After the California Gold Rush of 1848, white settlers streamed west to strike it rich. In addition to precious metals,  they unearthed another treasure: dinosaur bones. Two wealthy scientists in particular— Othniel Charles Marsh  and Edward Drinker Cope— competed to uncover these prehistoric monsters. Marsh and Cope were first to describe iconic creatures like Brontosaurus, Triceratops,  and Stegosaurus. But they also showcased the destructive whirlwind of profiteering and ambition that fueled American science during the late 1800s. Their rivalry, one of the most notorious scientific feuds in history, became known as the Bone Wars. Marsh was ill-tempered and had  a knack for debunking falsehoods. One woman said that getting to know him was “like running against a pitchfork.” Cope, on the other hand, was charismatic and given to bold theorizing. But he was also sarcastic and temperamental. By his own admission, he wasn’t “constructed for getting along comfortably with the general run of people.” When Marsh and Cope first met in 1864, they were friendly, and each named a new species  in the other’s honor. But their relationship soon soured. In 1868, Cope took Marsh to a quarry near his home in New Jersey where one of the most complete dinosaur skeletons to date had recently been discovered. Sensing an opportunity,  Marsh paid the mine operators to send him the most interesting  new finds. Outraged, Cope accused Marsh of bribery. That same year, Cope showed Marsh his reconstruction of a new marine reptile called Elasmosaurus. Marsh immediately noticed  that something was wrong: Cope had mistaken the creature’s long neck for its tail. When Cope's mentor sided with Marsh, Cope was mortified. He tried to buy and destroy every copy  of the article containing his blunder, but to no avail. Their mutual resentment blossomed. After the transcontinental railroad was completed the following year, Cope and Marsh began scouring  the American West for fossils. They found riches the likes  of which neither had dreamed. Relying on the help of Native American  guides, Marsh made some especially significant discoveries, like ancient birds with teeth that are still celebrated as a missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds. Cope made important discoveries, too, but Marsh successfully invalidated  many of them, showing them to be redundant  with other known species. Enraged, Cope tried to secure priority  for new findings by announcing them via telegram. He even purchased a respected journal so future publications could be rushed into print. But Marsh used his personal fortune to gain the upper hand, hiring a small army of fossil hunters to out-compete his rival. In 1878, Marsh bought an especially promising quarry in Como Bluff, Wyoming, from two frontier collectors. It yielded tons of fossils, including the near-complete skeleton  of a gigantic dinosaur that Marsh named Brontosaurus. Over the next 10 years, his men shipped  him more than 480 boxes of dinosaur bones from Como alone. Marsh named dozens of new species. But his assistants could be ruthless  in their quest to further Marsh’s scientific ambitions. They sometimes destroyed fossils  just to prevent them from falling into Cope’s hands. Desperate to catch up with Marsh, Cope invested his dwindling fortune into silver mining. The gamble failed,  and he was left nearly destitute. While Cope contemplated selling  his precious collection, Marsh was named lead paleontologist  for the US Geological Survey. This well-funded branch of the government  often sponsored Westward expeditions, giving Marsh even more resources to vanquish his rival. The Bone Wars spilled into public view  when Cope had a tabloid newspaper publish an article accusing Marsh  of plagiarism, fraud, and corruption. Marsh fired back and the two further  tarnished each other’s reputations. Neither ever relented. When Cope died, he donated his skull to science, hoping to prove that his brain was larger than that of his enemy. Marsh never accepted the challenge. Although Marsh named more species  than Cope, both men greatly expanded  our understanding of evolution. But their egotistical one-upmanship reminds us that, in spite of its ideals, science is a personal enterprise conducted by individual— and at times deeply flawed—  human beings.