The Berlin Archaeopteryx, 1881
In 1877, a second and even more spectacular Archaeopteryx specimen was discovered in the same Bavarian limestone that had yielded the first in 1861. It was more spectacular because the new specimen had a head. And although the skull was somewhat birdlike, it was endowed with a full set of reptilian teeth. Huxley's proposal that Archaeopteryx was a link between birds and reptiles was greatly strengthened by the new discovery. This specimen too was offered up for sale, but German authorities made sure that it did not leave the country like its predecessor. It now rests in the Humboldt Museum and is usually known as the Berlin specimen. Several illustrations of the Berlin Archaeopteryx were published in the years after its discovery, but we chose to exhibit this short article, because of its author, and because of the nature and quality of the reproduction. Harry G. Seeley was one of the great Victorian students of dinosaurs, best known for his work on classifying dinosaurs (see item 20). The illustration was produced from a photograph, with the intermediary of an artist. It is small, only 13.5 x 11 cm., and thus quite a contrast to Owen's enormous plate (see item 14). But it is an exquisite lithograph, and it demonstrates that an illustration need not be large to be effective.
It is interesting to compare Seeley's illustration to that of Carl Vogt.
Vogt's Image of Archaeopteryx, 1880
After viewing the illustration of the Berlin Archaeopteryx that appears in Seeley's 1881 article, it is of interest to compare the illustration reproduced here, which accompanied Carl Vogt's 1880 article. Vogt's piece originally appeared in the Revue scientifique in 1879, and appears here in translation. The illustration is a photograph of the actual slab. Seeley's illustration, it will be recalled, was based on a photograph but was actually drawn by an artist. There is much more detail visible in Seeley's plate than in Vogt's, which shows the limitations in the printing of photographs in the 1880s, and why for decades drawings of fossils were preferred to photographs.