PLATED DINOSAURS THE MOST UNIQUE OF THEM ALL
When the frost was on the bull berry, we experienced the strange
sensation of making jelly in camp. We beat the berries out of the
bushes, in which they clung in clusters around sharp thorns, on to
tarpaulins spread below on the ground. The single berry is about the
size and color of a red currant. We filled our motor boat full of
boxes with the acid fruit, and drove it to our scow. There we took
pails full of the berries, and sank them into the clear water of Red
Deer river. Then stirred them with a stick, so that all the leaves,
decayed fruit, and bits of branches or other foreign matter could float
away down the river, the perfect fruit settled to the bottom. The fruit
was then cooked on our large camp stove until thoroughly done, when it
was pressed through muslin bags, and cooked as long as there was any
scum rising to the surface, which was carefully skimmed off the boiling
surface. Then equal parts of sugar by weight was put in, and the moment
it was dissolved the mixture was taken off the stove and put into
Mason jars. When cool it was a fine, reddish colored jelly. We made
twenty-four gallons, or six gallons for each married man in the party.
In camp we used it constantly, and it took the place of all other fruit
and pickles. As usual, we were unable to get our fossils out of the
ground before cold weather came. We secured fifty boxes weighing about
twenty-five tons. I am happy to report, also, that after Charlie found
his _Centrosaurus_ or _Monoclonius_ skull, and after I had spent four
weeks of the most strenuous labor of which I am capable, I succeeded in
getting a very good skeleton from the pelvis to the end of the tail,
of a crested duck-bill. It was especially interesting, because nearly
all the impression of the skin was present in a large section of the
tail; giving also, the contour of the tail immediately after death.
This was the best tail of a trachodont we found. While we were working
early and late to get out the material before the real cold weather
set in, our horse Bob, in going up a steep and narrow sled road corked
his mate, the bay mare. She bled badly, and was put out of commission
temporarily. Luckily, Mr. Bestrum, who was assisting us with an extra
team, had another horse who took the injured one’s place.
On the twenty-fifth of September, 1914, we got our scow dismantled,
and the next day out on land. In the meantime we camped on the sandy
flood plain of the river, near our scow. One night my tent blew down
on top of me asleep in my cot; however, these are small matters, and
soon forgotten if I had not referred to them in my notes. On the
twenty-eighth, we hauled in our last load of fossils and loaded our
car at Denhart. This point was a switch on the open prairie; the store
building was deserted. A miserable day, with the wind blowing a gale,
from the north. I built an oven of some loose bricks, that were lying
about, and cooked a meal as best we could, on the wind swept plain. It
was four o’clock in the afternoon before we started on our thirty mile
drive to Brooks, where we were to take our train homeward bound.
We lost our road, or rather it petered out, as they say in the west,
and with the brilliant moon riding buoyantly in the heavens as a guide,
we pressed on over the rough prairie sod. Suddenly as if to amuse our
tiresome journey, God’s Moving Pictures, The Northern Lights burst
upon us in all their glory. It seemed as if a heavy map was suddenly
unwrapped in the sky, the folds taking a fan-like perpendicular radiate
shape, then another and another, was unrolled, until the whole northern
arc of the heavens was vibrating with light in white bands, edges in
colors of many delicate and exquisite tints. At eleven o’clock that
night, stiff and hungry, our solitary wagon rolled into Brooks, and
an ambitious Chinaman soon had on our table a hot dish of beef and
onions we ate with the relish hunger gives.
When we went west in June, 1914, we stopped at Toronto, and visited
the Royal Museum there. The geological and mineralogical halls are on
the top floors. The principal light comes through ground glass giving
a beautiful diffused light. The glass cases show no signs of reflected
light. Every specimen, stands out distinctly, as if laid on a table.
They had mounted the mosasaur skeleton I sold Professor Parks some
years before. The only large vertebrate on exhibition.
We were anxious to make a trip by water and pressed on to Port
McNicoll, where we took the steamer Keewatin and slept that night in
state rooms instead of Pullman berths, as had been so common with us
of late. We woke next morning in the narrow stream between Lake Huron
and Superior. The scenery was grand and impressive, the shore lines
clothed with second growth timber. We passed freighters hauling ten
thousand tons of coal to the west, and the same amount of iron-ore to
the eastern smelters. The channel was marked by floating buoys, each
one carrying a light that was intermittent, as fast as it went out, it
was lighted again by two permanent lights below. Carbide is used to
produce the main light, and to keep the others going. There were also
lighthouses at intervals, built in the water on strong cement bases.
This passage way of the ships is as well lighted at night, as the
streets of a city. We thought the boat ride more enjoyable than the
monotonous train; and we enjoyed the sensation of being lifted into
the mighty Superior by the Soo Locks. Then our captain threaded his way
far from the shore line through the reaches of this great inland sea.
Towards night a dense fog rose. Our siren sounded the alarm every few
moments, and on either side, before and behind, other fog whistles,
too, kept up the refrain “Look out! Look out! Danger! Danger!” We soon
got used to the music and were lulled to sleep in our narrow state
rooms. We slept in peace, and the next morning the sun rose clear,
and scattered his brilliant rays of light over the headlands of the
mountains back of Port Arthur, lighting up, too, the grain elevators
and pretty town.
On the seventh of June we drove our team to “Happy Jack Ferry,” all
ready for another campaign.
Of all the strange dinosaurs we found in our hunts for big game in
the Red Deer canyon nothing, I think, exceeded the plated dinosaurs
in wonderful characters. The first I ever found, I mention in the
Proceedings of the Kansas Academy of Science for 1908 on page 257.
“Last February, Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History
staff, published a description for the first time of his armoured
dinosaur which he named _Anchylosaurus magniventris_. It was discovered
on Hell Creek, Montana, in 1905 by the American Museum Expedition. It
represents he says a group of _Stegosauria_ characteristic of the late
Cretaceous of this country.”
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Discovery of George’s _Chasmosaurus_.
(_Ceratops_). Page 86.]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--George’s _Chasmosaurus_ lying in quarry. Page
80.]
In 1905 while conducting an expedition to the Kansas chalk I discovered
the broken up skeleton of what I considered a large new sea tortoise
with an ossified carapace, it attracted my attention and I knew it must
be new, but as it was badly weathered, and detached from its matrix,
concluded it could not be used and left it there. Later, my son George
brought into camp, a few miles from Hackberry Creek, where I found my
specimen, some peculiar plates, like the ones already mentioned. But as
I had no knowledge of Barnum Brown’s discovery I concluded they were
neurals of a new turtle. These I sent to Dr. Weiland for description.
Last month I was his guest at Yale University museum. He asked me why I
thought it a new turtle. After giving my reasons, he told me they were
new enough, but these plates were of an armored dinosaur. Later through
George’s efforts, I secured the skeleton I found the year before. I
went over the mass of fragments and separated the armor, and found the
entire skeleton was covered with a completely ossified dermal covering,
in most beautiful patterns, the larger scutes were diamond-shaped,
with round angles, with elevated keel down the center, the interspaces
filled with small plates of various forms. This is the second instance
of remains of a dinosaur being found in the Kansas chalk, showing that
the bones of swamp and land saurians in shore, drifted out to sea. The
other individual was a duck-billed dinosaur called by Professor Leidy,
_Hadrosaurus_; but later Prof. Marsh identified it as belonging to his
genus _Claosaurus_ of the Lance Beds of Wyoming. As far as I know no
other specimen of dinosaurs have been found in the chalk of Kansas.
Strange indeed then that we find enough of the skeleton of a dinosaur
for identification. Separated from the dinosaur beds of Wyoming by at
least 10,000 feet of strata and in time a couple of million years at
least, showing that we do not as yet know the time and space occupied
by dinosaurs on this continent.
Later still in the Belly River Beds of the Dead Lodge Canyon, in 1914,
George found the skeleton of a similar species. Mr. Lambe gives it the
name of _Euoplocephalus_; no complete skeleton have been found of this
strange dinosaur except in the Belly River Series, though a fine skull
and other bones were found by Brown, in the Edmonton beds of the Red
Deer river, similar to his Lance Creek genus in Montana. Last year,
1915, both Charlie and I found some fine material near the mouth of
Dead Lodge Canyon and at Loveland Ferry twelve miles below. As already
mentioned, George found the best specimen we have obtained. From all
three (and the tail club I secured in 1914), we get a very good idea
of this peculiar reptile. One thing I learned from the specimen is,
that the plates are not co-ossified as I had supposed from my study
of the Chalk specimen, but that between the larger plates, are quite
small ones arranged like chain armor so as to allow the body to move
in any direction, unhindered by the heavy armor; these small ossified
scutes are so beveled as to move on themselves, that is, they are
imbricated, while the others are not, and are arranged like mosaic-work
in a pavement. Mr. Brown was the first to publish a figure of a skull
of his Edmonton species. The skull itself has the bony skin plates
anchylosed to it. Mr. Brown tells me that even the eyes are protected
by sliding shutters that drop down over them in time of danger. The
horned beak is rounded in front and the few teeth behind seem of little
functional value. The beak however, was a powerful organ for digging
up roots, or nipping off foliage. The head was very small compared to
the immense body. The great ribs over five feet long, and hoop-shaped,
giving the body a round, barrel-like form. The heavy bony armor of huge
plates, some of them weighed in their fossil form twenty-five pounds
or more; though light and spongy in life. Many of these plates were
harder and denser bone than the ones mentioned before, keeled down
the center. The small nodules of bone fitted in between the plates
and were so beveled as to move on each other like chain armor. The
entire body was thus covered and protected. Unfortunately no complete
skeleton has been found with every dermal plate in position. Of course
I am not familiar with the many skeletons of this form Mr. Brown has
discovered and have been looking a long time for a Memoir describing
these interesting forms. The great desideratum is to find one of these
wonderful reptiles with all the armor in place; just as the skin was
found in the “Dinosaur Mummy” and the Senckenberg specimens of the
crested duck-bills. However we already know there was an anchylosed
necklace back of the head and that the end of the tail was club-like. I
secured several of these clubs.
Let us go back to the time when the Belly River rocks were forming in
the bottom of the lake. It is spring; every thing throbs with life.
The sap is surging through the trees arrayed in their brightest tints,
the ground below, is carpeted with flowers in endless variety and hue;
there is a clump of evergreens, and here one of poplars, while in the
distance are, figs, magnolias, and a wealth of other trees, all adding
beauty to the scene. Along the lake shore, dense masses of horse-tail
rushes, moss and long coarse grass cast waving shadows. On the quiet
bays vast masses of water lilies waft their incense on the air, and
delight our senses. Above us the swinging redwood branches shut out the
direct rays of the sun which falls as if filtered through the stained
windows of some great cathedral. Let us creep along to the second
bench that overlooks the jungle of vegetation, that spreads out in
great meadows to the lake itself. See that thicket! Let us approach it
quietly and peep through as it opens beyond in a park in the forest.
Such a sight is rarely offered to human eyes. See that reptile over
twenty feet in length, a great round body twenty feet in circumference,
a short stubby tail. A small horse-shoe shaped head with horn sheathed
jaws, small but strong. Back of the head, are necklaces of bony scutes,
keeled down the center separated along their edges, by small nodules
of bone, that move on each other giving a mobility to the skin even
though the animal is as heavily armored as a fighting automobile of the
great European war of today. The tail, too, is covered with enormous
bony plates, though light and porous, compared with the dense bony
plates covering the body; the end is heavy and blunt, club-like in
fact. His pillar-like limbs are short and robust, to support such a
body. The belly almost reaches the ground, the heavy tail drags behind.
He moves along sluggishly, compared with the lighter horned dinosaurs
and carnivores. See how readily he beats a passage way through the
underbrush that borders the woods, and emerges into the open park. We
notice his huge proportions and unique appearance. He is completely
armored and sluggish in his gait. It does not seem that even the fierce
_Gorgosaurus_ of the everglades, the tyrant of this peaceful woods
would find a single vulnerable place open to attack. More likely if
he made the attempt he would simply whet his teeth on the glistening
armor that protected him, in vain. He might perhaps break off a tooth
or two, before he learned his task was a thankless one. We can even
imagine that he would be in danger himself if he carelessly approached
too near the tail. For a blow from the powerful club at the end would
break in his ribs.
As the strange saurian passes us we notice the large trail he makes
through the bushes as he moves on down into the meadow-like flat for
his breakfast.
See! Out there on the lake is a plesiosaur fishing, he evidently came
up the river (that heads in the bottom of the lake), from the Pierre
ocean not many miles away. We know the lake is full of sturgeon and
gar-pike. He has a beautiful head poised on a long swan-like neck, a
broad heavy body, and a very short tail. We have seen them before along
the shores of the old Cretaceous ocean. As his bones were common in the
chalk of Kansas. Within human history white whales have come up the St.
Lawrence river from the Atlantic Ocean. They have one in the Victoria
Memorial Museum at Ottawa, that made the trip once, but never returned,
and they dug his bones out of the flood plain of the river.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--_Chasmosaurus_ (_Ceratops_), George’s being
wrapped in quarry. Page 82.]
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--_Chasmosaurus_ Quarry. Page 82.]