From time to time
Professor Cope removed parts of the collection to his private museum
in Pine Street, for purposes of study and scientific description. He
seems, however, to have had no idea of the perfection and value of
this specimen. In 1899 when the collection was purchased from his
executors by Mr. Jesup, the writer went to Philadelphia under the
instructions of Professor Osborn, Curator of Fossil Vertebrates, to
superintend the packing and removal to the American Museum. At that
time the collection made by Hubbell was still in Memorial Hall, and
the boxes were piled up just as they came in from the West, never
having been unpacked. Professor Cope's assistant, Mr. Geismar,
informed the writer that Hubbell's collection was mostly fragmentary
and not of any great value. Mr. Hubbell's letters from the field
unfortunately were not preserved, but it is likely that they did not
make clear what a splendid find he had made, and as some of his
earlier collections had been fragmentary and of no great interest, the
rest were supposed to be of the same kind.
"When the Cope Collection was unpacked at the American Museum, this
lot of boxes, not thought likely to be of much interest, was left
until the last, and not taken in hand until 1902 or 1903. But when
this specimen was laid out, it appeared that a treasure had come to
light. Although collected by the crude methods of early days, it
consisted of the greater part of the skeleton of a single individual,
with the bones in wonderfully fine preservation, considering that they
had been buried for say eight million years.
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