THE GREAT SPIKED DINOSAUR OF DEAD LODGE CANYON
On the 17th of September, 1913, George and I loaded our row boat and
motor boat with our tent, blankets, and cooking utensils and tools,
and start down the river in search of a new camp. In the photograph
of the scene, Levi is standing on deck of the flat boat and bids us
good-bye and good luck. George is driving the motor and I sit in the
center of the boat. Notice the row boat we trail behind, is heavily
loaded. This was the hardest trip we ever made with the motor boat,
as the water was low, we were constantly getting stuck on a sand bar.
They extended often across the river. George was one to suffer, as he
was the only one of the two that had the strength to pull it across
into deeper water. When we stuck fast, I got in the row boat and
paddled over to a deeper hole, and went a fishing, while he struggled
with his boat. It was a terrible experience, but well bought, as he
learned what the Red Deer river was in low water, and when he went on
it again, in 1915 he built himself a motor boat that would float in
five or six inches of water. While mine required eighteen inches to
float it. At last with George nearly exhausted, we pulled into shore
at “Happy Jack Ferry”, twelve miles below Steveville. We pitched our
tent on the southern side of the river. On the 19th of September, I
made the discovery of the strange spiked dinosaur, called by Mr. Lambe
_Styracosaurus_. The ground was wet with repeated showers. The fossil
beds are not safe then, as one slips as if walking on soft soap. There
is much clay in all the rocks; in fact more than half of them are made
up of clay, interlaid with silver gray sandstone, also containing much
clay. However, I could not be idle about camp and made the attempt
to get in the badlands walking up the bed of a long coulee that was
filled with boulders. I got to where it was extremely difficult,
as the bed was narrow and crooked. So I attempted to scale a steep
slope and got up a hundred feet; that brought me over a perpendicular
precipice, while above was a heavy bed of clay. I knew if I could get
over the clay, I would be all right, as I would then be on top of a
spur from the prairie, wide enough for me to walk on. However, the
minute I would drive my pick into the clay to hold me from slipping,
it would break loose and let me slip back to a narrow ledge above the
cliff. I attempted to cut a path with the same result, and as I saw I
could not go up, I resolved to go down the way I had gone up. This I
found was impossible; for if I sat down I would slide and be hurled
over the precipice. I then got frightened and attacked the steep clay
slope again, with the same results. I realized then if I could not
climb over when in my ordinary condition, certainly could not when
frightened. I therefore sat down on the narrow ledge until I recovered
my composure. And by careful searching the steep slope I had come up,
I found a little ditch with small bushes growing in it. It was washed
clean of mud, and I got a foothold in it, and gradually let myself
down into the bed of the coulee. I did not attempt to leave this again
and at last reached the head. Many other ravines headed near by, and
in going over to one of them I saw in the steep slope of a narrow
gorge, in gray sandstone, the skull that is rather poorly shown in the
picture. It was 200 feet below the prairie, and it required a great
deal of labor to collect and load it in the wagon. It was first packed
securely in a box, after it had been carefully wrapped in burlap dipped
in plaster, and secured with strong poles to hold it together. A road
was cut in the face of the cliff, and our faithful team hauled the box
weighing about nine hundred pounds, out of the ravine; they often fell
down and cut themselves, but they scrambled up the narrow road with
their burden fastened to a sled. When they got to the level prairie,
the boys let the hind wheels into the ground to the hubs and rolled the
box in. The skull was partially prepared by me the next winter as shown
in the photograph which gives a top view of it. This is one of the many
remarkable forms that were so abundant during the Mid-Cretaceous time.
The skull was over six feet in length, with a great horn-core over the
center of the nose, twenty-four inches high, and six inches in diameter
at the base. But stranger than all, six horn-cores radiating from
the crest behind where it is four and a half feet wide. The central
horn-cores are the largest, twenty-two inches long, the next pair
twenty, and the outermost fourteen inches wide. All these horn-cores
were covered in life with horn, lengthening them materially. The crest,
from between the center of the eye horns is four feet long, while the
portion of the skull in front is only two feet. The narrow bar that
carries the spikes behind, is narrow and heavy, thinned down with the
central and marginal bars to form large openings. The skull too, as
in _Chasmosaurus_ is dug out into caves. Only a thin septum of bone
separate the brain case from the central air chambers, there were no
attached orbital horns, but cup-like depressions, as if the horns had
dropped out, having been ossified from a separate center. All the
bones of the skull show vascular grooves, as if the entire skull was
sheathed in horn making an impenetrable shield. In the old restoration
of _Triceratops_ the neck is enlarged to fasten securely into the neck
frill or crest. To me such an idea is absolutely absurd. The round
occipital condyle enabled the animal to bend the head in any direction
at the atlas vertebra, as in the four limbed mammals of today, that
have to put down their heads to eat or drink. If the shield were
fastened to the neck the reptile would have to lie down to feed and
drink or go into the water, unless there was a similar arrangement
between the body and neck vertebrae. In the case of _Chasmosaurus_ or
_Ceratops_, where the crest reaches to the hips, the socket would be in
front of the hips, so when feeding on rushes he would have to kneel on
his front limbs and bend at the hips. A most remarkable arrangement.
Then, too, it would be of little use for a shield of defense against
his subtle carniverous enemy. No, I am sure the old idea in regard to
the neck frill is a mistake and I ask you to please go back with me and
I will show you the reptile alive.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--George preparing skull of _Chasmosaurus_ in
Laboratory. Page 83.]
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Skull of _Chasmosaurus_ restored by Weber.
Page 83.]
We find ourselves sitting in the shade of a giant red wood, for the sun
is up. The ocean far to the south, out of sight reveals its presence in
the salty refreshing air that reaches us. The land before us has been
slowly rising at the rate of deposition, and is but little above tide
water. Great meadows on the swampy flood plain of a large lake lie a
few feet below the bench, that is covered with a dense forest. Nature
has a wonderful workshop for the Creator, one continual plant, for
turning out perfect living forms endowed with life and power. Let us go
down toward the jungle of horse-tails, other rushes, and high grass,
that waves in the passing breeze. On the very margin of the lake itself
from the white sandy beach, we pick up teeth, and scattered bones, and
mussel shells. There is plenty of drift wood too, lying in heaps, left
there by the last flood. We wander on towards the plain. Hark! don’t
you hear a noise in the thick vegetation as if a heavy reptile was
cropping his morning fare? For reptile it must be, as only diminutive
marsupial-like mammals live at this time. If you will follow me, we
will see. So, without further ado, we walk into the rank vegetation,
and parting it, look down a narrow path along which a spiked dinosaur
is feeding. He is unconscious of our presence and is feeding towards
us. His powerful limbs of equal length, are sunk deep in the moist
earth. His head is in plain sight, and the crest stands up when he bent
it, to crop off a mouthful of succulent herbage with his heavy beak,
sheathed in horn. This he shears with his beveled teeth behind, very
much like the mechanism of an old fashioned hay cutter.
The teeth are double rooted, and in magazines like those of the
duck-billed dinosaurs, though not as numerous. The great horn is black
and polished, full three feet long, like the sharp spear point in the
shield of thick buffalo hide of a Philippian Warrior. The great spikes
stand out from the top of the crest when he lowers his head. Thus fully
armored he can force a passage way through the thickest vegetation,
beating it down beneath his feet. There are four hoofed toes on each
front foot, and three behind. The large restless eyes are buttressed
over with bone to protect them from his enemy, _Gorgosaurus_, the
tyrant of the everglades, and from the dense vegetation through which
he beats his way. As he passes us and stops to feed again, thus raising
his shield in the air, we get a splendid view of his scaled body,
with its colors harmoniously blended with the vegetation by which he
is surrounded. They are much like those already seen in _Ceratops_ or
Lambe’s _Chasmosaurus_. He seems satisfied with his breakfast, as he
lifts his head out of the rush covered soil. As a narrow neck of land
tongues out into the plain from the first bench, it seems that he is
headed to cross it into the jungle beyond. As he climbs out of the
plain, on to solid ground under the forest trees, we notice he is ten
feet in length to the drop of the tail, which is short, and he drags
the end on the ground. He stands at least six feet in height. As we
follow his moist spoor, we soon enter a small park covered with grass
and flowers. Suddenly, we hear the most blood curdling hiss, that
chills the marrow in our veins. What can it mean? The _Styracosaurus_
knows for he is instantly alert, lifting his head in the direction of
the sound, he drops it again, and stands at bay. With another blood
curdling hiss, a gigantic carnivore leaps into view, from a trail we
were following. Our spiked dinosaur stands rigid as if cast in bronze,
with the great nasal horn pointed towards his dreaded foe, and the
spikes frowning above, and protecting the vital organs, the great
cat-like reptile crawls stealthily forward. Don’t fear friends to watch
the combat. It is very terrible to see a blood thirsty tyrant slack his
thirst in the blood of his victim. He attempts to find a vulnerable
spot to strike with his powerful claw-armed hind foot, the claws of
hardened horn, sharp and recurved, each a foot in length and spreading
over half a square yard of surface. Or he would like to seize the
thinly covered abdominal walls, with his horrid teeth, lance-like that
fill the dentary and maxillary bones of the lower and upper jaws, that
are nearly three feet in length. With a gape of the mouth of nearly two
feet, the red gums, roof and floor of the mouth, with the great forked
tongue, present a terrifying appearance. But the spiked lizard is on
guard, and when his enemy makes a sudden dash at him, he presents his
impregnable head. In spite of his bulk, being much heavier than the
carnivore, he seems to revolve on a pivot, and the shield is where the
_Gorgosaur_ attempts to strike. The instinct of self defense is ever
present, in time of danger. Sometimes the herbivore makes a sudden
dash, and tries to horn the agile foe, or with open mouth tries to
bring his vise-like beak together in his enemies flesh. We watch the
combat with bated breath.
The seven horned brute is too much for the tiger of the glades; so,
thoroughly exhausted at last, he creeps off a side path to hunt an
easier prey. While our _Styracosaurus_ lumbers off into dense
foliage of the low lying plain.
“The Dead Lodge Canyon” below “Happy Jack Ferry,” some thirty miles
north of Brooks, Alberta, and but six miles from the new line from
Swift Current to Bassano, a short cut of the Central Pacific Railway,
is one of the most remarkable gorges on the continent. Not only because
it is the old burial ground of many forms of the dinosaurs that have
passed out of existence, leaving no descendents, but on account of its
scenic beauty. The silvery grey sandstones with their darker bands of
clay, is interstratified with a chocolate colored bed near the top,
rich in lignitic shales of an almost black color. The black streak can
be traced for miles, and in some places develops into a bed of soft
coal, that is mined by the farmers. The canyon is but little over a
mile wide, and about five hundred feet deep, the upper reaches being
composed of dark marine shales, called the Pierre here, but the same
beds in the Judith River country of Montana are called Bear Paw shales.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Sternberg’s Camp 3 miles below Steveville.
Page 104.]
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--The picture of _Styracosaurus_ in bottom of
gorge. Page 102.]