The life and scientific achievements of O.C. Marsh, the man who brought the Brontosaurus to the Peabody Museum of Natural History -- and the Peabody Museum to Yale -- will be honored in a new exhibit marking the centennial of his death.

"O.C. Marsh: A Centennial Celebration," on view Oct. 29-April 1 at the Peabody Museum, pays tribute to the 19th-century scientist who was a pioneer in the field of paleontology, the study of life during the Earth's geologic past.

It is said that Marsh gave his collection, his estate and his life to Yale. A researcher whose systematic collection of the fossils of dinosaurs and early mammals still serve as important tools to scientists studying evolution, Marsh helped establish the Peabody Museum in 1866 with the support of his uncle, financier George Peabody. Although Marsh inherited his uncle's millions, by the time of his death in 1899, he had spent his entire personal fortune to pursue these scientific studies and to build the Peabody Museum's research collections.

When Marsh was a teenager, it was evident that he had no interest in becoming a farmer like his father. Marsh's love of the outdoors and of hunting led to a friendship with Colonel Ezekiel Jewett, who was known as the "best shot" in western New York State and also happened to be an expert amateur geologist. Marsh acquired a taste for collecting natural history specimens as his boyhood idol taught him about the local minerals and the specimens of trilobites, brachiopods and crinoids that could be found near his home.

By the time Marsh entered Yale College in 1856, he had a sizable mineral collection and had already collected (in Nova Scotia) the bones of his first fossil discovery.

George Peabody, a self-made millionaire, was nevertheless acutely conscious of his lack of formal education, so he supported his nephew's college education, as well as Marsh's graduate studies at Yale and at several German universities. In 1866, in response to Marsh's urgings, Peabody, who founded several other American institutions, gave Yale $150,000 to found the museum of natural history.

That same year, Marsh was appointed the first professor of paleontology at Yale. His appointment in paleontology was the first in America, and only the second in the world. After his uncle's death in 1869, Marsh used his inheritance to amass large collections of vertebrate fossils, fossil footprints, invertebrate fossils, the skeletons of existing vertebrates, and archaeological and ethnological artifacts. In 1898 he presented all of these collections to Yale.

When the building that currently houses the Peabody Museum was being planned, the architect was asked to design a room big enough to hold the skeleton of the Brontosaurus so that it could be mounted. Today, the dinosaur (renamed Apatosaurus) dominates the Great Hall of the Peabody Museum and remains the best-known and most popular of all of Marsh's paleontological specimens. Because Marsh insisted that his bone-hunters recover every scrap that they could find of any one animal, many of his fossil skeletons, such as the Apatosaurus, are unusually complete.

Marsh's intellectual legacy and bone-hunting enthusiasm continue at the Peabody today -- most recently, with the discovery of Deinonychus by Yale professor John Ostrom.

The Peabody Museum of Natural History is located at 170 Whitney Avenue. It is open 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children ages 3 to 15 and senior citizens age 65 and over. Yale employees with a valid University I.D. are admitted free. Parking is available for a low fee at the south end of Yale Lot #22, located one block north of the museum on Whitney Avenue. For further information, call the InfoTape at (203) 432-5050, or visit the museum's website at www.peabody.yale.edu.

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