Specimens continued to show in record abundance, most of them duplicating the earlier finds of Diplodocus and Stegosaurus. But there were new forms, too. One of them was a Camptosaurus, the first to be found at the quarry. It was a modified biped of plant-eating habits, a little more than 10 feet long, with its skull and part of the tail missing.
By 1921 the deposit had been worked to a length of 400 feet east and west, and to a depth of about 60 feet. Rock was being stripped from the quarry face at the rate of approximately 20,000 cubic feet annually, and the chisels of Douglass and his men had penetrated to the richest bone-bearing zone.
In the following year they uncovered one of the most perfect skeletons of a dinosaur ever exhumed. It was a small sauropod named, Camarasaurus lentus. When found, its 17-foot vertebral column was practically intact, except for a few tail segments. The skull was in place, and the limbs in their approximate positions.
It was an important find scientifically. The position of the limbs gave clear evidence of the manner in which these animals carried themselves. The articulation between the thigh bone and the pelvis showed conclusively that sauropods walked with their legs more-or-less vertical to the body and not with the bowed-out crawling posture habitual to lizards, as many scientists had supposed. The skull was the finest known for this genus. It was complete even to the sclerotic ring—a complex of bony plates which surrounded the living eye and protected it.
As exhibit material it was without rival. It was mounted as found, lying on its side, the bones fixed in death in the matrix in which they had been preserved—a fitting climax to the 13 consecutive years that had seen an unknown sandstone ridge in Utah become Dinosaur National Monument.
In those 13 years the Carnegie Museum had taken from the quarry parts of 300 dinosaur specimens, 2 dozen of which were mountable skeletons. Ten different species were represented. It was the best collection of Middle Mesozoic monsters in the world.
In the years that immediately followed, the still-rich “dig” was worked by two other organizations—the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Utah.
Camarasaurus SKELETON—THE MOST PERFECT REMOVED FROM THE QUARRY. (COURTESY, CARNEGIE MUSEUM.)
But finally the museums had reaped their harvest. The fruits of the harvest had gone to enrich many of their finest displays. However, still buried in the untouched part of the wall were the remains of still more dinosaurs. All that was needed was to reveal them. The 67° tilt of the rock made it a perfect exhibit face. Strip off the overlying layers, expose the skeletons, and relief them in place. This had been Douglass’s idea as far back as 1915, when he recorded it in his diary.