Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Edward Drinker COPE
COPE, Edward Drinker, naturalist, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., July 28, 1840; son of Alfred, grandson of Thomas Pym, and great-grandson of Caleb Cope. His father and grandfather were prominent linen merchants in Philadelphia. After attending Westtown academy and the University of Pennsylvania, and pursuing a course in comparative anatomy in the Philadelphia academy of sciences and in the Smithsonian [p.381] institution, he spent the years 1863-64 in Europe, studying at Heidelberg, where he received the degree of Ph. D. He was professor of natural sciences in Haverford college, 1864-67; explored the cretaceous formations of Kansas in 1871; the eocene of Wyoming, 1872; the tertiary beds of Colorado, 1873, and was palæontologist of the first survey of the United States territories, and of the survey west of the 100th meridian, 1874. He spent between $75,000 and $100,000 in collecting specimens of fossils, including thousands of new species which were afterward demanded of him by the government under a misapprehension of facts. In 1889 he was appointed professor of geology and palæontology in the University of Pennsylvania. He was recognized abroad as
one of the foremost in his specialty by being made a member of the Royal academy of letters and sciences of Batavia; of the geological societies of France and London and of the National academy of sciences of Mexico. He was also made an honorary member of the Belgian society of zoology, palæontology and hydrology. In 1896 he was elected president of the American association for the
advancement of science, to succeed Edward W. Morley. In 1879 he received the Bigsby gold medal of the Geological society of London in recognition of his services in the field of vertebrate palæontelogy. He is the author of the principle of "acceleration and retardation," of "repetition," of the "doctrine of the unspecialized" and of a theory of the origin of the will. He edited with Prof. A. S.
Packard, the American Naturalist. By his will he gave $40,000 to the Philadelphia academy of natural sciences for the establishment of a chair of palæontology. He is the author of: On the Origin of Genera (1868); Hypothesis of Evolution (1870); Method of Creation (1871); Evolution and Its Consequences (1872); Consciousness in Evolution (1875); Relation of Man to Tertiary Mammals
(1875); The Theory of Evolution (1876); The Origin of the Will (1877); Animal Motion and Evolution (1878); A Review of the Modern Doctrines of Evolution (1879); Origin of Man, etc. (1885); The Energy of Life and Evolution and How it has Acted (1885); The Origin of the Fittest (1886); and The Primary Factors of Organic Evolution (1896). See extended obituary notice in Science, May 7, 1897. He died in Philadelphia, Pa., April 12, 1897.
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