Scott felt compelled to respond. He did so as one who had “studied conodont assemblages since 1934” and as the “designer” of the name “scolecodont.” His authority established, he closed the debate: “I can assure you that there is no relationship between Gnathostomulida and conodonts, whether direct or indirect. They are not related in any manner.” He now turned Melton's puzzling animal into definitive evidence. It became an exclusive rod of office: “The reason I am so sure of this is that I have in my possession five whole conodont animals.”
Scott was firm but courteous. He copied his letter to Durden and Rogers. Durden, who had done some work on the matter, confirmed that these were different groups of animal and said that he and Rogers had simply wanted to stimulate debate. However, he thought the microconodonts might belong to Riedl's animals. Riedl responded to Scott's “most challenging letter,” equally courteously, enclosing a picture of the 1933 micro conodonts. Scott told him they were most likely the remains of worms. That was not, however, the end of the matter, as some months later, Serge Ochietti, of the Université du Québec, sent Scott a French-language article he had written with André Cailleux. They had also been inspired by Riedl's illustrations and proposed a link to conodonts. That the elements in question were composed of chitin (the material that makes up the skeleton of insects), were 25–250 times smaller than conodonts, grew differently, and came from animals that live in the interstices between sand grains in sediments did not seem to matter. They were convinced that nature could support such diversity without destroying the link. Scott wrote to Ochietti and in a sentence dismissed their claim. He had the animal and that was the end of it.
Meanwhile, Melton and his assistants were braving the Montana winter in the quarry, where a bulldozer had been of little help in making the conodont animals appear. He had just two animals and was now investigating the older sections of the quarry where the weathered shale split more easily. This move into a disused area might also have been a retreat from quarry politics, for the quarry owner, Charles Allen, had asked him for one thousand dollars to cover the disruption to his quarrying operations. Melton was told that someone from the University of Montana had offered him such a sum. Melton told Scott and this turned February 9, 1970, on its head. Was the project to be “messed up” here, on site? They had been blind to the possibility and, thinking the University of Montana story untrue, imagined that a private collector might be muscling in. Scott doubted Allen and felt there was dishonesty at play. Anyway, one thousand dollars was a large sum and could not be raised so easily. Scott also worried about the ethics of it all and considered withdrawing. It was a classic clash of cultures, of differing risks and rewards, of differing ways of doing things, and Melton and Scott simply could not see the world from Allen's perspective. Scott felt he was being asked to buy the specimens at an exorbitant rate. Besides, Scott did not yet have the NSF grant so little could be done but delay the payment, if a payment had to be made. Nevertheless, it raised the question of property and ownership, which caused Scott to draw up an agreement: “All fish fossils obtained from the quarry shall be given to and shall remain the property of William Melton the University of Montana. All conodonts shall be given to and shall remain the property of Harold W. Scott, Michigan State University.” Melton deleted his own name. As a curator he could not compete with his institution. In contrast, Scott was willing to give up all other finds in order to be the personal beneficiary of the conodont animals. This action was not particularly unusual. Most conodont workers remained in possession of those materials they collected and studied. They would want to know if someone else wanted to examine these objects and perhaps draw other conclusions. Excluding others from studying the objects, after these workers had made their own views known, might be fairly objected to, but this was not the case here. Scott's intentions become clearer later on.
Scott's fretting over the payment made work in the quarry difficult. To break the deadlock, Melton gave Allen a down payment of $575 out of his own pocket. His department bailed him out for $200 of that. Melton explained to Scott, “It is a sticky situation and I don't particularly like it but feel obligated to finish it now that I have started on it.” Scott felt bad, and considered paying Melton, claiming it as the cost of a “bulldozer,” but he did not do so immediately. He had, however, “forced the issue” on Melton's master's degree and it had now been awarded. So at least the exuberant Melton might get a salary increase. But then Scott sent him $275. Melton was puzzled. Was this for the existing conodont animals? If so, he corrected Scott by pointing out that these belonged to the University of Montana. Melton asked Scott if he was planning to keep that material, but Scott explained that he simply needed a reason for paying a bill – for sending Melton money – as they could not pay themselves. It seems this was a bungled attempt to cover Melton's losses without admitting to it in the accounts. Scott said that he hoped in time the material would go to the National Museum.
Melton was not alone in the field. He was aided by Montana-born Jack Horner, a student not long returned from Vietnam who would later gain international celebrity as a dinosaur expert.16 Jean Lower of Michigan State was also there and would soon be offered an assistantship to work on the fossils. There were volunteers from Iowa and a party of two from the University of Pittsburgh who were looking for fossil fish but had turned up a conodont animal. Scott remained attentive to Melton's needs while desperately trying to catch up with the conodont literature on classification. On this subject he had puzzled a great deal. Then, in March, he realized that he had two different assemblages and thus two species of the animal.
Scott was also starting to think about where their now completed paper would be published. He wrote to the Paleontological Research Institute, which published two major U.S. journals, selling the paper's significance and the need for copious illustration. “I do not believe that I am egotistical,” he said, “when I say to you that this is probably the most important paper ever prepared on conodonts. You may know that we have searched for this animal since 1856; and now that our search is realized, the paper deserves unusual attention in reference to publication.” He considered it “almost certainly [to] be the most referred to and possibly debatable paper of all conodont literature in the future.” The editor told Scott the paper would have to wait in line and that would mean that it would not be published until sometime in 1971. This level of delay was normal, but it was not unreasonable for Scott to think that a publisher might prioritize this paper simply to obtain it. As no such offer was forthcoming, Scott decided take his paper elsewhere. It was a decision that would cost him dearly.
Near the end of the month, Scott received a telephone call from the NSF. It was not the news he expected: The foundation was willing to pay him fourteen thousand dollars, half what he had requested. Scott told Melton to cut back; they would need to concentrate on excavation. Of that money, twelve thousand dollars was for fieldwork: two to three assistants for two months, one from Montana, one or two from Michigan; two rock saws; money for the “bulldozer” and “bulldozer” money for paying off the quarryman; truck rental; food and other necessities; and volunteers. Some money was also set aside for publication. The work would begin in June and run through July. Preparations now began, and Melton sent Scott photographs of the locality. When he saw them he was surprised and told Melton, “We may have to hire a man to use explosives.”
In the spring of 1970, at the East Lansing meeting, Melton and Scott prepared to reveal all: “The sensational paper of the morning however was the one by W. Melton and Harold Scott on the progress they had made in studying the ‘conodont bearing animal’ found in the Early Pennsylvanian of central Montana. Harold Scott presented the paper, reconstructed the animal, named parts, and proposed physiological functions for the parts. He suggested the conodonts are ‘stomach teeth’ supporting a digestive organ. 3 specimens contain conodonts, but only one has the conodonts arranged like assemblages.”17 By the repetition of structures, chemistry, knowledge
of assemblages, and an awareness of “similar” creatures (like the famed near-vertebrate amphioxus), they had made sense of the flattened, seventy-millimeter-long, cigar-shaped animal. Their beast was “not comparable to…any living or fossil animal.” Its most standout feature was a distinctive black spot at its center. Above this was a triangular darkened patch within which the conodonts were found. This was the animal's gut, and in it the conodonts supported a filtering structure. From the animal's symmetry they imagined it “in almost perfect balance; very little energy would be required to move the animal in any given direction.” Melton and Scott supported their claims with a chart that gave percentage values to the accuracy of their interpretations. This revealed that they were certain of the orientation of the animal and that an organ holding the conodonts existed in the animal's gut. What they were uncertain about was the form of this structure. As they put it in the published account, “These facts, in addition to the generalized surviving shape of the animal, make it a distinct possibility that some ancestral conodont animal could have given rise to the vertebrates and possibly to the protochordates, though perhaps all protochordates had a common Cambrian ancestor.” The term protochordate was used to describe the non-vertebrate chordates such as amphioxus. In drawing these conclusions, Scott found British vertebrate paleontologist Bev Halstead's view that conodonts might belong to a filter-feeding, planktonic protovertebrate most useful.18
Some delegates expressed skepticism, believing this was an animal that ate the conodont animal. Others felt the fossils were inconclusive. One of the doubters, John Huddle, imagined Melton and Scott were disappointed by these interpretations, but the two men showed no sign of this after the event. Melton was thinking about the animal's biology on the flight back, clearly having enjoyed himself. He wrote to Scott to suggest that the tail of the animal must have contained stiffening rods to enable it to swim. Its midregion would flex a little perhaps and the head area not at all. Melton's arguments were precise and informed by what they could see in the specimens. Clearly the animal was still developing, and this required reasoned speculation. Having rented his house to the incoming departmental chairman, Melton now returned to the field with sufficient monies to continue the work.
Scott could do little else but think about the meeting. Rhodes, who had written to him to congratulate him on his “excellent paper,” was now planning to produce a book to be published by the Geological Society of America and assumed their paper would be included. The date for submission was December 1, 1970, giving Scott and Melton an opportunity to benefit from the excavations that were shortly to begin. Scott, however, was rather less concerned about adding to what they knew, preferring instead to see the earliest possible publication. To that end he considered publishing the paper through his university. He told Rhodes he could have it, if it did not take two years to appear – in which case he would go elsewhere. He pressed for publication before mid-1971 and requested copious illustration.
If the conodont workers imagined Scott in a state of disappointment, they could hardly have been more wrong. He made no mention of any criticism, having evidently dismissed it as ill-informed. After the meeting, he received so much public attention that he could not have failed to feel a sense of triumph. A flurry of letters and cards requesting a copy of the paper arrived almost immediately from amateurs, professionals, and an interested public. Melton and Scott's paper had hit the media network, appearing in the national and local press across the country and attracting attention internationally.
One of these letters came from Springfield, Ohio, and concerned the illustration of the fossil possessed by Richardson. It was apparently drawn by the author of the letter. The headline in the Springfield paper had read “Missing Link,” which stimulated the writer to give the terms by which the illustration might be used: $30 per single use and $150 for full rights. Scott, no doubt with a little glee, responded that the illustration was “technically incorrect and cannot be used.” A cardiovascular professor heard of this “ancestor of primitive fish” in the Denver Post. As a leisure-time paleontologist excavating and publishing on ancient fish, he wanted to know more. He asked Scott for “technical information” and Scott replied, “It has about twelve fish characters and about an equal number of non-fish characters. Perhaps its single most interesting feature was its ability to produce calcium phosphate in the form of filter-feeding structures.” Scott said the paper describing the animal would be published in a year. The editor of Perimeter – “A Journal of Human Frontiers” that concerned itself with the sometimes wacky edge of science – had read about “the ‘minnow-like fossilized creature’ which reportedly links invertebrate and vertebrate animals” in the Washington Post. He wished to publish a report. An author preparing a popular book on evolution, a schoolgirl in New Jersey, and a researcher in oral tissue had all read a similar announcement in the New York Post and sought further information. A reader of the Oakland Tribune in California – which reported “Another Link – 400 million years ago, simple forms of sea life grew tails and rudimentary backbones, and a Michigan professor thinks he has found a fossil of one that fills the gap between vertebrates and invertebrates” – believed he possessed similar material and offered to send it to Scott. Someone in Des Moines, Iowa, wrote to Scott thinking that Scott was probably the best person to identify the fossils in her table top. She sent photographs. A community college teacher in New York wanted a slide for teaching his general zoology class. A geology graduate drafted into the armed forces and serving in Vietnam was attempting to keep abreast of his science and wanted to know more.
The public had their curiosity pricked. As one put it, “The subject fossil find was reported in a local Washington newspaper about a month ago and ever since, like thousands of others I'm sure, I've found it difficult to contain my curiosity.” An avid consumer of Scientific American and Natural History Magazine, she had telephoned staff at the Smithsonian to get more information, but they knew nothing. The article itself, like all these articles, failed to mention the conodont, a term too arcane for mass consumption. But this reader was sufficiently perceptive to guess: “The newspaper article description sounded like a primitive amphioxus and I'm wondering if there is any relationship to that animal. Also, I'd be interested in knowing if Mr. Melton's find may turn out to be the long-suspected bearer of the conodont. I know that the conodont is thought by many to be a filter-feeding mechanism, and the newspaper account did say that the fossil under investigation has a plankton-straining digestive system.” Some had clearly been hanging on for further details in the popular scientific press. This was certainly the hope of a reader of the San Francisco Chronicle who understood that Melton was the finder and Scott the interpreter of the fossil. Scott answered all the enquiries and put most correspondents on a mailing list for the paper when it was published in 1971. Others asked for his Micropaleontology paper on blebs, which Scott had set up as successfully predicting Melton's find.
One interesting aspect to this sensation is that there were actually two sensations masquerading under the same façade. One concerned the long-term enigma of the conodont. The other concerned the discovery of a “missing link,” the “missing” suggesting scientific prediction and final resolution in the story of life. The idea of “missing links” had long existed in the popular imagination, most importantly in the search for human origins. It was an easy notion that could translate the arcane into the popular. Of course, the idea that the conodont animal might exist in that ambiguous borderland between vertebrate and invertebrate was also not new. In Scott's youth, if the animal was a worm, it was one with some vertebrate attributes. It was logical, then, to look for vertebrate and invertebrate characters. The truly bizarre nature of the animal did nothing to prevent this, though this way of seeing was entirely due to Scott's belief that this really was the conodont animal. It was those same reasons he had fired at Lange – most notably the presence of single assemblages in each of the animals – which meant these fossils could be
nothing other than the animal itself.
Scott continued to work on the paper, correcting and rewriting sections in the light of the meeting, planning to enter the field on June 24. He had also got a handle on the budget and gave Melton instructions: $400 for a graduate assistant, $400 for expendable equipment and supplies, $1,033 for Melton's salary, $1,000 for food and living, $550 for truck rental, $1,000 “to pay for services rendered to the quarry man,” and $1,000 maximum for the rental of the bulldozer. Scott was now convinced that they could make better progress with a little nitroglycerine: “Believe me, Bill, a man who knows his business could blast that off almost layer by layer; and a great quantity of material could be quickly and readily examined.” He wrote to Jean Lower, who had evidently had had an accident, to wish her well. She responded: “My bruises are healing and the scar tissue is forming – at first my knuckles looked as if they have been completely skinned.” She continued: “The fish and other not yet identified critters (worms and plant material) are coming out rapidly and several specimens which closely resemble our animal but as yet, we have only the one smudge containing three different elements.”
The Great Fossil Enigma Page 29