They began as mutual friends and admirers, even naming fossil species after each other, and spent a pleasant week together in 1868. However, something then went wrong between them—nobody is quite sure what—and by the following year they had developed an enmity that would grow into consuming hatred over the next thirty years. It is probably safe to say that no two people in the natural sciences have ever despised each other more.

他们一开始是朋友和互相崇拜者，甚至互相用对方的名字来命名化石种类，1868年还愉快地在一起工作了一个星期。后来，两人的关系出了问题——谁也搞不清出了什么问题——到了第二年，他们之间已经成为一种敌对关系；那种关系在随后的30年里发展为强烈的仇恨。可以有把握地说，自然科学领域里再也找不出另外两个人比他们更互相鄙视对方的了。

Marsh, the elder of the two by eight years, was a retiring and bookish fellow, with a trim beard and dapper manner, who spent little time in the field and was seldom very good at finding things when he was there. On a visit to the famous dinosaur fields of Como Bluff, Wyoming, he failed to notice the bones that were, in the words of one historian, "lying everywhere like logs."

马什比对方大8岁。他是个离群索居的书呆子，衣冠楚楚，留着整齐的胡子，极少去野外工作，去了也很不善于发现东西。有一次他去怀俄明州参观著名的科摩崖恐龙地带，却没有注意到——用一位历史学家的话来说——恐龙骨头简直“像木头那样满地都是”。

But he had the means to buy almost anything he wanted. Although he came from a modest background—his father was a farmer in upstate New York—his uncle was the supremely rich and extraordinarily indulgent financier George Peabody. When Marsh showed an interest in natural history, Peabody had a museum built for him at Yale and provided funds sufficient for Marsh to fill it with almost whatever took his fancy.

但是，他有的是钱，差不多可以想买什么就买什么。虽然他来自一个不大富裕的家庭——他的父亲是纽约州北部的一名农场主——但他的叔叔却是那位富得冒油、极其宽容的金融家乔治·皮博迪。当马什流露出对自然史感兴趣的时候，皮博迪为他在耶鲁大学盖了个博物馆，并给了他足够的资金来装满他看得中的差不多任何东西。