E.D. Cope's 1893 Expedition to the Dakotas Revisited

Recently an uncatalogued cache of fossil reptile material was discovered in the vertebrate paleontology collection at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Evidence obtained from handwritten notes on the newspaper in which the specimens were wrapped indicates that the specimens are part of the collection made by Edward Drinker Cope on his expedition to the Dakotas and Oklahoma in 1893. These fossils were collected in the vicinity of Fort Yates, North Dakota, and Hump Creek, South Dakota, and are predominantly from the Hell Creek Formation (Maastrichtian: Late Cretaceous). No fossils from the Oklahoma segment of Cope's journey were found in the collection. Details of the Dakota segment of the expedition are reconstructed from correspondence written by Cope while he was in the field and from notes on some of the field wrappings of these newly discovered specimens. These materials are significant to the Academy of Natural Sciences since they provide insight into an aspect of Academy history which had been previously lost.