1887 Marsh and Felch Letters

Synopsis of Letters (1887)

1887 began with Felch more sick than ever before (1/23/1887 - letter from daughter, Sarah Felch). As Felch said, "attacks" almost killed him. He was out for a solid five weeks and asked Marsh for some financial allowances to be made for him since he felt he was due from the previous year (2/21/1887). Marsh agreed and sent money, along with his condolences to Felch's ill health (3/10/1887). Felch discovered from the doctor that he had a heart lesion by way of mitral regurgitation and dilation, where a valvular cardiac muscle called the mitral valve weakened by stress and/or other factors dilates (grows larger in diameter), causing blood to leak back into left atrium from the left ventricle (3/19/1887).  The ordeal made Felch consider going to Georgia or Florida for the next winter. To go with this bout of near death, Felch pulled less out of the quarry than in previous years.

After Felch got back on his feet, the two men began to move in different directions. Felch was becoming increasingly more restless and Marsh was appearing more distracted. The first letters in the early to mid 1880's had a sense of control that the men exuded. They were patient and polite. But at this junction in the letters, both men were probably feeling their clocks winding down. They wrote less often.

Other letters of note

4/2/1887: This was the first and only few times Felch referred to his wife, Amanda (but not by name), in the letters. The referral was in a P.S. [Felch to Marsh]

4/10/1887: At this point Felch wanted to go for the "Barn Door" of fossils ("Barn Door" reference from 7/25/1885 Felch to Marsh letter). He pointed out his desire to be less careful and hastier than before. [Felch to Marsh]

4/15/1887: In the reply letter, Marsh asked Felch not go fast, but to go slow and tedious as before. Marsh did not want to lose anything important.

4/27/1887: Marsh continued on his quest for more of what he desired, stating that Felch should "look for" a carnivore skull. Marsh made the matter seem as if a carnivore skull was simply lying around in the quarry against the wall, or merely misplaced. Marsh was sounding more detached than in earlier years. [Marsh to Felch]

5/18/1887 & 6/6/1887: Because Marsh was employed by the United States Geological Survey, and Felch was employed by Marsh, Felch had to take an oath "as a matter of form." [Marsh to Felch] & [Felch to Marsh]

6/6/1887: Felch anticipating extreme, hot weather, wanted to complete as much as he could before the heat set in for July and August. [Felch to Marsh]

8/7/1887: Felch found the other femur belonging to the Diplodocus excavated back in 1877 with Williston and Mudge. [Felch to Marsh]

8/23/1887: Felch wanted to move faster unless they found fossils of importance.

9/4/1887: Severe weather struck the area of Garden Park and Cañon City where "hail storms were almost a daily occurrence." This caused major set backs to exhuming fossils from the quarry. As well, the ground they were working over did not contain many fossils, and when there were fossils, they were of less value than previous discoveries. Felch, getting older with a terrible start to the new year, and working hard for very little in return was becoming frustrated. [Felch to Marsh]

9/14/1887: Felch had to ask Marsh for a payment by October 1st in order to send his daughter, Sarah, to California. It is presumed that Felch is sending Sarah to visit his brother, Henry, who lives in San Diego. Felch also mentioned that his son, Ned, found a trackway in the area, they were calling "turkey tracks." [Felch to Marsh]

10/1/1887: In this letter, Felch wrote about his belief that the once living organisms found in the quarry became mired in a hole and died. Felch considered the mire hole to be like quick sand. From this view point, one can envision a Rancho La Brea-like scenario playing out (Check out www.tarpits.org). Today, some paleontologists think the fossil dinosaurs found at the Felch Quarry came to rest there by dying during a drought as seen through different levels of disarticulation of fossils. This is interpreted as a slow accumulation of animals over time (Carpenter and Evanoff, 1994). [Felch to Marsh]

10/16/1887: From this and the last letter (10/1/1887) it sounds as if Marsh was not reading Felch's letters very closely. The area Felch called "the old river bed" contained the best fossils, and he felt the abundance he saw before was slowly petering out. [Felch to Marsh]

12/19/1887: Felch would charge only half-months work due to the fact that the year did not uncover as good material as before. [Felch to Marsh]

12/26/1887: Marsh wrote to say he was hard at work on a new Jurassic dinosaur location found outside of Washington D.C.