Arizona silver belt., 1896-11-12
SEARCH OF SCIENTISTS.
Prof. Osborn's Hunt for Prehistoric
 Quadrupeds of the Rockies.
Fossn Hunting and It's Attendant Ntc,s- situdss and Emotions co Summer Heat a Great Obstacle
 to Success.


 to Success.
 Prof Henry Fairfield 0sburn, cura. tor of vertebrate paleontology in the American Museum of Natural History, contributes paper on Prehistoric Quadrupeds of the Rockies" in which he says:
 Before describing the animals them selves we may stop to note what our present knowledge of them has cost in human skill and endurance. Every one ot these pictures is drawn from com plete skeleton hewn out of the solid rock, and each of these skeletons rep resents years and years of arduous cN. ploration in which Wortman, Hatcher, Peterson and others sent out by the American museum, by Princeton or by Yale, have become famous. Our party found the Titanothere in broiling alkali canyon of South Dakota. Its head was protruding from a hard sand stone cliff, and the chest, limbs and trunk were chiseled out by the men un der a rude shelter which lowered the noon temperature to l06 degrees. They were encouraged to think that the whole beast had been mired in standing position. This was probably tho case orig inally, but suddenly they came across a fault; it appeared that the hind limbs had been swept away; and it required two years more searching before bon7s of an animal of core spending size were secured, Every other skeleton has its own story of de termination, disappointment and sur prise,
 The old lake basins, once on seq level, and enriched by the moist, balmy winds of the Pacific, are now elevated from l,O00 to 5,OC0 feet, The only redeeming feature of their present aspect of ab solute baTrenness is that the absence of vegetation leaves the old graves and burying grounds bare. Fossil bones and skeletons are not plentiful--far from it; but a trained eye sees a great distance along the bare gullics, cliff and canyons, and your daily scramble of from Is to 20 miles enables you to plpSDNNi ONtA .a NNA1s NAANANais T SA NAN of in the morning, stifTened by frosty night. You know by sad experience hat the ice in the basins does not prom ise a cool day. Your backbone is stH! freezing while the sun begins to bro;' and blister your skin, and you arc the living embodiments of the famous des- sert served by the JaPaDesc--a hot crusi 1.s ,-,s1 l.., gins on the upland, which may be the actual level of the old lake bottom; and, as if walking through graveyard, you never look for bones until the land lrsaks away by erosion.
 When you reach the edge of this up and you look off into sea of rock, wild jcyond description, and you plunge down the slope to a certain level. Then .0u follow the level round ard round and in and out. Here you are on stQT1 which bears fossils. Above and below it are other familiar fossiiiferOus seams. and between them are barren seams where you will rot find a bone if you search till doomsday. This level, per, hsrs, represents the delta of great mountain river which swept the ani- r7als out with coarse sand, pebbles agd debris. Sometimes you walk miles and miles. up and down, day after day, and .r nuthirg bnt common turtle bones, l,ch are so deceptive and tempting at distance that the fossil hunter pro ucly kicks them aside. Turtles arc nd everywherC, because they swan al. baskCd in the sunshine in the mid .a,.cs and occasionally sanl. to the bot t0.l, while the carcasses Of land animals 3. ere buried in the dcltGs or nearer -lorc.
 In such fossil-barren land the hea> ems twice as torrid as on the buttes, 5ur muscles and lack ache douE!y.
 ur tongues lies Earched from the last
 lp of Gll.a.i water, your soul abhoTs a
 .ri ard longs for the green shade of .. aa.t and the watermelon, when, all
 60 suGisr, a little projecting 6oRt a'-es your wcaried eye. You fall or ra~ lueca and breathe gently on the gs1 sand; little scraping, and you |, signs of sllull-perhaps of some .ssiug Link. The thrill Of discovery reads ike an elixir through your me, and two or three hours later.
 or carefully cutting out the prize ny al.t vigorously back to camp,every
 nan.
 lus fossil hunting is a life of vicissi-
 -5 and emotions. The fossil hunter
 rcdCGtinCd to his work, like the
 tsr:ln. He returns east in the
 -En, vow!ng he will never go back
 ne Fad Lands; but as the favorable as of spring come round he be- ... ToTe and more restless, until he
 /. The country that is as hot as
 leg, watcrcd by staguant alkali pools.
 almost invariably the richest in fos
 8. Here, in fact gs you find the great
 z variety and number of bones, you
 'oy the most delightful flights of the
 cntihc imagination; when parchcd
 q burned. you conjure before you the ories of these ancient lakes. Gen
 ".
 No Need of Them.