0:01

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class,

0:03

a production of iHeartRadio.

0:11

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

0:14

Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry.

0:16

I don't remember which historical hoax

0:19

we talked about on the show that led

0:21

me to put the Missouri Leviathan

0:23

on my short list. I do remember,

0:26

though, that I didn't want to do this episode

0:28

immediately because I like

0:30

find the hoax episodes to be very

0:33

fun, but I also like

0:35

to spread them out a little bit, since they

0:37

can seem a little bit repetitive if they get all

0:39

bunched up together. After

0:41

doing this research, I'm not entirely

0:44

convinced that hoax is

0:47

actually the right word for the

0:49

Missouri Leviathan. But regardless,

0:51

now it has been long enough since I put this on

0:54

a list that I don't even remember what the episode

0:56

was that inspired it, so that seems like it's been long

0:58

enough that it will not seem

1:01

repetitive.

1:03

The Missouri Leviathan was an enormous

1:05

skeleton made of fossilized bones

1:08

that were excavated and assembled

1:10

by Albert C. Kock. He was

1:12

born on May tenth, eighteen oh four, in

1:14

Saxony. That's now Germany. His

1:17

parents were Johann Yusebius

1:19

Sigismund Cock and Johanna Maria

1:22

Vellemine Martini. We

1:24

don't know a whole lot about his early life, but

1:26

he came to the United States in eighteen

1:28

twenty six and initially settled in Pennsylvania.

1:32

One of the ways Cock tried to make a living

1:35

after arriving in the United States

1:37

was collecting and selling specimens

1:39

for natural history museums. That

1:42

might sound kind of weird today, but it

1:44

was not all that uncommon as a way for

1:46

people to make money at the time. The

1:49

first natural history museums as we

1:51

would recognize them today, date back

1:53

to about the seventeenth century, but

1:56

a lot more of them opened in

1:58

the eighteenth and nineteenth century. This

2:01

included museums that were established

2:03

by universities and institutions

2:05

other formal organizations,

2:07

as well as ones that were just started by individual

2:10

people who wanted to start a museum.

2:13

This surge was driven by a public

2:15

fascination with ongoing discoveries

2:17

in the natural sciences, like entire

2:20

fields like palaeodology were just getting

2:23

established. This was also paired

2:25

with a rise in leisure time among some

2:27

economic classes, so more people

2:29

had time to do things like visit museums,

2:32

so there was a huge market for all kinds

2:35

of objects to go in such museums.

2:38

Cock partnered with various people in his collecting

2:40

business as he moved from place to place, and

2:43

he sold objects to a museum in Berlin

2:45

as well as to institutions in the United

2:47

States. Before leaving

2:50

Pennsylvania, Cock married Elizabeth

2:52

Reid. They would eventually go on to

2:54

have four children. By eighteen

2:57

thirty they'd moved to Michigan, and by

2:59

eighteen thirty five if they were in Saint Louis,

3:01

Missouri. In Saint Louis,

3:03

Cox started a museum of his own

3:05

and that opened in eighteen thirty six. Like

3:08

many early natural history museums,

3:10

the Saint Louis Museum followed in the footsteps

3:13

of Renaissance era cabinets of curiosities,

3:16

which were cabinets or even entire rooms

3:18

where well off people collected things

3:20

like fossils, shells, animal

3:23

specimens, and even works of art. These

3:26

were also still around by the nineteenth century,

3:28

and Cox's father, who was a magistrate

3:30

in their village in Saxony, had

3:32

one of these in their home, so it's possible

3:35

that that was the inspiration for Cox Museum.

3:38

Cox Museum was near where

3:40

the Gateway Art stands today,

3:43

and it was full of all kinds of things,

3:45

plants and animal specimens, taxidermy.

3:48

Fossils, shells, pieces

3:50

of coral and Egyptian artifacts.

3:54

On February twenty second, eighteen thirty

3:56

eight, he announced that he had purchased the

3:58

collection of William Clark, who

4:00

had teamed up with Meriwether Lewis for

4:02

the Core of Discovery expedition

4:04

across the western part of North America.

4:08

Clark had developed a huge collection

4:10

of indigenous artwork and other objects

4:13

during this expedition and during

4:15

his military service and his time working

4:17

as an Indian agent. The

4:20

details are a little fuzzy

4:22

about exactly how Cock acquired

4:25

this collection. A number of

4:27

sources say that he bought it after William

4:30

Clark's death, but Clark

4:32

died on September first, eighteen thirty

4:34

eight, and that was a few months after

4:36

this acquisition was announced. A

4:39

lot of the objects in the Saint Louis Museum

4:41

would have a home in a natural history museum

4:43

today, but a lot of the natural

4:46

history museums of this era also

4:48

had a focus on almost vaudeville

4:51

like entertainment and spectacles

4:53

that didn't necessarily have a place

4:55

in the real world. That was

4:57

the case for the Saint Louis Museum as

4:59

well. Albert Kok and his

5:01

museum are often compared to P. T. Barnum,

5:04

who became tightly associated with

5:06

both showmanship and flimflam.

5:09

Some of Cock's exhibits would be compared to

5:11

Barnum's Fiji Mermaid, which was made

5:13

from a monkey and a fish like. Cock

5:16

had an animal that he called the proc which

5:18

he said was the size of a mule, with

5:20

stripes like a zebra and the head of

5:23

a rhinoceros. The Saint Louis

5:25

Museum also had a dramatic saloon

5:28

for entertainers to perform in

5:31

a dramatic saloon not an

5:33

uncommon addition to natural

5:35

history museums of this era.

5:37

I feel like there's a speakeasy opportunity

5:40

here. Cock

5:42

was also an avid fossil collector,

5:44

including the fossilized bones

5:47

of the megafauna that had lived

5:49

in North America until the end of the Last

5:51

Ice Age, so things like mastodons

5:54

and giant ground sloths, and

5:57

that is what led to the creation of the Missouri

5:59

Leviathan. There are a number

6:01

of stories about exactly how he came

6:03

into possession of these fossilized

6:06

bones, possibly because

6:08

he used bones from multiple

6:10

animals to do it. One

6:13

story is that in eighteen thirty eight he heard

6:15

about a farmer on the Brebus River

6:18

in east central Missouri who had

6:20

been trying to improve a spring

6:23

and found several bones in the process.

6:26

Another is that a year later, in eighteen

6:28

thirty nine, he heard that a farmer

6:30

near Rock Creek in Kimswick, southeast

6:33

of Saint Louis, had found some bones in

6:35

a field. Kock is

6:37

known to have excavated massdon

6:40

bones from at least three places,

6:43

those two that we just mentioned and a

6:45

site on the Poonditaire River. Cock

6:48

had no formal training as a paleontologist

6:51

or a naturalist or a museum curator,

6:53

but neither did a lot of other people

6:56

doing this same work in the eighteen thirties.

6:58

We don't really know if he'd ever read

7:01

any of the existing literature about mastodons

7:03

in their anatomine, so it's not entirely

7:06

clear whether he intentionally assembled

7:08

the bones of multiple animals to make one

7:11

deceptively enormous skeleton, or

7:14

if He thought this was what a real animal

7:16

had looked like, and he used the bones

7:18

of multiple animals to basically fill

7:20

in what he thought were gaps.

7:23

The skeleton he assembled and displayed

7:26

at his museum, calling it

7:28

the Missourium or the Missouri Leviathan,

7:31

belonged to what he said was an animal thirty

7:33

two feet long and fifteen feet

7:35

tall. That's almost ten meters

7:38

long and four and a half meters tall. As

7:41

we said, an adult American mastodon

7:44

was about the size of an elephant,

7:46

so males were typically a little less

7:48

than ten feet tall or three meters

7:51

tall. Those are approximate

7:53

conversions, obviously, Although

7:56

some people use the word mastodon and

7:58

mammoth interchangeably, these were different

8:01

animals, with macedons typically being

8:03

shorter and stockier with straighter

8:06

tusks than mammoths had. This

8:08

assemblage had at least ten more

8:10

vertebrae than a mastodon would have had.

8:13

Kock also placed spacers between

8:15

the vertebrae to make the skeleton even

8:18

longer. He also used a

8:20

couple of ribs to make the collar bones.

8:23

He claimed that the Missourium was aquatic,

8:25

and added long bones to the skeleton's

8:27

toes to create what looked like webbed

8:30

feet, and rather than having

8:32

the animal's tusks point forward, he

8:34

pointed them out to the side.

8:37

Here is his explanation for

8:39

these sideways pointing tusks,

8:42

taken from a pamphlet that he wrote and published

8:45

in eighteen forty one, which was titled

8:47

Description of Missourium or Missouri

8:49

Leviathan, together with its supposed

8:52

habits and Indian traditions

8:55

concerning the location from which it was

8:57

exhumed. Also comparisons

8:59

of the whale, crocodile, and Basoorium

9:02

with the Leviathan is described in the

9:04

forty first chapter of the Book of Job

9:07

quote.

9:08

As I was.

9:08

Successful in finding the right tusks

9:11

solid in the head when I first discovered

9:14

it, and as it remained fixed

9:16

in its socket during its excavation

9:18

and transportation over a very

9:21

rough and wilderness country, I

9:23

am enabled therefore to give a correct

9:25

and indisputable description of

9:27

the position and situation which the tusts

9:30

occupied in the skull of the animal during

9:32

its life. They were carried

9:34

by him almost horizontally, bending

9:36

somewhat down and coming with their

9:39

points up again. Their length is ten

9:41

feet exclusive of one foot inches

9:43

from which formed the root and is

9:46

hidden from the eye of the observer as

9:48

it is concealed in and under

9:50

the skull. In other words,

9:52

he said he knew the animal's tusks swept

9:55

out to the side because that's the way one

9:57

of them was pointing when he found it, and it

9:59

didn't move from that position in all of the jostling

10:02

it took to get it back to the museum. We'll

10:04

talk about what he said. These sideways,

10:07

pointing tusks were four after

10:09

we paused for a sponsor break.

10:20

According to Albert Cock, the

10:22

Missouri Leviathan was a giants aquatic

10:25

animal armored like an alligator.

10:28

He had made it from Macedon bones.

10:30

But in his pamphlet Description of the Missourium

10:33

or Missouri Leviathan, which we read the

10:35

entire title of before the break, he

10:37

not only said it was not a

10:40

Masthdon, but also

10:42

that it had several notable differences

10:45

from a masdon. He wrote,

10:47

quote, the most striking difference

10:49

between the Leviathan and the Macedon

10:51

are First, the leviathan had

10:53

no trunk, therefore could not be

10:55

classed under the Probosa genus.

10:58

Second, its toes were armed with claws

11:01

or nails, and this circumstance prevents

11:03

its being classed with the hoofed animals,

11:05

to which class the mastodon belongs.

11:08

Third, the Leviathan has twenty

11:11

four dorsal vertebrae and forty

11:13

eight ribs, whereas the mastodon

11:15

has nineteen dorsal vertebrae in thirty

11:17

eight ribs. Fourth, the

11:19

scapula or shoulder blade is materially

11:22

shorter in the Leviathan than in the mastodon.

11:25

Also, the ribs are much smaller. Fifth,

11:27

the dental system at the first view somewhat

11:30

resembles that of the mastodon, but upon

11:32

a close examination the observer will

11:34

perceive that the teeth of the Leviathan are

11:36

much smaller in proportion to the maxillary

11:39

bones than those of the mastodon, and

11:41

also better calculated for masticulating

11:44

softer substances. He

11:46

had this to say about how the Missouri

11:49

Leviathan existed in its purported

11:52

habitat, which is where we find out

11:54

about those sideways tusks quote.

11:57

The animal has been, without doubt an inhabitant

11:59

of water courses such as

12:01

large rivers and lakes, which is proven

12:04

by the formation of the bones. First,

12:06

his feet were webbed. Second, all

12:09

his bones were solid, and without marrow,

12:11

as the aquatic animals of the present

12:13

day. Third, his ribs

12:15

were too small and slender to resist

12:18

the many pressures and bruises they

12:20

would be subject to on land. Fourth,

12:23

his legs are short and thick. Five

12:25

his tail is flat and broad. Sixth

12:29

and last, his tusks

12:31

are so situated in the head that it would

12:33

be utterly impossible for him to exist

12:35

in a timbered country. He

12:37

possessed, also, like the hippopotamus,

12:40

the faculty of walking on the bottom

12:42

of waters and rose occasionally

12:44

to take air. The singular

12:47

position of the tusks has been very

12:49

wisely adapted by the creator

12:52

for the protection of the body from

12:54

the many injuries which it would be

12:56

exposed while swimming or walking

12:58

under the water. Cox

13:01

pamphlet also incorporated what he

13:03

described as indigenous traditions,

13:05

although with this caveat quote,

13:08

it is perfectly true that we cannot

13:10

with any degree of certainty depend

13:12

on Indian traditions, but it is

13:14

equally true that generally these traditions

13:17

are founded on events which have actually

13:19

transpired. From there,

13:21

he related a whole story that he claimed

13:23

was an indigenous legend about the arrival

13:26

of the first O sage and a war with

13:28

giant animals living in the area. It

13:31

is completely unclear whether this is something

13:33

an indigenous person told him or

13:35

if he just made it up. I can imagine

13:37

an indigenous person telling him this to

13:40

see if he believed it. Yeah,

13:42

and even if it was based in a

13:44

real legend that

13:48

was part of indigenous law

13:50

and culture like that was not really his to

13:52

share for hours. The

13:55

pamphlet also connected the Missouri Leviathan

13:58

to the sea serpent love Viiathan

14:00

described in the Hebrew Bible, including

14:03

in the Book of Job. It's sort

14:05

of a close reading of the Biblical verses

14:07

drawing purported connections to the fossil.

14:10

It goes through the whole.

14:12

Biblical text with like

14:15

connections to this creature.

14:19

Here is just an example from

14:21

this quote, the thirteenth

14:23

and fourteenth verse, who can

14:25

discover the face of his garment, or

14:28

who can come to him with his double

14:30

bridle? Who can open the

14:32

doors of his face? His teeth

14:34

are terrible roundabout. The

14:37

first sentence again has reference to his

14:39

shield or covering. Doubtless

14:41

no one could approach him without incurring

14:43

imminent danger, not even near enough

14:46

to discover the face of his garment or in

14:48

other words, to examine the construction

14:50

in particular parts of his covering the

14:53

latter part of the thirteenth and the whole of

14:55

the fourteenth. First take particular notice

14:57

of his enormous grinders an immense

14:59

tes usks, more especially to the situation

15:02

which these latter occupy in the

15:04

skull.

15:06

And in a claim that prompted a lot

15:08

of controversy, Cock wrote

15:10

that he had also found objects clearly

15:13

made by human beings, proving that

15:15

these animals lived at the same time that humans

15:17

did. He started by describing

15:20

a different find, which may have been a ground

15:22

sloth, before moving on to the Leviathan

15:25

quote. There was embedded immediately

15:27

under the femur or hind leg bone of

15:29

this animal an arrowhead of

15:31

rose colored flint, resembling

15:34

those used by the American Indians, but

15:36

of a larger size.

15:38

This was the only arrowhead immediately

15:40

with the skeleton, but in the same strata,

15:42

at a distance of five or six feet in

15:45

a horizontal direction, four

15:47

more arrowheads were found. Three

15:49

of these were of the same formation as the

15:51

preceding. The fourth was

15:54

of a very rude workmanship. One

15:56

of the last mentioned three was of agate,

15:59

The others of blueft lint. These

16:01

arrowheads are indisputably the

16:03

work of human hands. I examined

16:05

the deposit in which they were embedded and raised

16:08

them out of their embedment with my own hands.

16:11

A lot of the back and forth about

16:14

this conclusion played out in scientific

16:16

journals later on, so we will be

16:18

returning to it in a bit. But

16:21

Kock had hoped his so called Missourium

16:23

would bring in big crowds to

16:25

the Saint Louis Museum. When

16:27

it didn't, he tried another tack, which was

16:30

to take the skeleton on tour.

16:32

He sold the museum to W. S. McPherson

16:35

on January twentieth, eighteen forty

16:37

one. One thing that's

16:39

not clear is what happened to William

16:42

Clark's collection when Kock

16:44

made this sale. Theoretically

16:46

it should have stayed with the museum, but

16:48

it apparently didn't, and later on members

16:51

of the Clark family accused Kok of

16:53

stealing it. In Philadelphia,

16:56

Cock displayed the Missourium at the Masonic

16:58

Hall the skeleton and attracted

17:00

the attention of the local scientific community.

17:03

An expert started pointing out

17:05

issues with Cox's work. This

17:07

included paleontologist Richard Harlan

17:10

and anatomist Paul Goddard of

17:12

the Academy of Natural Science in Philadelphia.

17:15

Harlan published a thorough description

17:18

of the skeleton in the American Journal of

17:20

Science and Arts, and in

17:22

it he had this to say, quote one

17:24

of the most extensive and remarkable

17:26

collections of fossil bones of extinct

17:29

species of mammals which have

17:31

hitherto been brought to light in this country,

17:34

a gratification for which our scientific

17:36

community will acknowledge themselves,

17:38

indebted to the perseverance of the

17:40

enterprising proprietor, mister Albert

17:43

Cock of Saint Louis, Missouri. This

17:45

collection consists mainly of

17:47

the largest skeleton of an

17:50

aged mastodon, hitherto

17:52

disinterred in America. Nearly

17:55

complete, the proprietor,

17:58

not possessing the advantage of anatomical

18:00

knowledge, has committed some errors

18:03

in the articulation of the bones, which

18:05

no doubt his ulterior researches

18:07

will enable him to rectify. Among

18:10

these errors may be noticed here ten

18:13

or more supernumery vertebrae in

18:15

the spinal column, some supernumery

18:17

ribs, and the first rib occupying

18:19

the position of the clavicle, et cetera.

18:23

So Harlan recognized that these were

18:25

macedon bones, not bones of

18:27

some newly discovered creature. But he

18:29

also really gave Cock the benefit of the doubt,

18:32

framing his decisions on

18:34

how he put all this together as

18:36

errors that were brought about by ignorance,

18:39

rather than an intentional effort to deceive

18:41

people. At a meeting of

18:43

the National Academy of Sciences in October

18:46

of eighteen forty one, Goddard

18:48

reported on his examination of the skeleton.

18:51

He said he had found it to be quote,

18:53

a skeleton composed of mastodon

18:55

bones, most of which appeared

18:57

to belong to a single set, any

19:00

however, having been superadded, and

19:02

others mended and glued together

19:04

in a manner holy erroneous.

19:07

Goddard then walked through various errors

19:10

he had noticed in the skeleton's spine,

19:12

ribs, head, shoulder, blades,

19:14

and feet. Cock did have

19:16

supporters, though a rebuttal

19:18

of Goddard's report appeared in The

19:20

Farmer's Cabinet and American Herd

19:22

Book by someone who signed their

19:25

work only as j M, whose

19:27

identity I was not able to confirm.

19:30

This rebuttal began quote. The most

19:32

charitable conclusion is that

19:34

doctor Goddard took not the

19:37

opportunity to examine sufficiently

19:39

the bones of the Missourium, and is

19:41

therefore entirely unacquainted

19:44

with their particular construction and confirmation.

19:47

Before refuting Goddard's observations

19:50

point by point, you ask a lot

19:52

of questions, like how had Goddard

19:54

been able to get up high enough to

19:57

see what he said was glue on

20:00

skeleton's snout. Cock

20:02

does not seem to have heeded these criticisms

20:05

before taking the Missourium across

20:07

the Atlantic. He displayed the

20:09

skeleton at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly,

20:12

London, and it once again attracted

20:14

the attention of experts. These

20:17

experts included Richard Owen, who

20:19

coined the term dinosaur in eighteen forty

20:21

one. Owen pointed

20:23

out a lot of the same flaws as Goddard

20:25

and Harlan had. In eighteen

20:27

forty two, he read a report before the Geological

20:30

Society of London in which he noted that

20:33

Kak had addressed one error in how he

20:35

had mounted two of the ribs, but said

20:37

any other changes would cost too much

20:39

money.

20:41

One of Owen's comments on this was about

20:43

the position of those tusks and

20:45

why Cock might have found the skull

20:47

with one of the tusks pointing out to the

20:49

side. Quote with respect to the

20:52

horizontal position of the tusks and the skeleton

20:54

exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, mister

20:57

Owen states that it may have

20:59

arisen from compression, the

21:01

tusk of the masodon, like that of the elephant,

21:03

being inserted by a nearly straight

21:06

cylindrical base in a socket of corresponding

21:08

form, and can be rotated in

21:11

any given direction when the natural

21:13

attachments are destroyed by decomposition,

21:16

and he alludes to the skeleton exhibited

21:18

in London in eighteen oh five, in which the

21:20

tusks were bent downward.

21:22

But like other experts who had examined

21:25

the Missouri Leviathan, Owen recognized

21:27

the value of the bones themselves,

21:30

so in eighteen forty four he bought

21:32

the Leviathan for the British Museum,

21:34

where he was superintendent of Natural

21:37

History. Some articles

21:39

report the sale price as two thousand

21:41

dollars and others as thirteen hundred

21:43

pounds, and a lot of sources,

21:46

including the website of the Natural History

21:48

Museum, which was formed from the British Museum's

21:51

natural history collection, say

21:53

that Cock was also paid one thousand

21:55

dollars a year for the rest of his life,

21:58

but an article by all Or Bruce McMillan

22:01

describes this annual payment in connection

22:03

to a different sale, one that we're going

22:05

to talk about after we pause for a sponsor

22:07

break.

22:17

After buying the so called

22:20

Missouri Leviathan from Albert Cock,

22:22

Richard Owen took it apart and

22:24

reassembled the appropriate bones

22:27

into a single Macedon skeleton,

22:30

and this new configuration was relatively

22:32

correct. Today this Macedon

22:35

is on display at the Natural History

22:37

Museum in London, and according to

22:39

Adrian Lister, who's a paleobiologist

22:41

at the museum, it's still mostly

22:44

as Owen articulated it. This

22:46

makes it the first accurately assembled

22:49

Masdon skeleton in the world. Cock

22:51

had taken his family with him when he left

22:54

the US for Europe, and when he set

22:56

sale to return to the United States on May

22:58

twenty sixth, eighteen forty four, his

23:00

wife and their four children stayed behind.

23:03

It seemed like for a stretch of time they

23:05

lived in Dresden while he made trips

23:07

back and forth to the United States.

23:10

After a really terrible storm

23:13

filled crossing back to the Uskock

23:16

arrived back in New York, where he

23:18

visited Barnum's American Museum. Then

23:20

he spent some time traveling around New York

23:23

and New England, collecting fossils

23:25

and shark's teeth and other specimens.

23:27

He kept a diary in German which

23:30

he published in Dresden in eighteen forty

23:32

seven. This was later translated

23:34

into English as Journey

23:36

through a part of the United States of North America

23:39

in the years eighteen forty four to eighteen forty

23:41

six.

23:42

Cock eventually returned to Saint Louis,

23:44

where he went back to looking for large fossil

23:47

bones. He also started purchasing

23:49

mines and mineral rights, beginning with

23:51

a lead mine in Franklin County, Missouri.

23:54

By eighteen forty five, even though he had

23:56

no medical training and there is no evidence

23:58

of him ever earning it doctoral degree,

24:01

he was calling himself doctor. That

24:04

year, he excavated another assortment

24:07

of fossilized bones that he assembled

24:10

into one skeleton, which

24:12

he called the Hydruggists, meaning King

24:14

of the Waters. This measured

24:17

one hundred and fourteen feet or almost thirty

24:19

five meters long. He

24:21

dug these bones up in Alabama after

24:24

trying to find the source of various large

24:26

bones that were all around the area.

24:28

People just kind of had gigantic

24:31

bones as part of their home and business

24:33

decor. Cock tried to

24:35

get these bones to New York by sea,

24:38

but there was a shipwreck along the way, and

24:40

Cock thought all of his work had been lost until

24:42

he learned that salvagers had managed to get

24:45

the crates off the ship before it sank,

24:47

and because they considered these bones

24:49

to be scientific specimens, he was

24:52

not charged a fee to get them back. Cox's

24:55

so called sea serpents was

24:58

really from the prehistoric way genus

25:00

Basilosaurus, and the one hundred

25:03

and fourteen foot long skeleton that he created

25:05

probably included the bones from at

25:07

least three animals. Because

25:10

of his earlier work with the Missouri Leviathan,

25:12

a lot of palaeontologists and other

25:14

experts just started out from

25:16

the point of view that this was definitely

25:19

a hoax. But Cock

25:21

once again went on tour with this skeleton,

25:24

with one of the people who saw it being Edward

25:26

Drinker Cope, who would later become

25:28

notorious for his involvement in a feud

25:31

with Ovnil Charles Marsh that

25:33

is known today as the Bone Wars.

25:36

We just ran that as a Saturday

25:39

classic. Kok and the Hydrarchus

25:41

wound up at the Leipzig Fair in eighteen

25:44

forty seven, and Friedrich Wilhelm,

25:46

the fourth King of Prussia, bought it,

25:48

placing it on display in Berlin's Royal

25:51

Anatomical Museum. The

25:53

king gave Kock an annual lifelong

25:55

stipend of a thousand Reich dollars.

25:58

It's possible that various sources are conflating

26:01

this with what Richard Owen paid him

26:03

for the Leviathan in eighteen forty

26:05

four. Yeah, I had trouble

26:07

really confirming whether he was getting

26:10

two different annual

26:13

stipends in the amount of a thousand

26:16

of something, or whether

26:18

they kind of melded together in

26:22

retelling. Even though his work

26:24

with this quote Sea Serpent had

26:26

already been widely discredited, Cock

26:28

published a booklet on it in Dresden

26:30

in eighteen fifty. This title,

26:33

which I just ran through Google Translate

26:35

from German, was remarks

26:38

on the family of hydros, which consists

26:40

of several species, the largest and most

26:42

powerful predatory animals in the

26:44

prehistoric world. In addition to

26:46

a few words about the discovery of

26:49

the large Zugludon macro

26:51

Spondulis Muller, which belongs

26:54

to that family, which was found by the

26:56

author in Alabama in eighteen forty eight,

26:58

and from then first

27:00

was brought to Dresden, with a

27:03

second section containing

27:05

some battle scenes of the Indians and the white

27:07

settlers of America, told as briefly

27:09

as possible. Uh

27:12

This booklet totaled thirty two pages,

27:15

The first seventeen were the title Feels

27:18

Like It Back in the US.

27:20

Physician and archaeologist Montroval

27:22

Wilson Dickson commissioned John

27:25

L. Egan to create a panoramic

27:27

painting to accompany his lectures,

27:30

one that could be wound onto two big

27:32

rollers that changed the scene behind him

27:34

as he spoke. This twenty

27:36

five panel panorama depicted things

27:39

like Mississippi Valley wildlife,

27:41

indigenous peoples, warfare

27:43

between those peoples and Europeans, steamboats,

27:46

excavations of indigenous burial mounds,

27:49

and Cock's discovery

27:51

and excavation of the Missouri Leviathan.

27:55

After returning to the US again, Cock

27:57

became an active member of the Academy

27:59

of Science in Saint Louis and was

28:01

elected to membership of that body

28:03

on April twenty first, eighteen fifty

28:05

six. At some point he

28:08

assembled another sea serpent skeleton,

28:10

this one ninety six feet long. This

28:13

was known as the Great Zuglidon. He

28:16

sold this to E. L. Wood for his museum

28:18

in Chicago.

28:20

And during his later years, Cox's

28:22

ideas on humankind living

28:25

alongside extinct megafauna

28:27

became the subject of contentious debate.

28:30

He published work on this in the Transactions

28:32

of the Academy of Science of Saint Louis in

28:34

eighteen fifty nine, writing quote, I

28:37

will state then that in the year eighteen

28:39

fifty nine, I discovered and disinterred

28:42

in Gasconade County, Missouri, bones

28:44

of the above named animals. The

28:46

bones were sufficiently well preserved for

28:49

me to decide positively that

28:51

they belonged to Mastodon gigantius.

28:54

Some remarkable portion bones had been

28:56

more or less burned by fire. The

28:58

fire had extended but a few feet

29:00

beyond the space occupied by the animal

29:03

before its destruction, and there

29:05

was more than sufficient evidence on the spot

29:07

that the fire had not been an accidental

29:10

one, but on the contrary, that

29:12

it had been kindled by human agency,

29:15

and, according to all appearance, with the

29:17

design of killing the huge creature.

29:20

Cook also wrote that he had found stones

29:22

in the area, including throwing stones,

29:24

projectile points, spearheads,

29:27

axes, etc. To him,

29:29

this represented irrefutable

29:32

proof that humans had hunted these animals

29:35

as we know today. Kok

29:38

was correct.

29:40

Some of the responses to his work that were

29:42

published from the eighteen fifties through

29:44

the eighteen seventies and beyond thought

29:47

that it was possible that

29:49

humans and Macedons had lived

29:51

at the same time in North America,

29:54

but many of them argued that the evidence

29:57

Cock was presenting to support this

29:59

was not enough to prove it. This

30:02

was actually also correct. These

30:04

Macedons became extinct roughly thirteen

30:07

thousand years ago, and subsequent

30:09

radiocarbon dating has shown that a lot of

30:11

the projectile points and other human

30:14

made objects that were found around

30:16

these bones are a lot more

30:18

recent than that I

30:21

would say radiocarbon dating. Like

30:23

other studies like Okay, these these

30:26

projectile points are not from

30:28

the period that the Macedons were living. It's

30:31

likely that the presence

30:34

of these objects in the same springs

30:36

and other waterways where the bones are

30:38

common comes from religious

30:40

rituals other observations

30:43

that were carried out by indigenous peoples

30:45

in more recent centuries. That is

30:47

definitely not the case for every

30:49

human made object found near

30:51

Macedon bones. Though in

30:53

a twenty twenty three installment of Unearthed,

30:56

we talked about a projectile point

30:58

that had been made from Macedon bone embedded

31:01

in another Masdon bone,

31:04

and that discovery was described as

31:06

the oldest direct evidence

31:08

of humans hunting Masdons.

31:12

That just wasn't the case with these specific objects

31:14

that Kok was using to support his idea.

31:17

Though. Although Cok did

31:19

have some partial support for his ideas,

31:22

a lot of the response was scathing.

31:25

Doctor P. R. Hoy, writing in The American

31:27

Naturalist in eighteen seventy one, called

31:30

Cock's account quote unreliable

31:32

in every particular saving locality.

31:35

Hoy went on to say, quote the doctor certainly

31:37

exercised a lively imagination when

31:40

he stated that the bones were found in a

31:42

layer of vegetable mold which was covered

31:44

by twenty feet in thickness of alternate

31:46

layers of sand, clay, and gravel, and

31:49

that under this extensive stratification

31:51

he found the identical flint arrowhead

31:54

that the mound builders used in slaying this

31:56

giant of past ages. Taking advantage

31:58

of his helplessness being mired

32:01

hopelessly that

32:03

ends with three consecutive

32:06

exclamation points.

32:09

Hoi went on to write, quote, I am

32:11

pained to record this evidence of doctor

32:13

Cox's want of accuracy in

32:15

this matter, but the cause of science

32:17

seems to demand the truth. Doctor

32:19

Cox's report has been quoted in proof

32:22

of the antiquity of man. The

32:25

position and state of the bones rather go to

32:27

show that the Macedon lived in an age

32:29

not so remote as usually supposed. I

32:31

should not be surprised if the evidence were speedily

32:34

found to prove that man was contemporaneous

32:36

with the Macedon, but certainly

32:39

the missourium affords none.

32:42

By the time Hoy's article was published,

32:45

Cock had died. After his trips

32:47

back and forth between the US and Europe, he

32:49

returned to the US for good, this

32:51

time bringing his family with him. They

32:54

lived in Saint Louis for a while before moving

32:56

to Gauconda, Illinois, where his brother

32:58

Lewis lived. Albert Kock

33:01

died on December eighteenth, eighteen sixty

33:03

seven, which means the King of Prussia wound

33:05

up paying about twenty thousand

33:08

Reichs dollars for his prehistoric whalebones.

33:11

If there was also a one thousand

33:13

dollars annual payment from the British Museum.

33:15

Then that one totaled about twenty two

33:18

thousand dollars. The inscription

33:20

on Cox's tombstone, written in Latin

33:22

read quote, he dug up hidden

33:25

hydras, a titan, and a bore, immense

33:27

things buried in the earth, which now

33:29

survive as monuments. About

33:32

a decade before his death, Kock acknowledged

33:34

that his Missouri Lefiathan had

33:36

been made from the bones of an American mastodon.

33:40

Another amateur paleontologist,

33:42

C. W. Beeler, did further

33:44

excavations at the Kimswick site where

33:47

Cock had excavated some of his masted

33:49

on bones. Bhler exhibited

33:51

these bones as well, including during the

33:53

nineteen oh four World's Fair in Saint

33:55

Louis. An organization formed

33:58

to try to protect these bone beds

34:00

during the construction of Interstate fifty

34:03

five, and eventually the Missouri Department

34:05

of Natural Resources bought four hundred

34:07

and eighteen acres of land in the area

34:09

and added that to the state park system.

34:12

Today, this area is massedon

34:15

State Historic Site and the bone

34:17

bed was placed on the National Register of Historic

34:19

Places on April fourteenth, nineteen

34:21

eighty seven. Some of the other

34:24

sites that Cock excavated are

34:26

no longer accessible. They were

34:28

flooded following the construction of

34:30

a dam, So overall,

34:33

Cock seems like kind of a mixed bag.

34:35

His Missouri Leviathan and Hydrarchis

34:38

skeletons definitely did not represent

34:40

the real skeletons of real animals

34:42

that really existed in the ancient past.

34:45

But it's clear he had a genuine fascination

34:48

for fossils. Some of his journeys

34:50

to excavate bones were arduous and difficult,

34:53

and at least once he set out while sick

34:55

with agu because he was afraid

34:57

of missing out on the bones if he didn't. But

34:59

it's not as clear whether he was trying to deceive

35:02

people with the skeletons he made from the fossils

35:04

he loved so much, or if he kind of just

35:06

didn't know what he was doing and was maybe bubbling.

35:09

But he did contribute to the preservation

35:11

of these and other specimens, although possibly

35:14

also to the loss or scattering

35:16

of William Clark's collection of items that

35:18

had belonged to indigenous people. Of

35:21

Cox's three most famous massive

35:23

skeletons, so the Missouri Leviathan,

35:26

the Hydraucos and the Great Zuglidan.

35:28

Only the Leviathan survives, although,

35:31

as we said earlier, disassembled

35:33

and rearticulated as the mastodon

35:36

that it was. The Zuglidon

35:38

was destroyed during the Great Chicago

35:41

Fire in eighteen seventy one, and

35:43

most of the bones from the Hydracos

35:45

were destroyed during World War Two.

35:49

If there's an afterlife, I'm

35:51

fascinated by the thought of what he thinks

35:53

of how people perceive him today. Yeah.

35:57

When I put this on the list, I was like,

35:59

this was such a big hoax, And then I was like,

36:01

I'm actually not fully convinced

36:03

that it was a hoax, because there's

36:05

also the possibility that you just didn't know

36:07

what you were doing. Yeah,

36:11

I have listener Maile from Kirsten

36:13

Fabulous. Kirsten wrote

36:17

about our recent Saturday classic

36:19

about Spam and said, Hello, I'm a longtime

36:21

listener as I sew at work and have lots

36:24

of listening time. I was catching up

36:26

on back episodes and heard your episode

36:28

about Spam and the Horrmale Company. While

36:30

I'm not an avid eater, i am a former Drum

36:33

Corps International participant and have

36:35

a historical tidbit I thought you'd

36:37

enjoy as well as.

36:39

Their touring girl troops. Horrmale

36:41

also had an all female drum

36:43

corps. They lasted for the better part

36:45

of a decade, wore panty hose to every

36:47

rehearsal, and were reportedly a fan favorite.

36:49

I'm attaching an article about them, and

36:52

Jay Store has a couple articles about them as well.

36:54

I never thought Hormale and DCI would

36:56

overlap, but throw in some wonderful

36:58

feminism and it sounds like a great recipe.

37:01

And there's a link to a block about these

37:04

this drum corps, including

37:06

pet tax of my four dogs. I'm part of a blended

37:09

family, so i have two poodle mixes, Annie

37:11

and Charger, and my partner has the two

37:13

Brittany mixes, Sam and Louis. Thank

37:15

you for your wonderful and educational content that always

37:18

helps me feel productive. And

37:20

then we have, oh my goodness, just

37:23

four of the cutest, sweetest

37:25

dog faces. Listen. I

37:27

said it recently before. I have poodle fever

37:29

right now. Yeah, so if you send

37:32

me pictures of poodles, I'm gonna screech over them.

37:34

You're just gonna be the time for time

37:36

for a poodle to come home with me. Uh

37:39

so I meant to reply

37:42

to Kirsten and say, Kirsten, Carolina

37:44

Crown nineteen ninety two, which

37:48

which drum corps were you in?

37:50

I also technically

37:53

Carolina Crown nineteen ninety three. I did

37:55

not actually make it into the performing season

37:57

that year for reasons reasons

38:00

including having contracted

38:02

minoonucleosis the year before,

38:06

I was not well enough to do it. I

38:08

also had personal reasons involved

38:10

with just being a teenager. So

38:14

so thank you so much. I had no

38:16

idea about you

38:18

know this all women's drum

38:21

Corps. I started thinking about whether did they ever

38:23

feed us any spam while we were

38:25

on tour with the drum Corps. I don't think

38:27

they did, but I wouldn't

38:30

have put it past them. I might have

38:32

balked at that as a teenager, I would not balk at

38:34

it today. Thank you so much for this email

38:36

and for just such the cutest, cutest

38:39

dog pictures. If

38:41

you would like to send us some notes about this

38:43

or any other podcast or a history podcasts

38:46

at iHeartRadio dot com and we

38:48

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38:50

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