologue to later works. But the images of the shark teeth and glossopetrae came to play a very important role in later paleontology when they were utilized by Steno in his paper on fossil shark teeth in 1666.
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Excerpted from "Patrons of Paleontology"
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Copyright © 2017 Jane P. Davidson.
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