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Mountains, six miles south of Salinas, remains of extinct animals and peculiar rock formations are also very valuable, being second only to those coming from the Jamesburg country.

A noteworthy fact regarding these fossils is that the petrifactions of land animals are nearly all found at a much lower altitude than those of marine animals, the remains of a mastodon have come from the Santa Lucia Mountains some 300 feet above sea level, while a whale's head fossil, huge petrified oysters, fish fins, barnacles and other forms of sea life were found embedded in a ridge of sandstone at least 2500 feet above the sea and a distance of eighteen miles inland. Scientists would, doubtless, be able to explain this phenomenon as a natural consequence of the change of conditions in accordance with the transition from one geological period to another.

The whale's head was found on the Finch ranch, near Jamesburg, and not far from Tassajara Springs. It is the almost perfect specimen of a portion of a whale's head from where it joins the vertebral column to about midway the length of the jaw, with the eye socket and part of the ball plainly discernable. The petrifaction is of the right side of the head, measures 30 inches in length, 18 inches in width and 12 inches in thickness, and weighs 350 pounds. It was discovered two weeks ago by a resident of the Jamesburg region, John Clenford, and was so tightly embedded in the sandstone formation of the ridge of the mountain that its contour was disfigured slightly in removing it. Had Clenford made use of the proper tools with which to disinter the relic it is probable that this misfortune might have been obviated. The pieces broken from it have all been preserved and can readily be fitted to their old places. The point of the ridge from which the fossil was taken is one of the highest of the surrounding mountains, and although the exact altitude was impossible of ascertainment, it is thought by comparison with surrounding points the altitude of which is known that it is not less than 3000 feet above the sea. Clenford, the [[clipped]]

special to the Sunday Call.
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Only two or three men in a century possess the regal gift of being a genius in many things. Professor O. C. Marsh of Yale University, who died recently, was endowed with such a gift to a remarkable degree. Besides being one of the most distinguished of American scientists, and perhaps the most famous paleontologist in the world, he won a wide renown outside of his scientific work as a daring and successful explorer, as a connoisseur in Japanese art, as a lover and collector of rare orchids, as a champion of the American Indians, and, supremely, as a story teller and writer of many scientific works.

He spent a long life and a considerable fortune in building up a great public museum at Yale College. He never drew a penny of salary for his services as a professor, and about a year ago, when his health began to fail, he made over all his vast and priceless collections to the university and died a comparatively poor man.

Two Small Bones Led to Fame.
Fame and science are supposed to come with gray hairs. Professor Marsh was known everywhere in the scientific world at the age of 31. This sudden rise to fame was the result of a discovery which he made while he was yet a student at Phillips Academy, Andover. During one of his summer vacations he was tramping among the cliffs of Nova Scotia and he picked up by accident two odd bits of fossil bone. He found them lying close together, like two checkers, one partially overlapping the other. They were cylindrical in form, with sauserlike hollows at each end, and so insignificantly small that a man might close his hand around them.

Young Marsh, already deeply interested in geology and mineralogy, dropped the bones into the pocket of his shooting jacket and carried them with him. He passed from Andover to Yale, where he was graduated with honors in 1860, and then he entered the Sheffield Scientific School. All this time he treasured the two fossil bones and their significance as a geological discovery became plainer to him with every added year of study. From the shape, size and relative position in which they were discovered, he knew them to be the vertebra of some enormous animal of prehistoric origin; but he had found them in a coal formation and the authorities gave no hint of creatures so highly developed in a geological age so remote. He believed that the two vertebrae indicated a hitherto unknown link between the fishes and the reptiles. He showed the bones to the famous geologist, Dana, and to Professor Jeffries Wyman of Harvard. They told him to see Agassiz, who knew more about fishes, living and extinct, than any other man. Agassiz examined the bones with keen interest, and inquired where they were found. When young Marsh told him the story of their discovery and ventured to outline his theories, the great scientist shook his head emphatically. "Impossible," he said.

Studied Two Bones for Months.
But young Marsh was certain that he had made an important discovery. At the suggestion of Professor Wyman he devoted six months to the study of the two little bones and their relationship to the remains of other extinct monsters; then he described them accurately in a published account, naming the animal from which they came the Eosaurus, the "dawn of lizards," the first reptilian remains to be found in the coal measures of America. The discovery of the Eosaurus came as strong affirmative evidence, showing conclusively the relationship between two widely different classes of animal life. At the instance of Sir Charles Lyell, the eminent English geologist, young Marsh's paper was read before the august Geological Society of London and its author was voted a fellow. It was translated into German and the young scientist was asked to accept the honor of a membership in the Geological Society of Berlin. In America Yale College was prompt with its appreciation of the value of the discovery, and although young Marsh was then just graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School, he was offered a seat in the university faculty as professor of paleontology.

Discovered a Bird With Teeth.
With such unusual recognition as this, Professor Marsh began a scientific career in which he was destined to accomplish more than any other one man perhaps in establishing the theory of evolution by actual discoveries. Darwin had built a magnificent hypothesis: Huxley had been its great expounder, and now came Marsh and other brilliant younger scientists, to whom a whole universe had been suddenly laid bare by a great idea, and by adding link after link to the chain of extinct life, helped to make the theory of development a scientific truth, capable of actual objective demonstration. As a single instance, opponents of evolution had cited the wide break between the two classes of birds and reptiles, declaring that doctrine could not bridge it over. In their definition of birds the zoologists of the time made toothlessness a cardinal characteristic; no birds familiar to science possessed any teeth. But Professor Marsh, exploring our own Rocky Mountain region, found the remains of a strange swimming bird with two well developed rows of teeth. A little later he discovered other reptilelike birds and birdlike reptiles, showing some of the actual steps by which the saurian of a million years ago became in the slow progress of the ages the feathered and toothless bird of to-day.

"My first great ambition," Professor Marsh once told me, "was to shoot as well as old Colonel Jewett," a famous hunter of Western New York, and a great friend of his. "I was not satisfied until I could bring down a squirrel from the top crotch of a big hickory, where I could see only a tip of a red nose and one eye."

His roving outdoor life made him a keen observer, and gave him the rugged vitality to withstand any degree of hardship. "If I had known what my future career was to be," he said, "I could not have mapped out my boyhood better."

Transcription Notes:
Gigglepop & I are asking @transcribsi about this - whether it's ok as full transcription or whether they want standard practice of [[?]] used on missing text. Better copy of article here: http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18990409.2.209.15# Everything looked perfect until last column -- unsure what @TranscribeSI wants in terms of missing words and transcribing, so I reopened. - A.H. (GigglePop!)