The record-union., 1899-09-20


the most important results Of the ex-
petitions work.
The objective point of the geologists
Of the party was the canyon of the
Upper Platte River. This great natural
wonder has slumbered in obscurity in
spite Of the activity OF the American
sightseer. 1t is the last Of the great
gorges to be examined by scientists,
and no adequate popular or scientific
description has ever been published Of
its picturesque grandeur. The first
photographs were taken by the scien-
lists of the party who had equipped
themselves with cameras. The can
yon is eight miles in length, and as it
winds through walls that are in places
over a thousand feet high, it presents
a spectacle only equaled in the Grand
Canyon Of the Colorado. The Platte
Canyon has an advantage over the
better known canyon in it's previous
isolation.
Just north Of the canyon are located
line exposures of the dinoSaur bed.
Dr. Crook of Northwestern University
made a remarkable discovery of q
huge animal and remained several
days behind his associates that he
might take out the remains Professor
Peck of Lafayette College found the
grave of a huge ichthysaur, and many
of the party collected valuable jurassic
material.
Many scientists are yet at work on
their quarries, and will not give up the
pursuit until the snow flies. The Car
negie Museum collectors are devoting
their attention to double raftered'
creature with a long neck, tail and
hind legs and short fore legs, the whole
length of the animal being sixty feet.
1t stood twenty feet high at the hips,
the thigh bone or femur being six feet
long and fifteen inches in diameter. It's
head was as fiat as a frogs, and it had
relatively no greater brain capacity.
The animal was found near the sur
face, and the prospectors have already
secured the vertebral column, the CEN
trum of the largest vertebrae being
twelve inches in diameter, eighteen ribs
six feet long and the entire pelvic gir-
die almost unique in its completeness.
The bones of the legs and feet have
been largely disinterred, and the collec-
tors have also in hand nearly all Of
the cervicle yertebrae, and are follow
ing the lines into the bluff in the hope
Of securing the bones of the head
These bones are embedded in a matrix
of clay, which, when dry, breaks up
under the geologist's pick into small
cubes, but when wet sticks like Jewell
er's clay
The Carnegie quarry is an exposure
of the Jurassic which runs northeast
as an extension Of the formation at
Como Bluffs Though this deposit is
quite barren toward the west, and only
occasional fossils are found in a dis
integrated condition to the eastward,
ON the shores of what appears to have
been the bed of an ancient lake, the re-
mains of animal life are more abun-
dant and better preserved. Unfortu-
nately there is very little of this form
alton Of the old lake bed exposed ex-
cept in three places, the rest being COW
cred with a depth in some places of
300 feet or more of the tertiary gravels
The first exposure is at the Como Bluff
near Aurora Station, on the Union Pa
cific; the second is twelve miles north
of Aurora, where the American Mu-
scum of Natural History has it's
quarry, and the third is at Camp Car
H.
The results of the first fossil expe-
dition are to-day in the museums of
the land. A dozen quarries will be de-
veloped next year. One of the perma-
nent results of this years pilgrimage
will be the establishment of a per1na-
nent summer school of geology and
paleontology at the University of
Wyoming. Eastern students will thus
be enabled to spend their vacations in
field work under the eyes of men who
know Wyoming formation as the pages
Of an open book
Biologists believe that the Territory
now known as Wyoming once had
numerous fresh water lakes and a. cli-
mate approaching the semi tropical.
The animals whose bones are now com
ing to light inhabited these lakes and
the adjoining swamps in myriads.
They sank into the mud in dying. and
their bones were covered over with
other deposits and became petrified.
The large beds are found at points
supposed to have been the mouths of
great rivers, the animals after death
having foated down these rivers to
places where they We're deposited in
these estuaries, thus accounting for the
the vast deposits in certain places.
Within the next three years these GEM
eteries will yield their dead, and the
museums of our colleges will be filled
with fossil bones prepared for restora-
ton in the skeleton structure