Futility Closet

The end of the Civil War opened a new era of fossil hunting in the American West -- and a bitter feud between two rival paleontologists, who spent 20 years sabotaging one another in a constant struggle for supremacy. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the Bone Wars, the greatest scientific feud of the 19th century. We'll also sympathize with Scunthorpe and puzzle over why a driver can't drive. Intro: Nepal's constitution contains instructions for drawing its flag. The tombstone of Constanze Mozart's second husband calls him "the husband of Mozart's widow." Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. Sources for our feature on the Bone Wars: David Rains Wallace, The Bonehunters' Revenge, 1999. Mark Jaffe, The Gilded Dinosaur, 2000. Elizabeth Noble Shor, The Fossil Feud, 1974. Hal Hellman, Great Feuds in Science, 1998. Tom Huntington, "The Great Feud," American History 33:3 (August 1998), 14. Richard A. Kissel, "The Sauropod Chronicles," Natural History 116:3 (Apr