10b. The Hadrosaurus Bones, 1865
In 1865 Joseph Leidy published a sizable monograph on extinct Cretaceous reptiles whose remains had been found in the United States. Most of the specimens he discussed were preserved in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The featured specimen, in terms of number of plates, was Hadrosaurus foulkii. On a series of large lithographs, Leidy presents the vertebrae, limb bones, and teeth of his prize find. This was the first time that Hadrosaurus had been illustrated in print. The illustration reproduced here is a large folding plate that shows six views of the left femur of Hadrosaurus, as well as two views of a metatarsal bone, which may or may not have come from the same animal.
Source
Leidy, Joseph. Cretaceous Reptiles of the United States. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1865. Series: Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, volume 14, number 192. This work is part of our History of Science Collection, but it was NOT included in the original exhibition.