Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-12
STORY OF A B0NEYARD
The Myriad Fossils of Sagebrush
Desert Are Mute Reminders
OF EARTH'S CATACLYSMIC NIGHT.
Our Spinning Globe Must Once Have
Shifted Its Polar Points
RECORDS OF MONSTERS OF THE PAST
WRITTEN FOR THE DrsPArcH.1


remarkable find of cretaceous fossils in the
State of Oregon. Just south of the Blue
Mountains in the State mentioned is what
is known as Sagebrush Desert, and in this
desert, in the midst of wild, picturesque
| and inhospitable desolation such Is can
hardly elsewhere be found, lies q small
body of water known as Fossil Lake.
Eastward and southwark from this small
body of water, sketches long line of barren
and waterless waste, while to the northeast,
rise the dreary Wagon Tire Mountains, so
called from the hnding of the tires of the
wagons of lost and starved emigrants who
undertook to cross this plain of sandy DESC
laton TIE formation of the entire region
is most singular and the area of aridity
has diameter of about $50 miles with very
infrequent springs which are hard to find.
Such is the character of this district, that
only rarely have bold hunters dared to cross
it and the sights that these have described,
have been of a most peculiar character;
strange, weird and uncanny progress
through the shifting sands has been so toll
some and this, combined with the upbroken
silence and the entire absence of any living
thing, has made the trip such, that none
cared to make it a second time.
History Written in VoneA
But while there is singular absence of
any form of lite there. there is most re-
markable and altogether exceptional and
| unparalleled presence of the dead. the
whole region is one vast archaeological
burying grouud. 1t is the graveyard of a
former world. It is a wide interment-
ground Of the remains of animal forms that
were once on the earth, but which the
earth knows not now and will not know
again forever. The dry salubrious air, the
| light and very infrequent rain and the
preservative character of the arid sands,
have kept intact the bones of beast and
fowl that lived in time so remote that we
can only refer to it as to the indefinite
periods of geologic time.
1t appears from the authority cited that
a college museum in the East sent three
gentlemen into this region to search for
fossils and they camped among these pre-
historic dead during the greater part of the
past year. These gentlemen are represented
as having been selected for their scientific
equipment and the specimens they exhibit,
make it clear that on the shores of this in
significant Oregon lake, was once gathered
together so wonderful and unique q collec-
tion of creatures that the whole seems more
like some strange unearthly dream, than a
reality with the ocular evidence to sustain it.
The result of their labors has been, not
only to bring together the most remarkable
collection o. fossils that the world has ever
seen, but with this collection, comes the
evidence that entirely refutes and con-
POUNDS many of the theories Of eminent
savants, who have expounded learnedly on
fossil remains and who from single bone
thought they could construct the entire
creature. The list comprises more than
1000 cretaceous fossils, and some months
will be required in classifying and packing
them.
Brilliant Birds Onoe Flew There.
1t has hitherto bcen almost impossible to
obtain specimen fossil bone of bird,
and the few specimens found in collections
have all been imperfect. But the shores of
this desert lake TEEN with the bones of
fowl of kind whose wings have not
tapped the air in scores of centuries. In
all there were gathered 81 specimens of
birds and 62 of animals. Both from some of
the fossils of beast and fowl it is evident
that the region was once tropical, although
it is now cold and barren.
Horses of q rare shape were there and
three distinct species of camel, the smallest
no larger than common deer, uamas,
m mammoths, huge sloths as large as oxen,
with many extinct species of wolf and dog.
There is also evidence that low, primitive
m an was not lacking to grace with his pres
ence this wonderful menagerie, for, mingled
with the bones were spear and arrow heads
which had been chipped from blocks OF
volcanic glass
For years this interesting region has been
locally known by the neighboring cattle
men as 'the boneyard," but until recent
research was made, the remains were sup
posed to be those of later animals. Here
Tn en-, it would appear, are plain. accessible
a % easily Transcribed leaves of the remote
Past. 1t is hardly necessary to say that
these leaves should be intelligently handled
by those who have the requisite intellectual
equipment to do SO. As an ounce of demon
stration is worth pound of speculation and,
being such, here may be learned some les
sons in fundamental principles, some ma
terial may be gathered for foundation
work from indisputable facts
This Latitude Was Once Tropical
Although this is not the only evidence
that the region so far north in North Amer
lea as Oregon. was once tropical. yet here
is massed in small and accessible space,
more of such evidence and evidence of
greater significance than all that has ever
been accumulated from other sources. But,
if the locality now known as Sagebrush |
Desert once lay in the tropics. were our
globes divisions as to zones the same then |
as now? Has this any bearing on, or rela- |
tion to, the presence Of the carcasses of |
tropical and semi-tropical animals which |
are now entombed in polar ice, animals with |
their skins and flesh even intact, and which
have been there during thousands of years |
and in conditions which would insure their |
preservation for millenniums to come?
And if the parallel that now divides the
United States from British America, with
the region as far north rs hundreds of miles
within the Arctic Circle, were once tropical, |
with the polar points as now, what must
have been the equatorial region as regards
While it is easy to conceive that q
gradually cooling sphere would first invite
life to its polar points, q most perplexing
and complicating feature is the fact, that
frigidity so soon succeeded torridity, that
flesh had not time enough to decay, that
the change came with such suddenness that
ice entombed it. This could not have
taken place on the gradual cooling hypothe-
SIS. nor does il account for the budding
together of the vast aggregation of animals
around the lake in Sagebrush Desert
Information Needed as to Geology.
But the account given of this find is too
meager, it does not abound in enough es-
sential detail, to forecast its full signif- |
canoe. These fossils, it seems, are generally |
found in the sand about the stones of this
desert But nothing is given as to the
nature and character of these stones, SO we
are left entirely in the dark as to their
geological order or whether or not they |
have been subject to glacial action. The
, 4 H. L..