HUNTING HORNED DINOSAURS ON THE RED DEER RIVER.
Please, dear reader, return with me to the first camp we made below
Steveville (Fig. 15). I would like to tell you of our successful hunt
for horned dinosaurs, the reptiles that carry on their shoulders
the largest known skulls of any land animal living, or dead. I had
gone around the flood plain to the mouth of a ravine below camp and
following it up to its head searching the denuded exposures, on either
side. Suddenly, I stumbled on a couple of orbital horn-cores of a new
genus of these strange creatures. The nasals and much of the face had
been disintegrated by exposure to rain and frost; one complete lower
jaw and part of the other was in place, however. With eager hands I
used my little pick and digger, cutting into the face of the cliff. The
horn-cores were pointed heavenward. I soon got behind them and followed
up the great crest that projected backward into the rock, of which some
fifteen towered above; I needed help and returned to camp a mile over
the hills, for the boys. George and Levi responded to my call. The rock
was thrown out and scraped away with team and scraper, tons on tons of
it, my enthusiastic assistants threw down. We soon found that most of
the skeleton was present, and it required a large floor to lay all the
bones bare. At least enough of them so we could take them up without
injuring them.
While working around the skeleton, we dug up what appeared to be
impressions of mud cracks, but Charlie who came to visit us, concluded
at once they were skin impressions. This seemed too good to be true, as
none were known before from horned dinosaurs. We were soon, however,
forced to believe it, when a large chunk of rock broke in two and
revealed the regular casts of polygonal scales, the upper and lower
sides. They were arranged in the most beautiful mosaic patterns, some
mere tubercles, as in the trachodonts, especially under the limbs.
Along the back there were larger scales, often rounded or six sided,
from two, to two and a half inches in diameter. This was new, and
unexpected, as the men of science who had made a special study of the
horned dinosaurs believed they had a thick skin with heavy dermal
scutes, or plates inserted into it, as a protection against the
rapacious carnivores. But here, as in the _Trachodonts_, we were so
fortunate as to prove what we had proved so oft before, “The wisdom of
man is foolishness to God.” How could it be otherwise. Yet I am free to
acknowledge there are no class of men so positive in their conclusions.
I once heard four different men at a Scientific Academy deliver four
papers on the Creation of the world, each one was different and each
man thought he was right. I have proved too often in my own experience
in the field that I was mistaken, to doubt that other scientific men
might be also. I could write a book about the mistakes of scientific
men but will not burden my pages with them except as I discover facts
absolutely different from those commonly accepted, as in the case of my
_Chasmosaurus_ under discussion. In the past men have been too anxious
to publish results before complete skeletons have been found and almost
invariably, when one is found, it does not bear out in its own person
the expectations of their authors.
This field, so rich in material, in which we get the skin impressions,
as well as complete skeletons enables us to speak “as one having
authority” about them. Here then, although we have an animal with
limbs of equal length, the body was covered with thin scales arranged
like mosaic-work in a pavement. Without much doubt the skull had
been subjected to great pressure for many ages. The rock in which
it was embedded has been lifted some twenty-five hundred feet above
the position it occupied when it was mud at the bottom of the lake.
Mr. Lambe, the Vertebrate Paleontologist of the Geological Survey of
Canada, has called this remarkable dinosaur _Chasmosaurus_, on account
of the great chasms or gaps cut into the crest and skull. As far as I
know this is the most complete skull known of this species. While at
work on my specimen I learned some remarkable things. There is always
an opening between the horns of these saurians. In Triceratops, it is
midway between the end of the beak, and the crest. In this specimen,
however, it is two feet from the end of the beak, and three feet to the
further end of the crest. Then, though the skull proper in front of the
crest is quite heavy and strong, and with large mandibles, and rather
a large horn over the nose, as compared with the small ones over the
eyes. The crest seems to be built for strength, as the central bar, the
side and distal bars are strong, but beveled off to the large openings;
and masses of bone are scooped out of the skull--adapted evidently
to add to the strength, but to reduce the weight. This is not to be
wondered at, when we study the skeleton. For we find the neck-crest
not only covered the neck and shoulders, but extended back over seven
of the dorsal vertebrae, to within a few inches of the pelvic arch. I
do not think the animal was much bigger than a cow: about 9 feet from
beak to drop of the tail; and the latter was short, barely dragging on
the ground. When cutting a path through the dense sub-tropical foliage
of reeds, rushes and grass, with many a bog, he simply parted the rank
vegetation with his triangular-shaped head and crushed it under his
four large spreading feet. But when he was attacked, down went the
head, up went the crest, and a shield well armed with horns on the
face, and horny projections along the sides of the crest was instantly
presented to his foe. As the only vulnerable place of attack, to the
tiger of the everglades, he would try to strike with his powerful
claw-armed feet somewhere in the flank, for then he could lay bare the
vital organs and soon destroy his prey.
But our _Chasmosaurus_ was on the watch to prevent this very thing. The
grass is beaten down, a ring is formed, and he often rushes forward
with open beak. If his pincer-like bill once closes on the quivering
flesh of the carnivore, he would surely get his “pound of flesh.” If a
moss covered bog is within reach he would try to get to it, for then
he would plunge in, and be safe, as no bipedal flesh eater will dare
to follow. Our herbivore, however, can swim through it, or through the
morass as easily as a living hippopotamus.
You will notice the horny beak is shaped like that of a great turtle,
though the lower jaws supporting it below are two feet in length.
The crest behind, where it overhangs the back, is nearly four feet
along the curve. We approximately can guess the distance from the
lower margin of the jaw to the top of the nasal horn to be nearly two
feet. At each angle of the cross-bar behind on the crest, is a long
horn-covered spike, while the sides of the crest are also armed with
smaller and blunter ones. The orbital horns are round and conical, not
much over six inches in length, while the one on the bridge of the nose
is over a foot long.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--Excavation after taking out Charlie’s
_Stephanosaurus_. Page 67.]
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--Charlie’s New Trachodont. Page 67.]
Now, with the rapidity of thought we will return to our workshop.
When George prepared the head of this fine specimen, I found it was
the exact size of the one I found in 1913. I therefore took a cast of
the parts that were missing in mine. In order to accomplish this, I
covered the front of the head with lard oil and then with molding wax,
being careful to make it in sections so it would come off and be heavy
enough to prevent distortion. When all was ready and we had colored our
plaster to resemble the fossil bone--no small task, by the way, as we
had to learn to mix colors as well as do the work of a sculptor--with
wax. Then the mold is separated from the skull and stuck together,
plaster strengthened with dextrine is poured into it, and on hardening
I got an exact facsimile of the original specimen. This I fastened
to my skull in which these parts were missing, and this gave us two
specimens for public exhibition. Otherwise we could not have exhibited
this dinosaur, as it would not have done to guess at these missing
parts, as the early scientists were in the habit of doing. Now we can
point to the complete specimen should anyone doubt the truthfulness
of the restoration. All through the Belly River Series of rocks are
bone-beds. There are two below Steveville, one near the top, and the
other near the bottom of the exposures. They lie usually on a bed of
clay, as if they had been drifted in from a lake (into which, they
had been carried by a river) and lined the shore in the mud. In some
places I secured hundreds, yes thousands of bones and teeth of many
species, as well as shields of sturgeons and the enameled scales of
gar-pikes as perfect as if picked up along a recent lake shore. There
were also bones and shells of a great variety of soft-shelled turtles,
and others, with beautifully sculptured shells; they range in size from
less than six inches across, to over two feet. Crocodile bones, and the
dermal, or skin plates of plated dinosaurs, were common. We secured
hundreds of the pavement teeth of the ray Cope called _Myledaphus_,
also countless vertebrae of the reptile _Champsosaurus_. Probably all
the species of this rich fauna, are represented in these bone-beds. The
fragments we collected came in good play, when Charlie and I mounted
the _Trachodon_ skeleton. As we were able to restore the missing tail
from the caudal vertebrae we picked up in bone-beds in the Edmonton
Series, near Drumheller, Alberta. We found many horn-cores also in
the bone deposits. Although we found many of the long bones we were
unable to take up many on account of the expense. First, the bone has
to be located, i. e. discovered. Then likely a road has to be built
to it in order to haul in to it plaster and water. After one side is
uncovered and plastered, it has to remain twelve hours to harden. Then
we must return to turn it over and plaster the other side, allowing it
to harden before we go after it with a horse and sled. During all this
time we might have found a complete skeleton.
When we reached our big scow in 1914, we found the seams had opened
along the bottom and we were forced to recaulk it. The first thing
was to clean out the old oakum and coal tar. Our eyes filled with the
poisonous tar irritating them almost beyond endurance. After that was
done, with arms above our heads, we drove in the oakum with caulking
tools and then retarred the seams. I will acknowledge I did not do my
full duty here, I spent most of my time in the hills exploring, which
was more to my liking. This trying work the boys accomplished at last.
Then came the supreme test. Will it keep out the water? We slid her
down on skids into the river, and she rode as buoyantly as a duck,
though not so gracefully.
We had picked out a place to camp three miles above “Happy Jack Ferry.”
So George, Charlie, and Mr. Johnson, hauled the scow up to the camping
ground with our motor boat, accomplishing a feat, I had thought
impossible. Fortunately they had a strong wind in their favor, and
the tents pitched on board, acted as sails and helped them breast the
current. Levi and I moved the lumber up to camp in our wagon pulled by
our team of horses. We crossed many narrow gulches, and were obliged to
dig roads across them. In fact we got stuck in the mud of one, where
backwater from the river had deposited several feet of mud in it. We
got into camp, however, ahead of the scow. In my note book I often
speak of the terrible heat of those days. We had hot work on the rough
exposures without water. Who of us will ever forget, when at night,
we returned to our camp, how we lay with faces half submerged in the
cold water of the river, and drank from her refreshing flood until we
could drink no more. Drinking often a quart or more without injury.
The hardest work of all was to tramp over the burning beds without
success. How many days we spent in useless effort. Near this camp,
however, Charlie got a fine skull of a new trachodont or duck-billed
dinosaur, described later by Mr. Brown as _Prosaurolophus_. Near here,
also, George found his famous _Chasmosaurus belli_, Lambe. Mr. Brown,
however, retains Professor Marsh’s name of _Ceratops_. Here too, I
secured the complete club at the end of a plated dinosaur’s tail, of
which I will have more to say later. Showing as has been my experience
that untiring effort will accomplish results in the fossil fields as in
every walk in life.
During Charlie’s and my absence in Montana, George found a large
skeleton of a _Corythosaurus_. The remarkable part about it was the
complete limbs in position. It was discovered in Mr. Jackson’s
pasture. Now Mr. Jackson is an old cowman. He was range boss for the
brother of Admiral Beresford of England, who built a ranch here. On
Beresford’s death, Mr. Jackson took possession of the ranch and the
ferry is named “Happy Jack” after him. In fact he is quite a noted
character and one of the few old cattle men living here.
At this camp too, Mr. Patrick Disney, from Oxford University, England,
joined my party as a guest. He came to these wilds to learn something
about fossil hunting. He was indeed helpful, and welcome, but the war
breaking out he started for the front, he wanted to be, and was among
the first to join his colors from Canada. We learned later he became a
gallant officer in the aerial fleet.
We continued to suffer all summer from the intense heat. The mosquitoes,
however, were not as bad as usual. All the grass on the prairies dried
up. The crops were a perfect failure. But for the liberality of the
government in supplying the homesteader with food through the winter
and spring and seed to plant, they would have been obliged to leave the
country. This timely aid, however, enabled them, owing to the great
rainfall in 1915, to reap the greatest harvest in the history of these
people, so far east of the mountains on the semi-arid plains.
On August fifth, we succeeded in getting our scow some two miles below
“Happy Jack Ferry,” (See Fig. 32) to a camp we made near a specimen
George had found of a plated dinosaur. Charlie and Disney brought down
the motor boat, but owing to the very low stage of water, they were in
it, most of the time, hauling the boat through sand, by main force.
Our scow floating with the current beat them to the landing. We left
Levi to haul all the fossils from our upper camp to Denhart on the
new branch of the Central Pacific Railway, between Swift Current and
Bassano, Alberta. For two months George labored with never less than
one assistant on his plated dinosaur, the prize of the season. It seems
that some caudal vertebrae were seen by him sticking out of a hard
siliceous concretion in the face of a bluff, with thirty-five feet of
sandstone on top. This was tough and hard to dig up. He used blasting
powder as you see in two pictures where George is running away after
firing the fuse, the other shows the explosion. It took a month of
constant labor to get down to the concretion and another to cut away
enough of it, so it could be handled when cut in sections. The constant
hammering opened closed seams in the flinty rocks so it could be
removed in chunks, with the sections of the fossil within them. George
secured the pelvic arch, hind limb bones, many ribs, caudal and dorsal
vertebrae (likely the entire column in front of the pelvis), the skull,
with its necklace of dermal plates behind. Then there were many of
the huge plates though not all in position.
The figures show the quarry, and the road we made with four horses
straining to haul the sections out. You will also see George running
from the quarry after lighting the fuse, and in the next picture the
explosion. We expended far more labor in this quarry than any we found,
or on any other individual specimen. Yet our labor was nothing compared
to what must be expended before the skeleton is mounted, owing to the
difficulties of preparation. The last picture in this series shows the
amount of labor required to throw out the loose material, as well as
the beautifully sculptured rock in the vicinity.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Prepared skull of _Gryposaurus_, Lambe;
_Kritosaurus_, Brown. Page 67.]
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--The strata of clay thins out to nothing often.
Page 69.]