In Brief

Marsh's Expenses Journal Record of Fossils Sent to the Czar

Image courtesy of Dexter Marsh Papers, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library.

Charles Upham Shepard, a professor at Yale, gave Dexter Marsh a letter of introduction to Charles Cramer, an American businessman living in St. Petersburg, Russia, to enlist Cramer's help in conveying a gift of fossil footprints from Marsh to Czar Nicholas I. Perhaps because they were Americans, they did not realize how devilishly difficult it could be do negotiate the necessary diplomatic channels to achieve such an objective. In the end, the attempt was unsuccessful, and Marsh had to pay to have his box of fossils returned from across the ocean.