I found in this bed hundreds of fragments of rock filled with the glittering scales of fishes, as brilliant now as in the days when they covered the bodies of these old fish. Here, also, I discovered a huge specimen of the long-horned species (Diplocaulus magnicornis?), and others much smaller, which proved to be the new Diplocaulus copei. “This,” my notes say, “promises to be one of the finest localities I have found, and pays for the days of search under trying conditions.”
When I reached camp, I found that George also had had a red-letter day, and had found a bone bed of minute animals on some brakes of Grey Creek under the roots of the grass in a washout. He brought in a skull, the smallest I had ever collected, with a great many broken bones and teeth. One specimen, which Dr. Broili named in my honor Cardicephalus sternbergi, was not over half an inch long. I secured here six skulls of the new Diplocaulus copei, also.
On Monday, the twelfth of August, Dr. Broili reached Seymour, and George and I met him at the station. A tall, strong, fine-looking German, with a full beard, he impressed me very favorably. The great difficulty was that, owing to my deaf ear, it was very hard for me to understand his broken English, and unfortunately I could not speak a word of German. I judged that he had learned his English from an Englishman and not from an American, as he used a peculiar brogue with which I was not familiar. George learned to understand him better, and they became the best of friends.
We went back to camp, where we had the pleasure of Dr. Broili’s company for two weeks, during which I formed a friendship which I have always deeply appreciated. He was delighted with my work and the material we had secured, but, as he says in the introduction to his great work describing my material, he could not stand the heat.
He describes part of my material in his splendid work on the Permian Stegocephala and reptiles, published in Stuttgart, with one hundred and twenty pages of text and thirteen fine plates. He says on p. 1: “The excellent results of the expedition of Mr. Sternberg in the spring of 1901 to Texas, which brought many very valuable specimens of Eryops, Dimetredon, and Labidosaurus to the Paleontological Museum’s collection, caused the conservator of the Royal Paleontological Collection, Councillor von Zittel, to send out in the year of 1901 a second expedition to the Permian beds of the same territory, he being again successful in securing Mr. Charles Sternberg, the excellent collector from Lawrence, Kansas. Already in June of the same year he was in the midst of his sphere of activity in the Wichita Permian beds, near the small town of Seymour, Baylor County, located on a branch of the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad. On my arrival in the camp, through the assistance of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Science, it was made possible for me to take part in the collection from the beginning to the end of August. I found already a very good collection of very rich materials, which, besides parts of Dimetredon, Labidosaurus, Pariotichus, and other Theromorphs, included an excellent collection of different examples of Diplocaulus, of which some still possessed the greater part of the vertebræ. During my stay in that territory, our work principally consisted in making collections from our camp. We were compelled, on account of scarcity of water from the great heat, to keep near Seymour.”
Fig. 36.—Dr. Karl von Zittel.
Born September 25, 1839. Died January 5, 1904.
(After Pampeckj.)
Fig. 37.—Shell of Toxochelys bauri?
Discovered by Charles Sternberg in Gove Co., Kansas. (After Weiland.)
