January, 1909.
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction by Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn | [xi] | |
| I. | Early Days and Work in the Dakota Group of the Cretaceous | [1] |
| II. | First Expedition to the Kansas Chalk (1876) | [32] |
| III. | Expedition with Professor Cope to the Bad Lands of the Upper Cretaceous (1876) | [61] |
| IV. | Further Work in the Kansas Chalk (1877) | [99] |
| V. | Discovery of the Loup Fork Beds of Kansas and Subsequent Work There (1877, 1882–1884) | [120] |
| VI. | Expedition to the Oregon Desert in 1877 | [144] |
| VII. | Expedition to the John Day River in 1878 | [170] |
| VIII. | First Expedition to the Permian of Texas in 1882 | [205] |
| IX. | Expeditions in the Permian of Texas for Professor Cope (1895–1897) | [230] |
| X. | In the Red Beds of Texas for the Royal Museum of Munich (1901) | [244] |
| XI. | Conclusion | [265] |
| INDEX | [283] |
ILLUSTRATIONS
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| Charles H. Sternberg | [Frontispiece] |
| Rocks of Laramie Beds on South Schneider Creek, Converse Co., Wyoming | [16] |
| Weathered Rocks and Laramie Beds near South Schneider Creek | [16] |
| Mushroom-like Concretion Known as Pulpit Rock | [17] |
| Fossil Leaves of Sassafras dissectum. (After Lesquereux.) | [20] |
| Fossil Leaves. a, Unopened Leaf Nodule. b, Nodule opened to show fossil leaf. c, d, e, f, Various forms of fossil leaves | [21] |
| Facsimile of letter from Dr. Lesquereux to the author | [24] |
| Skull and Front Limb of Clidastes tortor | [44] |
| Skeleton of Clidastes tortor | [45] |
| Skeleton of Ram-nosed Tylosaur, Tylosaurus dyspelor | [45] |
| Ram-nosed Tylosaur, Tylosaurus dyspelor. Restoration by Osborn and Knight | [50] |
| Skull of the Flat-wristed Mosasaur, Platecarpus coryphæus | [51] |
| Restoration of Kansas Cretaceous Animals. (From drawing by S. Prentice, after Williston.) a, Unitacrinus socialis; b, Clidastes velox; c, Ornithostoma ingens | [56] |
| Giant Cretaceous Fish, Portheus molossus (above), compared with a six-foot modern Tarpon (below) | [57] |
| Lower jaw of Trachodon marginatus, SHOWING SUCCESSIVE LAYERS OF TEETH. Top and side views of a tooth of Myledaphus bipartitus. (After Osborn and Lambe.) | [76] |
| Skull of a Duck-billed Dinosaur, Diclonius, FOUR FEET IN LENGTH | [77] |
| Professor E. D. Cope | [78] |
| Brontosaurus or Thunder Lizard. Restoration by Osborn and Knight | [79] |
| Fossil shells, Haploscapha grandis. (After Cope.) | [108] |
| Charles Sternberg and son taking up a large slab of fossils from a chalk bed in Gove Co., Kansas | [109] |
| Camp and Wagon of the fossil hunters on Grasswood Creek, Converse Co., Wyoming | [109] |
| Skeleton of the Plesiosaur, Dolichorhynchus osborni. (After Williston.) | [114] |
| Fossil limb bones of the Giant Sea Tortoise, Protostega gigas | [115] |
| Fossil shell of Giant Land Turtle, Testudo orthopygia | [122] |
| The Snake-necked Elasmosaurus, Elasmosaurus platyurus. Restoration by Osborn and Knight | [123] |
| Three-toed Horse, Hypohippus. (After Gidley.) | [132] |
| Fossil Rhinoceros, Teleoceras fossiger. (After Osborn.) | [133] |
| Skull and tusks of Imperial Mammoth, Elephas imperator | [178] |
| Fossil-bearing Cliffs. (After Merriam.) Upper John Day exposure | [179] |
| Fossil-bearing Cliffs. (After Merriam.) Middle John Day exposure | [179] |
| Fossil-bearing Cliffs. (After Merriam.) Mascall Formation | [202] |
| Fossil-bearing Cliffs. (After Merriam.) Clarno Formation | [202] |
| Skull of Great Saber-toothed Tiger, Pogonodon platycopis. (After Cope.) | [203] |
| Skeleton of Fin-backed Lizard, Naosaurus claviger | [234] |
| Fin-backed Lizard, Naosaurus claviger. Restoration by Osborn and Knight | [235] |
| Facsimile of letter from Prof. E. D. Cope to the author | [238] |
| Fossil skull of Giant Salamander, Diplocaulus magnicornis. (After Broili.) | [240] |
| Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn | [241] |
| Facsimile of letter from Dr. Karl von Zittel to the author | [246] |
| Dr. Karl von Zittel | [256] |
| Shell of Toxochelys bauri? | [257] |
| Niobrara Group, Cretaceous chalk with cap rock of Loup Fork Tertiary, Known as Castle Rock, Gove Co., Kansas | [262] |
| Chalk of Kansas, known as the Coffee Mill. Hell Creek | [262] |
| Bones of Platecarpus coryphæus | [263] |
| Skeleton of Hesperornis regalis, the Giant-toothed Bird of the Kansas Cretaceous | [266] |
| Slab of Fossil Crinoids, Uintacrinus socialis, CONTAINING 160 CALYCES, COVERING FOUR BY SEVEN FEET | [267] |
| Skull and Horns of Giant Bison from Hoxie, Kansas. Spread of horn cores six feet, one inch; length along curve, eight feet | [268] |
| Jaw of Columbian Mammoth, Elephas columbi | [269] |
| Three-horned Dinosaur, Triceratops sp. Restoration by Osborn and Knight | [270] |
| Duck-billed Dinosaur, Trachodon mirabilis. Restoration by Osborn and Knight | [271] |
INTRODUCTION
By Henry Fairfield Osborn,
President and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology of the American Museum of Natural History, New York
Our bookshelves contain the lives or narratives of adventure of many hunters of living game, but the life of a fossil hunter has never been written before. Both are in the closest touch with nature and, therefore, full of interest. The one is as full of adventure, excitement and depression, hope and failure, as the other, yet there is ever the great difference that the hunter of live game, thorough sportsman though he may be, is always bringing live animals nearer to death and extinction, whereas the fossil hunter is always seeking to bring extinct animals back to life. This revivification of the past, of the forms which once graced the forests and plains, and rivers and seas, is attended with as great fascination as the quest of live game, and to my mind is a still more honorable and noble pursuit.
The richness of the great American fossil fields, which extend over the vast arid and semi-arid area of the West, scattered over both the great plains region and the great mountain region, has resulted in the creation of a distinctively American profession: that of fossil hunting. The fossil hunter must first of all be a scientific enthusiast. He must be willing to endure all kinds of hardships, to suffer cold in the early spring and the late autumn and early winter months, to suffer intense heat and the glare of the sun in summer months, and he must be prepared to drink alkali water, and in some regions to fight off the attack of the mosquito and other pests. He must be something of an engineer in order to be able to handle large masses of stone and transport them over roadless wastes of desert to the nearest shipping point; he must have a delicate and skilful touch to preserve the least fragments of bone when fractured; he must be content with very plain living, because the profession is seldom, if ever, remunerative, and he is almost invariably underpaid; he must find his chief reward and stimulus in the sense of discovery and in the despatching of specimens to museums which he has never seen for the benefit of a public which has little knowledge or appreciation of the self-sacrifices which the fossil hunter has made.