COLLECTING DINOSAURS.
HOW AND WHERE THEY ARE FOUND.
The visitor who is introduced to the dinosaurs through the medium of
books and pictures or of the skeletons exhibited in the great museums,
finds it hard--well nigh impossible--to realize their existence.
However willing he may be to accept on faith the reconstructions of
the skeletons, the restorations of the animals and their supposed
environment, it yet remains to him somewhat of a fairy-tale, a
fanciful imaginative world peopled with ogres and dragons and
belonging to the unreal "once upon a time" which has no connection
with the ever present workaday world in which we live. Birds and
squirrels, rabbits and foxes belong to this real world because he has
seen them in his walks through the woods; even elephants and
rhinoceroses, though his acquaintance be limited to menagerie
specimens, seem fairly real--although one recalls the farmer's comment
on first seeing a giraffe in the Zoological park: "There aint no sich
animal." But dinosaurs--one easily realizes the state of mind that
prompts the inquiry so often made by visitors to the Dinosaur
Hall:--"they make these out of plaster, don't they?" So far as is
consistent with good taste, the aim of the American Museum has been
to enable the visitor to see for himself how much of plaster
reconstruction there is to each skeleton, and to explain in the labels
what the basis was for the reconstructed parts.
_How They are Found._ But to the collector these extinct animals are
real enough. As he journeys over the western plains he sees the
various living inhabitants thereof, birds and beasts, as well as men,
pursuing their various modes of life; here and there he comes across
the scattered skeletons or bones of modern animals lying strewn upon
the surface of the ground or half buried in the soil of a cut bank. In
the shales or sandstones that underlie the soil he finds the objects
of his search, skeletons or bones of extinct animals, similarly
disposed, but buried in rock instead of soft soil, and exposed in
cañons and gullies cut through the solid rock. Each rock formation, he
knows by precept and experience, carries its own peculiar fauna, its
animals are different from those of the formation above and from those
in the formation below. Days and weeks he may spend in fruitless
search following along the outcrop of the formation, through rugged
badlands, along steep cañon walls, around isolated points or buttes,
without finding more than a few fragments, but spurred on by vivid
interest and the rainbow prospect of some new or rare find. Finally
perhaps, after innumerable disappointments, a trail of fragments leads
up to a really promising prospect. A cautious investigation indicates
that an articulated skeleton is buried at this point, and that not
too much of it has "gone out" and rolled in weathered fragments down
the slope. For the tedious and delicate process of disinterring the
skeleton from the rock he will need to keep ever in mind the form and
relations of each bone, the picture of the skeleton as it may have
been when buried. The heavy ledges above are removed with pick and
shovel, often with help of dynamite and a team and scraper. As he gets
nearer to the stratum in which the bones lie the work must be more and
more careful. A false blow with pick or chisel might destroy
irreparably some important bony structure. Bit by bit he traces out
the position and lay of the bones, working now mostly with awl and
whisk-broom, uncovering the more massive portions, blocking out the
delicate bones in the rock, soaking the exposed surfaces repeatedly
with thin "gum" (mucilage) or shellac, channeling around and between
the bones until they stand out on little pedestals above the quarry
floor. Then, after the gum or shellac has dried thoroughly and
hardened the soft parts, and the surfaces of bone exposed are further
protected by pasting on a layer of tissue paper, it is ready for the
"plaster jacket." This consists of strips of burlap dipped in
plaster-of-paris and pasted over the surface of each block until top
and sides, all but the pedestal on which it rests, are completely
cased in, the strips being pressed and kneaded close to the surface of
the block as they are laid on. When this jacket sets and dries the
block is rigid and stiff enough to lift and turn over; the remains of
the pedestal are trimmed off and the under surface is plastered like
the rest. With large blocks it is often necessary to paste into the
jacket, on upper or both sides, boards, scantling or sticks of wood to
secure additional rigidity. For should the block "rack," or become
shattered inside, even though no fragments were lost, the specimen
would be more or less completely ruined.
[Illustration: Fig. 41.--A Dinosaur skeleton, prospected and ready
for encasing in plaster bandages and removal in blocks.
(_Corythosaurus_, Red Deer River, Alberta.)]
The next stage will be packing in boxes with straw, hay or other
materials, hauling to the railway and shipment to New York.
Arrived at the Museum, the boxes are unpacked, each block laid out on
a table, the upper side of its plaster jacket softened with water and
cut away, and the preparation of the bone begins. Always it is more or
less cracked and broken up, but the fragments lie in their natural
relations. Each piece must be lifted out, thoroughly cleaned from rock
and dirt, and the fractured surfaces cemented together again. Parts of
bones, especially the interior, are often rotted into dust while the
harder outer surface is still preserved. The dust must be scraped out,
the interior filled with a plaster cement, and the surface pieces
re-set in position. Very often a steel rod is set into the plaster
filling the interior of a bone, to secure additional strength.
After this preparation is completed, each part being soaked repeatedly
with shellac until it will absorb no more, the bones can be handled
and laid out for study or exhibition. Then, if they are to be mounted
for a fossil skeleton, comes the work of restoring the missing parts.
For this a plaster composition is used.
Where only parts of one side are missing the corresponding parts of
the other side are used for model; where both sides are missing, other
individuals or nearly related species may serve as a guide. But it is
seldom wise to attempt restoration of a skeleton unless at least
two-thirds of it is present; composite skeletons made up of the
remains of several or many individuals, have been attempted, but they
are dangerous experiments in animals so imperfectly known as are most
of the dinosaurs. There is too much risk of including bones that
pertain to other species or genera, and of introducing thereby into
the restoration a more or less erroneous concept of the animal which
it represents. The same criticism applies to an overly large amount of
plaster restoration.
[Illustration: Fig. 42.--Bone-Cabin Draw on Little Medicine River
north of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The location of the quarry is
indicated by the stack of crated specimens on the left, and close
to it the low sod-covered shack where the collecting party lived.
Beyond the draw lies the flat rolling surface of the Laramie
Plains and on the southern horizon the Medicine Bow Range with Elk
Mountain at the center.]
In some instances the missing parts of a skeleton are not restored,
because, even though but a small part be gone, we have no good
evidence to guide in its reconstruction. This gives an imperfect and
sometimes misleading concept of what the whole skeleton was like, but
it is better than restoring it erroneously. Usually with the more
imperfect skeletons, a skull, a limb or some other characteristic
parts may be placed on exhibition but the remainder of the specimen is
stored in the study collections.
[Illustration: Fig. 43.--American Museum party at Bone-Cabin
Quarry, 1899. Seated, left to right Walter Granger, Professor H.F.
Osborn, Dr. W.D. Matthew; standing, F. Schneider, Prof. R.S. Lull,
Albert Thomson, Peter Kaison.]
_Where They are Found._ The chief dinosaur localities in this country
are along the flanks of the Rocky Mountains and the plains to the
eastward, from Canada to Texas. Not that dinosaurs were any more
abundant there than elsewhere. They probably ranged all over North
America, and different kinds inhabited other continents as well. But
in the East and the Middle West, the conditions were not favorable for
preserving their remains, except in a few localities. Formations of
this age are less extensive, especially those of the delta and
coast-swamps which the dinosaurs frequented. And where they do occur,
they are largely covered by vegetation and cannot be explored to
advantage. In the arid Western regions these formations girdle the
Rockies and outlying mountain chains for two-thousand miles from north
to south, and are extensively exposed in great escarpments, river
cañons and "badland" areas, bare of soil and vegetation and affording
an immense stretch of exposed rock for the explorer. Much of this area
indeed is desert, too far away from water to be profitably searched
under present conditions, or too far away from railroads to allow of
transportation of the finds at a reasonable expense. Fossils are much
more common in certain parts of the region, and these localities have
mostly been explored more or less thoroughly. But the field is far
from being exhausted. New localities have been found and old
localities re-explored in recent years, yielding specimens equal to or
better than any heretofore discovered. And as the railroad and the
automobile render new regions accessible, and the erosion of the
formations by wind and rain brings new specimens to the surface, we
may look forward to new discoveries for many years to come.
In other continents, except in Europe, there has been but little
exploration for dinosaurs. Enough is known to assure us that they will
yield faunæ no less extensive and remarkable than our own. We are in
fact only beginning to appreciate the vast extent and variety of these
records of a past world.
In a preceding chapter it was shown that the chief formations in which
dinosaur remains have been found belong to the end of the Jurassic and
the end of the Cretacic periods. The Jurassic dinosaur formations
skirt the Rockies and outlying mountain ranges but are often turned up
on edge and poorly exposed, or barren of fossils. The richest
collecting ground is in the Laramie Plains, between the Rockies and
the Laramie range in south-central Wyoming, but important finds have
also been made in Colorado and Utah. The Cretaceous Dinosaur
formations extend somewhat further out on the plains to the eastward,
and the best collecting regions thus far explored are in eastern
Wyoming, central Montana and in Alberta, Canada.
THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF DINOSAURS IN THE WEST.
_By Prof. S.W. Williston._
Most great discoveries are due rather to a state of mind, if I may use
such an expression, than to accident. The discovery of the immense
dinosaur deposits in the Rocky Mountains in March, 1877, may
truthfully be called great, for nothing in paleontology has equalled
it, and that it was made by three observers simultaneously can not be
called purely an accident. These discoverers were Mr. O. Lucas, then
a school teacher, later clergyman; Professor Arthur Lakes, then a
teacher in the School of Mines at Golden, Colorado; and Mr. William
Reed, then a section foreman of the Union Pacific Railroad at Como,
Wyoming, later the curator of paleontology of the University of
Wyoming--even as I write this, comes the notice of his death,--the
last. I knew them all, and the last two were long intimate friends.
In the autumn of 1878 I wrote the following:[19]
"The history of their discovery (the dinosaurs) is both interesting
and remarkable. For years the beds containing them had been studied by
geologists of experience, under the surveys of Hayden and King, but,
with the possible exception of the half of a caudal vertebra, obtained
by Hayden and described by Leidy as a species of _Poikilopleuron_, not
a single fragment had been recognized. This is all the more remarkable
from the fact that in several of the localities I have observed acres
literally strewn with fragments of bones, many of them extremely
characteristic and so large as to have taxed the strength of a strong
man to lift them. Three of the localities known to me are in the
immediate vicinity, if not upon the actual townsites of thriving
villages, and for years numerous fragments have been collected by (or
for) tourists and exhibited as fossil wood. The quantities hitherto
obtained, though apparently so vast, are wholly unimportant in
comparison with those awaiting the researches of geologists throughout
the Rocky Mountain region. I doubt not that many hundreds of tons will
eventually be exhumed." Rather a startling prophecy to make within
eighteen months of their discovery, but it was hardly exaggerated.
It is impossible to say which of these three observers actually made
the first discovery of Jurassic dinosaurs; whatever doubt there is is
in favor of Mr. Reed.
Professor Lakes, accompanied by his friend Mr. E.L. Beckwith, an
engineer, was, one day in March, 1877, hunting along the "hogback" in
the vicinity of Morrison, Colorado, for fossil leaves in the Dakota
Cretaceous sandstone which caps the ridge, when he saw a large block
of sandstone with an enormous vertebra partly imbedded in it. He
discussed the nature of the fossil with his friend (so he told me) and
finally concluded that it was a fossil bone. He had recently come from
England and had heard of Professor Phillips' discoveries of similar
dinosaurs there. He knew of Professor Marsh of Yale from his recent
discoveries of toothed birds in the chalk of Kansas, and reported the
find to him. As a result, the specimen, rock and all, was shipped to
him by express at ten cents a pound! And Professor Marsh immediately
announced the discovery of _Titanosaurus_ (_Atlantosaurus_) _immanis_,
a huge dinosaur having a probable length of one hundred and fifteen
feet and unknown height. And Professor Lakes was immediately set at
work in the "Morrison quarry" near by, whence comes the accepted name
of these dinosaur beds in the Rocky Mountains. Professor Lakes once
showed me the exact spot where he found his first specimen.
Mr. Lucas, teaching his first term of a country school that spring in
Garden Park near Cañon City, as an amateur botanist was interested in
the plants of the vicinity. Rambling through the adjacent hills in
search of them, in March, 1877, he stumbled upon some fragments of
fossil bones in a little ravine not far from the famous quarry later
worked for Professor Marsh. He recognized them as fossils and they
greatly excited, not only his curiosity, but the curiosity of the
neighbors. He had heard of the late Professor Cope and sent some of
the bones to him, who promptly labelled them _Camarasaurus supremus_.
The announcement of these discoveries promptly brought Mr. David
Baldwin, Professor Marsh's collector in New Mexico, to the scene. Only
a few months previously he had discovered fossil bones in the red beds
of New Mexico, the since famous Permian deposits. He naturally
explored the same beds at Cañon City, immediately below the dinosaur
deposits, and soon found the still very problematical _Hallopus_
skeleton, at their very top, a specimen which after nearly forty years
remains unique of its kind.
A few years earlier Professor Marsh, on his way east from the Tertiary
deposits of western Wyoming, had stopped at Como, Wyoming, to observe
the strange salamanders, or "fish with legs" as they were widely
known, so abundant in the lake at that place, about whose
transformations he later wrote a paper, perhaps the only one on modern
vertebrates that he ever published. While he was there Mr. Carlin, the
station agent, showed him some fossil bone fragments, so Mr. Reed told
me, that they had picked up in the vicinity, and about which Professor
Marsh made some comments. But he was so engrossed with the other
discoveries he was then making that he did not follow up the
suggestion. Had he done so the discovery of the "Jurassic Dinosaurs"
would have been made five years earlier.
Mr. Reed, tramping over the famous Como hills after game--he had been
a professional hunter of game for the construction camps of the Union
Pacific Railroad--in the winter and spring of 1877, observed some
fossil bones just south of the railway station that excited his
curiosity. But he and Mr. Carlin did not make their discovery known to
Professor Marsh till the following autumn, and then under assumed
names, fearing that they would be robbed of their discovery. I was
sent to Como in November of 1877 from Cañon City. I got off the train
at the station after midnight, and enquired for the nearest
hotel--(the station comprised two houses only), and where I could find
Messrs. Smith and Robinson. I was told that the section house was the
only hotel in the place and that these gentlemen lived in the country
and that there was no regular bus-line yet running to their ranch. A
freshly opened box of cigars, however, helped clear up things, and I
joined Mr. Reed the next day in opening "Quarry No. 1" of the Como
hills. Inasmuch as the mercury in the thermometer during the next two
months seldom reached zero--upward I mean--the opening of this famous
deposit was made under difficulties. That so much "head cheese," as we
called it, was shipped to Professor Marsh was more the fault of the
weather and his importunities than our carelessness. However, we found
some of the types of dinosaurs that have since become famous.
I joined Professor Lakes at the Morrison quarry in early September of
1877, and helped dig out some of the bones of _Atlantosaurus_. A few
weeks later I was sent to Cañon City to help Professor Mudge, my old
teacher, and Mr. Felch, who had begun work there in the famous "Marsh
Quarry". It was here that we found the type of _Diplodocus_.
The hind leg, pelvis and much of the tail of this specimen lay in very
orderly arrangement in the sandstone near the edge of the quarry, but
the bones were broken into innumerable pieces. After consultation we
decided that they were too much broken to be worth saving--and so most
of them went over into the dump. Sacrilege, doubtless, the modern
collector will say, but we did not know much about the modern methods
of collecting in those days, and moreover we were in too much of a
hurry to get the new discoveries to Yale College to take much pains
with them. I did observe that the caudal vertebrae had very peculiar
chevrons, unlike others that I had seen, and so I attempted to save
some samples of them by pasting them up with thick layers of paper.
Had we only known of plaster-of-paris and burlap the whole specimen
might easily have been saved. Later, when I reached New Haven, I took
off the paper and called Professor Marsh's attention to the strange
chevrons. And _Diplodocus_ was the result.
[Illustration: Fig. 44.--The first dinosaur specimen found at
Bone-Cabin Quarry. Hind limb of _Diplodocus_.]
My own connection with the discoveries of these old dinosaurs
continued only through the following summer, in Wyoming, when we added
the first mammals from the hills immediately back of the station, and
the types of some of the smaller dinosaurs, and when we explored the
vicinity for other deposits, on Rock Creek and in the Freeze Out
Mountains.
How many tons of these fossils have since been dug up from these
deposits in the Rocky Mountains is beyond computation. My prophecy of
hundreds of tons has been fulfilled; and they are preserved in many
museums of the world.
S.W. WILLISTON.
THE DINOSAURS OF THE BONE-CABIN QUARRY.[20]
_By Henry Fairfield Osborn._
One is often asked the questions: "How do you find fossils?" "How do
you know where to look for them?" One of the charms of the
fossil-hunter's life is the variety, the element of certainty combined
with the gambling element of chance. Like the prospector for gold, the
fossil-hunter may pass suddenly from the extreme of dejection to the
extreme of elation. Luck comes in a great variety of ways: sometimes
as the result of prolonged and deliberate scientific search in a
region which is known to be fossiliferous; sometimes in such a prosaic
manner as the digging of a well. Among discoveries of a highly
suggestive, almost romantic kind, perhaps none is more remarkable than
the one I shall now describe.
_Discovery of the Great Dinosaur Quarry._ In central Wyoming, at the
head of a "draw," or small valley, not far from the Medicine Bow
River, lies the ruin of a small and unique building, which marks the
site of the greatest "find" of extinct animals made in a single
locality in any part of the world. The fortunate fossil-hunter who
stumbled on this site was Mr. Walter Granger of the American Museum
expedition of 1897.
In the spring of 1898, as I approached the hillock on which the ruin
stands, I observed, among the beautiful flowers, the blooming cacti,
and the dwarf bushes of the desert, what were apparently numbers of
dark-brown boulders. On closer examination, it proved that there is
really not a single rock, hardly even a pebble, on this hillock; all
these apparent boulders are ponderous fossils which have slowly
accumulated or washed out on the surface from a great dinosaur bed
beneath. A Mexican sheep-herder had collected some of these petrified
bones for the foundations of his cabin, the first ever built of such
strange materials. The excavation of a promising outcrop was almost
immediately rewarded by finding a thigh-bone nearly six feet in length
which sloped downward into the earth, running into the lower leg and
finally into the foot, with all the respective parts lying in the
natural position as in life. This proved to be the previously unknown
hind limb of the great dinosaur _Diplodocus_.
In this manner the "Bone-Cabin Quarry" was discovered and christened.
The total contents of the quarry are represented in the diagram (not
reprinted.) It has given us, by dint of six successive years of hard
work, the materials for an almost complete revival of the life of the
Laramie region as it was in the days of the dinosaurs. By the aid of
workmen of every degree of skill, by grace of the accumulated wisdom
of the nineteenth century, by the constructive imagination, by the aid
of the sculptor and the artist, we can summon these living forms and
the living environment from the vasty deep of the past.
_The Famous Como Bluffs._ The circumstances leading up to our
discovery serve to introduce the story. From 1890 to 1897 we had been
steadily delving into the history of the Age of Mammals, in deposits
dating from two hundred thousand to three million years back, as we
rudely estimate geological time. In the course of seven years such
substantial progress had been made that I decided to push into the
history of the Age of Reptiles also, and, following the pioneers,
Marsh and Cope, to begin exploration in the period which at once marks
the dawn of mammalian life and the climax of the evolution of the
great amphibious dinosaurs.
In the spring of 1897 we accordingly began exploration in the heart of
the Laramie Plains, on the Como Bluffs. On arrival, we found numbers
of massive bones strewn along the base of these bluffs, tumbled from
their stratum above, too weather-worn to attract collectors, and
serving only to remind one of the time when these animals--the
greatest, by far, that nature has ever produced on land--were monarchs
of the world.
Aroused from sleep on a clear evening in camp by the heavy rumble of
a passing Union Pacific freight-train[21], I shall never forget my
meditations on the contrast between the imaginary picture of the great
Age of Dinosaurs, fertile in cycads and in a wonderful variety of
reptiles, and the present age of steam, of heavy locomotives toiling
through the semi-arid and partly desert Laramie Plains.
So many animals had already been removed from these bluffs that we
were not very sanguine of finding more; but after a fortnight our
prospecting was rewarded by finding parts of skeletons of the
long-limbed dinosaur _Diplodocus_ and of the heavy-limbed dinosaur
_Brontosaurus_. The whole summer was occupied in taking these animals
out for shipment to the East, the so-called "plaster method" of
removal being applied with the greatest success. Briefly, this is a
surgical device applied on a large scale for the "setting" of the
much-fractured bones of a fossilized skeleton. It consists in setting
great blocks of the skeleton, stone and all, in a firm capsule of
plaster subsequently reinforced by great splints of wood, firmly drawn
together with wet rawhide. The object is to keep all the fragments and
splinters of bone together until it can reach the skilful hands of the
museum preparator.
_The Rock Waves Connecting the Bluffs and the Quarry._ The Como Bluffs
are about ten miles south of the Bone-Cabin Quarry; between them is a
broad stretch of the Laramie Plains. The exposed bone layer in the two
localities is of the same age, and originally was a continuous level
stratum which may be designated as the "dinosaur beds;" but this
stratum, disturbed and crowded by the uplifting of the not far-distant
Laramie range of mountains and the Freeze Out Hills, was thrown into a
number of great folds or rock waves. Large portions, especially of the
upfolds, or "anticlines," of the waves, have been subsequently removed
by erosion; the edges of these upfolds have been exposed, thus
weathering out their fossilized contents, while downfolds are still
buried beneath the earth for the explorers of coming centuries.
Therefore, as one rides across the country to-day from the bluffs to
the quarry, startling the intensely modern fauna, the prong-horn
antelopes, jack-rabbits, and sage-chickens, he is passing over a vast
graveyard which has been profoundly folded and otherwise shaken up and
disturbed. Sometimes one finds the bone layer removed entirely,
sometimes horizontal, sometimes oblique, and again dipping directly
into the heart of the earth. This layer (dinosaur beds) is not more
than two hundred and seventy-four feet in thickness, and is altogether
of fresh-water origin; but as a proof of the oscillations of the
earth-level both before and after this great thin sheet of fresh-water
rock was so widely spread, there are evidences of the previous
invasion of the sea (ichthyosaur beds) and of the subsequent invasion
of the sea (mosasaur beds) in the whole Rocky Mountain region.
In traveling through the West, when once one has grasped the idea of
continental oscillation, or submergence and emergence of the land, of
the sequence of the marine and fresh-water deposits in laying down
these pages of earth-history, he will know exactly where to look for
this wonderful layer-bed of the giant dinosaurs; he will find that,
owing to the uplift of various mountain-ranges, it outcrops along the
entire eastern face of the Rockies, around the Black Hills, and in all
parts of the Laramie Plains; it yields dinosaur bones everywhere, but
by no means so profusely or so perfectly as in the two famous
localities we are describing.
_How the Skeletons Lie in the Bluffs and Quarry._ At the bluffs single
animals lie from twenty to one hundred feet apart; one rarely finds a
whole skeleton, such as that of Marsh's _Brontosaurus excelsus_, the
finest specimen ever secured here, which is now one of the treasures
of the Yale museum. More frequently a half or a third of a skeleton
lies together.
In the Bone-Cabin Quarry, on the other hand, we came across a
veritable Noah's-ark deposit, a perfect museum of all the animals of
the period. Here are the largest of the giant dinosaurs closely
mingled with the remains of the smaller but powerful carnivorous
dinosaurs which preyed upon them, also those of the slow and
heavy-moving armored dinosaurs of the period, as well as of the
lightest and most bird-like of the dinosaurs. Finely rounded, complete
limbs from eight to ten feet in length are found, especially those of
the carnivorous dinosaurs, perfect even to the sharply pointed and
recurved tips of their toes. Other limbs and bones are so crushed and
distorted by pressure that it is not worth while removing them.
Sixteen series of vertebræ were found strung together; among these
were eight long strings of tail-bones. The occurrence of these tails
is less surprising when we come to study the important and varied
functions of the tail in these animals, and the consequent connection
of the tail-bones by means of stout tendons and ligaments which held
them together for a long period after death. Skulls are fragile and
rare in the quarry, because in every one of these big skeletons there
were no fewer than ninety distinct bones which exceeded the head in
size, the excess in most cases being enormous.
[Illustration: Fig. 45.--COLLECTING DINOSAURS AT BONE-CABIN
QUARRY.
a. The overlying soil and rocks are loosened with a pick and
removed with team and scraper down to the fossil layer.
b. The fossil layer is carefully prospected with small tools,
chisels, awls and whisk brooms exposing the bones as they lie in
the rocks.
c. The blocks containing the fossils are channelled around,
plastered over top and sides, undercut and carefully turned over
and the under side trimmed and plastered.
d. The blocks are then packed in boxes or crates with hay or any
other available packing material.
e. Boxes are loaded on wagons and hauled across country to the
railroad.
f. Boxes are finally loaded on cars and shipped through to New
York City.]
The bluffs appear to represent the region of an ancient shoreline,
such conditions as we have depicted in the restoration of
_Brontosaurus_ (fig. 22)--the sloping banks of a muddy estuary or of a
lagoon, either bare tidal flats or covered with vegetation. Evidently
the dinosaurs were buried at or near the spot where they perished.
The Bone-Cabin Quarry deposit represents entirely different
conditions. The theory that it is the accumulation of a flood is, in
my opinion, improbable, because a flood would tend to bring entire
skeletons down together, distribute them widely, and bury them
rapidly. A more likely theory is that this was the area of an old
river-bar, which in its shallow waters arrested the more or less
decomposed and scattered carcasses which had slowly drifted
down-stream toward it, including a great variety of dinosaurs,
crocodiles, and turtles, collected from many points up-stream. Thus
were brought together the animals of a whole region, a fact which
vastly enhances the interest of this deposit.
_The Giant Herbivorous Dinosaurs._ By far the most imposing of these
animals are those which may be popularly designated as the great or
giant dinosaurs. The name, derived from _deinos_ terrible, and
_sauros_ lizard, refers to the fact that they appeared externally like
enormous lizards, with very long limbs, necks, and tails. They were
actually remotely related to the tuatera lizard of New Zealand, and
still more remotely to the true lizards.
No land animals have ever approached these giant dinosaurs in size,
and naturally the first point of interest is the architecture of the
skeleton. The backbone is indeed a marvel. The fitness of the
construction consists, like that of the American truss-bridge, in
attaining the maximum of strength with the minimum of weight. It is
brought about by dispensing with every cubic millimeter of bone which
can be spared without weakening the vertebræ for the various stresses
and strains to which they were subjected, and these must have been
tremendous in an animal from sixty to seventy feet in length. The
bodies of the vertebræ are of hour-glass shape, with great lateral and
interior cavities; the arches are constructed on the T-iron principle
of the modern bridge-builder, the back spines are tubular, the
interior is spongy, these devices being employed in great variety, and
constituting a mechanical triumph of size, lightness, and strength
combined. Comparing a great chambered dinosaurian (_Camarasaurus_)
vertebra (see above) with the weight per cubic inch of an ostrich
vertebra, we reach the astonishing conclusion that it weighed only
twenty-one pounds, or half the weight of a whale vertebra of the same
bulk. The skeleton of a whale seventy-four feet in length has recently
been found by Mr. F.A. Lucas of the Brooklyn Museum to weigh seventeen
thousand nine hundred and twenty pounds. The skeleton of a dinosaur of
the same length may be roughly estimated as not exceeding ten thousand
pounds.
_Proofs of Rapid Movements on Land._ Lightness of skeleton is a
walking or running or flying adaptation, and not at all a swimming
one; a swimming animal needs gravity in its skeleton, because
sufficient buoyancy in the water is always afforded by the lungs and
soft tissues of the body. The extraordinary lightness of these
dinosaur vertebræ may therefore be put forward as proof of supreme
fitness for the propulsion of an enormous frame during occasional
incursions upon land[22]. There are additional facts which point to
land progression, such as the point in the tail where the flexible
structure suddenly becomes rigid, as shown in the diagram of vertebræ
below; the component joints are so solid and flattened on the lower
surface that they seem to demonstrate fitness to support partly the
body in a tripodal position like that of a kangaroo. I have therefore
hazarded the view that even some of these enormous dinosaurs were
capable of raising themselves on their hind limbs, lightly resting on
the middle portion of the tail. In such a position the animal would
have been capable not only of browsing among the higher branches of
trees, but of defending itself against the carnivorous dinosaurs by
using its relatively short but heavy front limbs to ward off attacks.
There are also indications of aquatic habits in some of the giant
dinosaurs which render it probable that a considerable part of their
life was led in the water. One of these indications is the backward
position of the nostrils. Many, but not all, water-living mammals and
reptiles have the nostrils on top of the head, in order to breathe
more readily when the head is partly immersed. Another fact of note,
although perhaps less conclusive, is the fitness of the tail for use
while moving about in the water, if not in rapid swimming.
The great tail, measuring from twenty-eight to thirty feet, was one of
the most remarkable structures in these animals, and undoubtedly
served a great variety of purposes, propelling while in the water,
balancing and supporting and defending while on land. In _Diplodocus_
it was most perfectly developed from its muscular base to its delicate
and whip-like tip, perhaps for all these functions.
_The Three Kinds of Giant Dinosaurs._ It is very remarkable that three
distinct kinds of these great dinosaurs lived at the same time in the
same general region, as proved by the fact that their remains are
freely commingled in the quarry.
What were the differences in food and habits, in structure and in
gait, which prevented that direct and active competition between like
types in the struggle for existence which in the course of nature
always leads to the extermination of one or the other type? In the
last three years we have discovered very considerable differences of
structure which make it appear that these animals, while of the same
or nearly the same linear dimensions, did not enter into direct
competition either for food or for territory.
The dinosaur named _Diplodocus_ by Marsh is the most completely known
of the three. Our very first discovery in the Bone-Cabin Quarry gave
us the hint that _Diplodocus_ was distinguished by relatively long,
slender limbs, and that it may be popularly known as the "long-limbed
dinosaur." The great skeleton found in the Como Bluffs enabled me to
restore for the first time the posterior half of one of these animals
estimated as sixty feet in length, the hips and tail especially being
in a perfect state of preservation. A larger animal, nearer seventy
feet in length, including the anterior half of the body, and still
more complete, was discovered about ten miles north of the quarry, and
is now in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburg. Combined, these two
animals have furnished a complete knowledge of the great bony frame.
The head is only two feet long, and is, therefore, small out of all
proportion to the great body. The neck measures twenty-one feet four
inches, and is by far the longest and largest neck known in any animal
living or extinct. The back is relatively very short, measuring ten
feet eight inches. The vertebræ of the hip measure two feet and three
inches. The tail measures from thirty-two to forty feet. We thus
obtain, as a moderate estimate of the total length of the animal,
sixty-eight to seventy feet. The restored skeleton, published by Mr.
J.B. Hatcher in July, 1901, and partly embodying our results, gave to
science the first really accurate knowledge of the length of these
animals, which hitherto had been greatly overestimated. The highest
point in the body was above the hips; here in fact, was the center of
power and motion, because, as observed above, the tail fairly balanced
the anterior part of the body.
The restoration by Mr. Knight is drawn from a very careful model made
under my direction, in which the proportions of the animal are
precisely estimated. It is, I think, accurate--for a restoration--as
well as interesting and up-to-date. These restorations are the
"working hypotheses" of our science; they express the present state of
our knowledge, and, being subject to modification by future
discoveries, are liable to constant change.
By contrast, the second type of giant dinosaur, the _Brontosaurus_, or
"thunder saurian" of Marsh, as shown in the restoration (fig. 22), was
far more massive in structure and relatively shorter in body. Five
more or less complete skeletons are now to be seen in the Yale,
American, Carnegie, and Field Columbian museums. In 1898 we discovered
in the bluffs, about three miles west of the Bone-Cabin Quarry, the
largest of these animals which has yet been found; it was worked out
with great care and is now being restored and mounted complete in the
American Museum. The thigh-bone is enormous, measuring five feet eight
inches in length, and is relatively of greater mass than that of
_Diplodocus_. The neck, chest, hips, and tail are correspondingly
massive. The neck is relatively shorter, however, measuring eighteen
feet, while in _Diplodocus_ it measures over twenty-one feet. The
total length of this massive specimen is estimated at sixty-three
feet, or from six to eight feet less than the largest "long-limbed"
dinosaur. The height of the skeleton at the hips is fifteen feet.
There is less direct evidence that the "thunder saurian" had the power
of raising its fore quarters in the air than in the case of the
"light-limbed saurian," because no bend or supporting point in the
tail has been distinctly observed.
The third type of giant dinosaur is the less completely known
"chambered saurian," the _Camarasaurus_ of Cope or _Morosaurus_ of
Marsh, an animal more quadrupedal in gait or walking more habitually
on all fours, like the great _Cetiosaurus_, or "whale saurian,"
discovered near Oxford, England. With its shorter tail and heavier
fore limbs, it is still less probable that this animal had the power
of raising the anterior part of its body from the ground. Of a related
type, perhaps, is the largest dinosaur ever found; this is the
_Brachiosaurus_, limb-bones of which were discovered in central
Colorado in 1901 and are now preserved in the Field Columbian Museum
of Chicago. Its thigh-bone is six feet eight inches in length, and its
upper arm-bone, or humerus, is even slightly longer.
_Feeding Habits of the Giant Dinosaurs._ We still have to solve one of
the most perplexing problems of fossil physiology; how did the very
small head, provided with light jaws, slender and spoon-shaped teeth
confined to the anterior region, suffice to provide food for these
monsters? I have advanced the idea that the food of _Diplodocus_
consisted of some very abundant and nutritious species of water-plant;
that the clawed feet were used in uprooting such plants, while the
delicate anterior teeth were employed only for drawing them out of the
water; that the plants were drawn down the throat in large quantities
without mastication, since there were no grinding or back teeth
whatever in this animal. Unfortunately for this theory, it is now
found that the front feet were not provided with many claws, there
being only a single claw on the inner side. Nevertheless by some such
means as this, these enormous animals could have obtained sufficient
food in the water to support their great bulk.
_The Carnivorous Dinosaurs._ Mingling with the larger bones in the
quarry are the more or less perfect remains of swamp turtles, of dwarf
crocodiles, of the entirely different group of plated dinosaurs, or
_Stegosauria_, but especially of two entirely distinct kinds of large
and small flesh-eating dinosaurs. The latter rounded out and gave
variety to the dinosaur society, and there is no doubt that they
served the savage but useful purpose, rendered familiar by the
doctrine of Malthus, of checking overpopulation. These fierce animals
had the same remote ancestry as the giant dinosaurs, but had gradually
acquired entirely different habits and appearance.
Far inferior in size, they were superior in agility, exclusively
bipedal, with very long, powerful hind limbs, upon which they advanced
by running or springing, and with short fore limbs, the exact uses of
which are difficult to ascertain. Both hands and feet were provided
with powerful tearing claws. On the hind foot is the back claw, so
characteristic of the birds, which during the Triassic period left its
faint impression almost everywhere in the famous Connecticut valley
imprints of these animals. That the fore limb and hand were of some
distinct use is proved by the enormous size of the thumb-claw; while
the hand may not have conveyed food to the mouth, it may have served
to seize and tear the prey. As to the actual pose in feeding, there
can be little doubt as to its general similarity to that of the
_Raptores_ among the birds, as suggested to me by Dr. Wortman (see
fig. 10); one of the hind feet rested on the prey, the other upon the
ground, the body being further balanced or supported by the vertebræ
of the tail. The animal was thus in a position to apply its teeth and
exert all the power of its very powerful arched back in tearing off
its food. That the gristle of the bone or cartilage was very palatable
is attested not only by the toothmarks upon these bones, but by many
similar markings found in the Bone-Cabin Quarry.
_The Bird-Catching Dinosaur._ Of all the bird-like dinosaurs which
have been discovered, none possesses greater similitude to the birds
than the gem of the quarry, the little animal about seven feet in
length which we have named _Ornitholestes_, or the "bird-catching
dinosaur." It was a marvel of speed, agility, and delicacy of
construction. Externally its bones are simple and solid-looking, but
as a matter of fact they are mere shells, the walls being hardly
thicker than paper, the entire interior of the bone having been
removed by the action of the same marvelous law of adaptation which
sculptured the vertebræ of its huge contemporaries. There is no
evidence, however, that these hollow bones were filled with air from
the lungs, as in the case of the bones of birds. The foot is
bird-like; the hand is still more so; in fact, no dinosaur hand has
ever before been found which so closely mimics that of a bird in the
great elongation of the first or index-finger, in the abbreviation of
the thumb and middle finger, and in the reduction of the ring-finger.
These fingers, with sharp claws, were not strong enough for climbing,
and the only special fitness we have been able to imagine is that they
were used for the grasping of a light and agile prey (see figs. 17,
18.)
Another reason for the venture of designating this animal as the
"bird-catcher" is that the Jurassic birds (not thus far discovered in
America, but known from the _Archæopteryx_ of Germany) were not so
active or such strong fliers as existing birds; in fact, they were not
unlike the little dinosaur itself. They were toothed, long-tailed,
short-armed, the body was feathered instead of scaled; they rose
slowly from the ground. This renders it probable that they were the
prey of the smaller pneumatic-built dinosaurs such as the present
animal.
This hypothetical bird-catcher seems to have been designed to spring
upon a delicately built prey, the structure being the very antipode of
that of the large carnivorous dinosaurs. A difficulty in the
bird-catching theory, namely, that the teeth are not as sharp as one
would expect to find them in a flesh-eater, is somewhat offset by the
similarity of the teeth to those of the bird-eating monitor lizards
(_Varanus_), which are not especially sharp.
_The Great Yield of the Quarry._ Our explorations in the quarry began
in the spring of 1898, and have continued ever since during favorable
weather. The total area explored at the close of the sixth year was
seven thousand two hundred and fifty square feet. Not one of the
twelve-foot squares into which the quarry was plotted lacked its
covering of bones, and in some cases the bones were two or three deep.
Each year we have expected to come to the end of this great deposit,
but it still yields a large return, although we have reason to believe
that we have exhausted the richest portions.
We have taken up four hundred and eighty-three parts of animals, some
of which may belong to the same individuals. These were packed in two
hundred and seventy-five boxes, representing a gross weight of nearly
one hundred thousand pounds. Reckoning from the number of thigh-bones,
we reach, as a rough estimate of the total, seventy-three animals of
the following kinds: giant herbivorous dinosaurs, 44; plated
herbivorous dinosaurs, or stegosaurs, 3; iguanodonts or smaller
herbivorous dinosaurs, 4; large carnivorous dinosaurs, 6; small
carnivorous dinosaurs, 3; crocodiles, 4; turtles, 5. But this
represents only a part of the whole deposit, which we know to be of
twice the extent already explored, and these figures do not include
the bones which were partly washed out and used in the construction
of the Bone-Cabin. The grand total would probably include parts of
over one hundred giant dinosaurs.
_The Struggle for Existence Among the Dinosaurs._ Never in the whole
history of the world as we now know it have there been such remarkable
land scenes as were presented when the reign of these titanic reptiles
was at its climax. It was also the prevailing life-picture of England,
Germany, South America, and India. We can imagine herds of these
creatures from fifty to eighty feet in length, with limbs and gait
analogous to those of gigantic elephants, but with bodies extending
through the long, flexible, and tapering necks into the diminutive
heads, and reaching back into the equally long and still more tapering
tails. The four or five varieties which existed together were each
fitted to some special mode of life; some living more exclusively on
land, others for longer periods in the water.
The competition for existence was not only with the great carnivorous
dinosaurs, but with other kinds of herbivorous dinosaurs (the
iguanodonts), which had much smaller bodies to sustain and a much
superior tooth mechanism for the taking of food.
The cutting off of this giant dinosaur dynasty was nearly if not quite
simultaneous the world over. The explanation which is deducible from
similar catastrophes to other large types of animals is that a very
large frame, with a limited and specialized set of teeth fitted only
to a certain special food, is a dangerous combination of characters.
Such a monster organism is no longer adaptable; any serious change of
conditions which would tend to eliminate the special food would also
eliminate these great animals as a necessary consequence.
[Illustration: Fig. 46.--Badlands on the Red Deer River in
Alberta. This region is the richest known collecting ground for
cretacic dinosaurs.]
There is an entirely different class of explanations, however, to be
considered, which are consistent both with the continued fitness of
structure of the giant dinosaurs themselves and with the survival of
their especial food; such, for example, as the introduction of a _new
enemy_ more deadly even than the great carnivorous dinosaurs. Among
such theories the most ingenious is that of the late Professor Cope,
who suggested that some of the small, inoffensive, and inconspicuous
forms of Jurassic mammals, of the size of the shrew and the hedgehog,
contracted the habit of seeking out the nests of these dinosaurs,
gnawing through the shells of their eggs, and thus destroying the
young. The appearance, or evolution, of any egg-destroying animals,
whether reptiles or mammals, which could attack this great race at
such a defenseless point would be rapidly followed by its extinction.
We must accordingly be on the alert for all possible theories of
extinction; and these theories themselves will fall under the
universal principle of the survival of the fittest until we
approximate or actually hit upon the truth.
FOSSIL HUNTING BY BOAT IN CANADA.
_By Barnum Brown._
"How do you know where to look for fossils?" is a common question. In
general it may be answered that the surface of North America has been
pretty well explored by government surveys and scientific expeditions
and the geologic age of the larger areas determined. Most important in
determining the geologic sequence of the earth's strata are the fossil
remains of animal and plant life. A grouping of distinct species of
fossils correlated with stratigraphic characters in the rocks
determines these subdivisions. When a collection of fossils is desired
to represent a certain period, exploring parties are sent to these
known areas. Sometimes however, chance information leads up to most
important discoveries, such as resulted from the work of the past two
seasons in Alberta, Canada.
A visitor to the Museum, Mr. J.L. Wagner, while examining our mineral
collections saw the large bones in the Reptile Hall and remarked to
the Curator of Mineralogy that he had seen many similar bones near his
ranch in the Red Deer Cañon of Alberta. After talking some time an
invitation was extended to the writer to visit his home and prospect
the cañon. Accordingly in the fall of 1909 a preliminary trip was made
to the locality.
From Didsbury, a little town north of Calgary, the writer drove
eastward ninety miles to the Red Deer River through a portion of the
newly opened grain belt of Alberta, destined in the near future to
produce a large part of the world's bread. Near the railroad the land
is mostly under cultivation and comfortable homes and bountiful grain
fields testify to the rich nature of the soil. A few miles eastward
the brushland gives way to a level expanse of grass-covered prairie
dotted here and there by large and small lakes probably of glacial
origin. Mile after mile the road follows section lines and one is
rarely out of sight of the house of some "homesteader." It is through
this level farm land that the Red Deer River wends its way flowing
through a cañon far below the surface. Near Wagner's ranch the cañon
was prospected and so many bones found that it appeared most
desirable to do extended searching along the river.
Usually fossils are found in "bad lands," where extensive areas are
denuded of grass and the surface eroded into hills and ravines. A camp
is located near some spring or stream and collectors ride or walk over
miles of these exposures in each direction till the region is
thoroughly explored. Quite different are conditions on the Red Deer
River. Cutting through the prairie land the river had formed a cañon
two to five hundred feet deep and rarely more than a mile wide at the
top. In places the walls are nearly perpendicular and the river winds
in its narrow valley, touching one side then crossing to the other so
that it is impossible to follow up or down its course any great
distance even on horseback.
It was evident that the most feasible way to work these banks was from
a boat; consequently in the summer of 1910 our party proceeded to the
town of Red Deer, where the Calgary-Edmonton railroad crosses the
river. There a flatboat, twelve by thirty feet in dimension, was
constructed on lines similar to a western ferry boat, having a
carrying capacity of eight tons with a twenty-two foot oar at each end
to direct its course. The rapid current averaging about four miles per
hour precluded any thought of going up stream in a large boat, so it
was constructed on lines sufficiently generous to form a living boat
as well as to carry the season's collection of fossils.
Supplied with a season's provisions, lumber for boxes, and plaster for
encasing bones, we began our fossil cruise down a cañon which once
echoed songs of the _Bois brulé_, for this was at one time the fur
territory of the great Hudson Bay Company.
[Illustration: Fig. 47.--American Museum Expedition on the Red
Deer River. Fossils secured along the banks were packed and loaded
aboard the large scow and floated down the river to the railway
station.]
No more interesting or instructive journey has ever been taken by the
writer. High up on the plateau, buildings and haystacks proclaim a
well-settled country, but habitations are rarely seen from the river
and for miles we floated through picturesque solitude unbroken save by
the roar of the rapids.
Especially characteristic of this cañon are the slides where the
current setting against the bank has undermined it until a mountain of
earth slips into the river, in some cases almost choking its course.
A continual sorting thus goes on, the finer material being carried
away while the boulders are left as barriers forming slow moving
reaches of calm water and stretches of rapids difficult to navigate
during low water. In one of these slides we found several small mammal
jaws and teeth not known before from Canada, associated with fossil
clam shells of Eocene age.
The long midsummer days in latitude 52° gave many working hours, but
with frequent stops to prospect the banks we rarely floated more than
twenty miles per day. An occasional flock of ducks and geese were
disturbed as our boat approached and bank beaver houses were
frequently passed, but few of the animals were seen during the
daytime. Tying the boat to a tree at night we would go ashore to camp
among the trees where after dinner pipes were smoked in the glow of a
great camp fire. Only a fossil hunter or a desert traveler can fully
appreciate the luxury of abundant wood and running water. In the
stillness of the night the underworld was alive and many little feet
rustled the leaves where daylight disclosed no sound. Then the beaver
and muskrat swam up to investigate this new intruder, while from the
tree-tops came the constant query, "Who! Who!"
For seventy miles the country is thickly wooded with pine and poplar,
the stately spruce trees silhouetted against the sky adding a charm to
the ever changing scene. Nature has also been kind to the treeless
regions beyond, for underneath the fertile prairie, veins of good
lignite coal of varying thickness are successively cut by the river.
In many places these are worked in the river banks during winter. One
vein of excellent quality is eighteen feet thick, although usually
they are much thinner. The government right has been taken to mine
most of this coal outcropping along the river.
[Illustration: Fig. 48.--Locality of Ankylosaurus skull in
Edmonton formation in Red Deer River. The skull is in the rock
just above the pick, about the center of the photograph.]
Along the upper portion of the stream are banks of Eocene age, from
which shells and mammal jaws were secured, but near the town of
Content where the river bends southward, a new series of rocks
appeared and in these our search was rewarded by finding dinosaur
bones similar to those seen at Wagner's ranch. Specimens were found in
increasing numbers as we continued our journey, and progress down the
river was necessarily much slower. Frequently the boat would be tied
up a week or more at one camp while we searched the banks, examining
the cliffs layer by layer that no fossil might escape observation.
With the little dingey the opposite side of the river was reached so
that both sides were covered at the same time from one camp. As soon
as a mile or more had been prospected or a new specimen secured, the
boat was dropped down to a new convenient anchorage. Box after box was
added to the collection till scarcely a cubit's space remained
unoccupied on board our fossil ark.
Where prairie badlands are eroded in innumerable buttes and ravines it
is always doubtful if one has seen all exposures, so there was
peculiar satisfaction in making a thorough search of these river banks
knowing that few if any fossils had escaped observation. On account of
the heavy rainfall and frequent sliding of banks new fossils are
exposed every season so that in a few years these same banks can again
be explored profitably. This river will become as classic hunting
ground for reptile remains as the Badlands of South Dakota are for
mammals.
Although the summer days are long in this latitude the season is short
and thousands of geese flying southward foretell the early winter.
Where the temperature is not infrequently forty to sixty degrees below
zero in winter, it is difficult to think of a time when a warm
climate could have prevailed, yet such condition is indicated by the
fossil plants.
When the weather became too cold to work with plaster, the fossils
were shipped from a branch railroad forty-five miles distant, the camp
material was stored for the winter and with block and tackle the big
boat was hauled up on shore above the reach of high water.
In the summer of 1911 the boat was recalked and again launched when we
continued our search from the point at which work closed the previous
year. During the summer we were visited by the Museum's President,
Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn, and one of the Trustees, Mr. Madison
Grant. A canoeing trip, one of great interest and pleasure, was taken
with our visitors covering two hundred and fifty miles down the river
from the town of Red Deer, during which valuable material was added to
the collection and important geological data secured.
As a result of the Canadian work the Museum is enriched by a
magnificent collection of Cretaceous fossils some of which are new to
science.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 19: Transactions Kansas Academy of Science, p. 43.]
[Footnote 20: From Fossil Wonders of the West. Century Magazine 1904,
vol. lxviii, pp. 680-694. Reprinted by permission.]
[Footnote 21: At this time the Union Pacific Railroad directly passed
the bluffs; in the recent improvement of the grade the main line has
been moved to the south.--H.F.O.]
[Footnote 22: A different interpretation of this contraction is given
upon p. 68.]
REFERENCES.
The published literature on this subject consists chiefly of technical
descriptions and researches scattered through the files of numerous
scientific journals in Europe and America. Only the more important
titles are cited in this list. I have also listed the recently
published text books which give the most authoritative treatment of
the dinosaurs, and two or three popular books dealing with fossil
vertebrates. Students consulting these authorities should remember
that great additions to scientific knowledge of dinosaurs have been
made during the last two decades, and much of the new evidence is as
yet unpublished or undigested. The views and conclusions presented in
this handbook are based upon the study of the American Museum
collections as well as upon the authorities cited below.
ABEL, OTHENIUS, 1912. _Palaeobiologie der Wirbelthiere._
Schweitzer-bart'sche Verlagsbuchh., Stuttgart.
BRANCA U. JANENSCH, 1914. _Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der
Tendaguru Expedition._ Archiv. f. Biontologie, iii Bd, i Heft.
BROWN, BARNUM, 1902-1914. Articles in Bulletin of Amer. Mus. Nat.
Hist., descriptive of new Cretaceous Dinosaurs.
CHAMBERLIN & SALISBURY, 1905-7. _Geology_, vol. i-iii. (Henry Holt &
Co. pub.)
COPE, E.D., 1868-1895. Articles in Hayden Survey Reports, American
Naturalist, Proceedings and Transactions of American
Philosophical Society and elsewhere, descriptive of various new
or little known dinosaurs.
DOLLO, L., _Sauriens de Bernissart_, etc. Numerous articles chiefly
in Bulletin Museum Royale Hist. Nat. Belg.
GILMORE, C.W., 1914. _Osteology of the Armored Dinosauria in the
U.S. National Museum with Special Reference to the Genus
Stegosaurus._ U.S. National Museum, Bulletin No. 89, pp. 1-136,
pll. i-xxxvii.
GILMORE, C.W., 1909. _Osteology of the Jurassic Reptile
Camptosaurus_ etc. Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., vol. xxxvi, pp.
197-332, pl. vi-xx.
HATCHER, J.B., 1901. _Diplodocus (Marsh) its Osteology_, etc.
Memoirs of the Carnegie Museum, vol. i, pp. 1-63, pll. i-xiii.
HATCHER, J.B., 1903. _Osteology of Haplocanthosaurus._ Mem. Carn.
Mus., vol. ii, pp. 1-75, pll. i-vi.
HATCHER, MARSH & LULL, 1907. _The Ceratopsia._ U.S. Geol. Survey
Monographs, vol. xlix, pp. i-xxx and 1-300, pll. i-li.
HAY, O.P., 1902. _Bibliography of North American Fossil Vertebrata._
U.S. Geol. Sur. Bull. No. 179, pp. 1-868.
HENNIG, E., 1912. _Am Tendaguru._
HOLLAND, W.J., 1906. _Osteology of Diplodocus._ Mem. Carn. Mus.,
vol. ii, pp. 225-264, pl. xxiii-xxx.
HUENE, F. VON, 1905-6. _Ueber die Dinosaurier der aussereuropäischen
Trias._ Koken's Geol. u. Pal. Abh. N. F., B'd. viii, s. 99-154.
HUENE, F. VON, 1907-8. _Die Dinosaurier der Europäischen
Triasformation._ Geol. u. Pal. Abh. Supplem. Bd. pll. i-cxi.
HUENE, F. VON, 1914. _Beiträge zur Geschichte der Archosaurier._
Geol. u. Pal. Abh. N. F., B'd. xiii, pp. 1-53, pll. i-vii.
HUENE, F. VON, 1903-1914. Numerous minor contributions in Anatom.
Anzeig. Neues Jahrb. f. min., Geol. Centralbl. and other
scientific journals.
HUTCHINSON, REV. F.N., 1910. _Extinct Monsters and Creatures of
Other Days._ Chapman & Hall, London.
HUXLEY, T.H., 1859-1870. Articles, chiefly in Quarterly Journal
Geol. Soc. and Geol. Magazine. Discussing the osteology and
systematic relationships of various Dinosaurs.
JAEKEL, O., 1913-14. _Ueber die Wirbelthiere in den oberen Trias von
Halberstadt._ Palæont. Zeitschr. B'd. i, s. 155-215, taf.
iii-iv.
KNIPE, H.R., 1912. _Evolution in the Past._ Herbert & Daniel,
London.
LAMBE, LAWRENCE, 1902, with H.F. Osborn. See Osborn & Lambe.
LAMBE, LAWRENCE, 1913-4. Articles in Ottawa Naturalist descriptive
of new Cretacic Dinosaurs.
LUCAS, F.A., 1901. _Extinct Animals._ Republished by the American
Museum, Price 35c.
LUCAS, F.A., 1901. The Restoration of Extinct Animals, Smithsonian
Report for 1900, pp. 479-492, pll. i-viii.
LULL, R.S., 1904. _Fossil Footprints of the Jura-Trias._ Mem. Boston
Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. v, pp. 461-558.
LULL, R.S., 1910. _Dinosaurian Distribution._ Am. Journ. Sci., vol.
xxix, pp. 1-39; _The Armor of Stegosaurus_, ibid., pp. 201-210;
_Stegosaurus ungulatus_, ibid., vol. xxx, pp. 361-377.
MARSH, O.C., 1877-1896. Numerous articles in the American Journal of
Science descriptive of new Dinosaurs or announcing results of
his studies on these fossils.
MARSH, O.C., 1896. _The Dinosaurs of North America._ U.S. Geol.
Survey, 16th Ann. Rep., pt. i, pp. 133-414, pll. i-lxxxv.
NOPSCA, 1899, 1902, 1904. _Dinosaurierreste aus Siebenburgen
(Telmatosaurus, etc._). Denkschr. math.-naturwiss. Kl. Kais.
Akad. Wiss. Wien, b'd. lxviii, lxxii, lxxiv.
NOPSCA, 1906. _Zur Kenntniss der Genus Streptospondylus._ Beit. zur
Pal. Oest-ung. Bd. xix.
NOPSCA, F., 1902-1911. Various articles on European Dinosaurs in
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OSBORN, H.F., 1899. _A Skeleton of Diplodocus_, Mem. Am. Mus. Nat.
Hist., vol. i, pp. 191-214, pll. xxiv-xxviii.
OSBORN, H.F., 1912. _Crania of Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus;
Integument of the Iguanodont Dinosaur Trachodon_, Mem. Am. Mus.
Nat. Hist., N. S., vol. i, pp. 1-54, pll. i-x.
OSBORN, H.F., 1898-1914. Articles in American Museum Bulletin,
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_Tyrannosaurus_.
OSBORN & LAMBE, 1902. _Vertebrata of the Mid-Cretaceous of the
North-West Territory._ Can. Geol. Survey Publications Quarto
series, vol. iii.
OWEN, R., 1853-1877. Monographs on Fossil Reptilia.
Palæontographical Society, London.
RIGGS, E.S., 1901-4. Articles on Sauropoda in Field Museum of Nat.
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SCHUCHERT, CHAS., 1910. _Palæogeography of North America._ Bull.
Geol. Soc. Am., vol. xx, pp. 427-606, pll. 46-101.
STRÖMER VON REICHENBACH, E., 1912. _Lehrbuch der Palæontologie, ii,
Wirbelthiere_ (B.G. Teubner, Leipzig u. Berlin.)
THÉVENIN, A., 1907. _Paleontologie de Madagascar, iv, Dinosaurs._
Ann. de Paléont, t. ii, pp. 121-136, 2 pll.
WOODWARD, A.S., 1898. _Vertebrate Palæontology._ Cambridge Science
Manuals.
ZITTEL (Broili u. a. rev.) 1911. _Grundzuge der Palæontologie._
ZITTEL (EASTMAN transl.), 1902. _Textbook of Palæontology, vol. ii,
Vertebrata_ (_except Mammals_). Macmillan & Co.
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