The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-09-20
Have Yielded Treasures to Many
American College Museums.
FINDS MADE THIS YEAR
SCIENTISTS FROM ALL OVER
COUNTRY LABoRED THERE.
Graves of Huge Dinosaurs Opened
and Remarkable Animal Life
Shown to Exist In Prehistoric
Days-Double Raftered Creature
of Huge Dimensions


Laramie, Wyo., Sept. 19.--Fifty-ei
American colleges and museums viii
be enriched at the opening Of the coll
lege year by unprecedented accessions
of fossils, professors and students from
as many institutions having just spent
a month collecting the bones and vege-
table remains of millions of years from
the hillsides Of Wyoming. Almost a
hundred enthusiasts came TO this city
as the guests of Wilbur C. Knight, of
/! the state university, and the work of
Quitting was done under his direction.
Late in July a long Scavalcade wound
its lesiurely way out of Laramie for a
forty days wandering in the wilderness.
The visible results of the collecting
tour are evidence that every scientist
labored to good effect in the interests
of his institution. The first field of
consequence was encountered at Cop
per creek. Fossils We're found abund-
ant in red sandstone of the Fox Hills
formation. Several species were OBJ
tanned that are believed to be new to
science. Professor Knight found a
variety of pectim and Professors Collie
and Todd discovered pieces of coral,
an extremely rare occurrence in this
formation. Mr. Vincent gathered two
varieties of deciduous leaves. This de-
posit has never been described as oc-
curing in the Fox Hills.
Huge Dinosaurs Found.
The scientists studied with intense
interest the classic Como bluff whence
Yale has drawn her dinosaur treasures.
Twenty years ago Professor Marsh
opened up these quarries near Medi-
cine Bow, and placed the field work in
the hands of S. W. Silliston and w. H.
Reed. In spite of the previous thor
ough prospecting along the Como ex-
posture, several remarkable finds were
made.
The party from the Gustavus Adolf
plus college of Minnesota, opened the
grave of a huge dinosaur. Several
days were given to the exposure while
the expedition moved on, and the re-
suits indicate that promising quarry
has been located for next seasons
work.
Professor Charlton and his assistants
from Baylor university in Texas locat-
ed another dinosaur which becomes the
distinctive property of their institu
ton. They also unearthed plesiosaur,
the firse to be reported from this for
nation in Wyoming. Professor Knight
found a saurian of large dimensions
that remains as yet unidentified. None
of these animals can be removed till
next season.
Tooth of Saurian.
A choice saurian tooth was picked up
by Professor Brown of West Virginia.
This tooth was black and brilliantly
polished, with both edges definitely
serrated. Every member of the party
secured a section of a prehistoric squid
fish called the belmmite. This black
conical fragment, resembling a torpedo,
once contained ink for defensive war
fare. Specimens of this sepia sac have
been found in Wyoming still preserv-
ing the ink through millions of years.
Professor Beecher of Yale once wrote
label for such specimen, using the
ink it had preserved so successfully.
The expedition moved on to the
Freeze-Out hills and spent several
days in the heart of the dinosaur re-
gion. At sunrise each morning the
hillsides were covered with enthusiast
tic scientists, hammering at the ex-
posed rocks or eXcavating in search
of cones. An hour later they were
struggling down the hills with a huge
fragments of ,femur or rib. Among
those who were successful in prospect
ing at this point were Professors Yates
and Brown of Coe university and Pro-
fessor Collie Professors Knight and
Barbour made a joint discovery of
fossils in the fresh water Jurassic. Up
to this time no fossils except dinosaurs
had been found in this formation, but
those discovered at this camp included
lamelli branches, gasteropods, fish
bones and teeth. These throw new
light upon this period, and are regard
ed as among the most important re-
suits of the expeditions work
Was Twenty Feet High.
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 frogs, and
it had relatively no greater brain ca
pacity. The animal was found near the
surface, and the prospectors have al
ready secured the vertahral column, the
centrum of the largest vertrabrae be-
ing twelve inches in diameter, eigh-
teen ribs, six feet long, and the entire
pelvic girdle, almost unique in its COM
pleteness. The bones of the legs and
1eet nave Deen- largely dlSlnterred, and
the collectors have also in hand nearly
all of the cervicle vertabrae and are
following 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 dug dry breaks
up under the biologists pick into small
cubes, but when wet sticks like jew
eler's clay.
Wyoming In Prehistoric Days.
Biologists believe that the territory
now known as Wyoming once had nu-
merous fresh water lakes and eli
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 de-
posits and became petrified. The large
beds are found at points supposed to
have been the mouths of great rivers,
the animals after death having floated
down these rivers to places where they
were deposited in these estuaries, thus.
accounting for the vast deposits in GER
tain places. Within the next three;
years these cemeteries will yield their
dead and the museums of our colleges
will be filed with fossil bones pre-
pared for restoration in the skeleton
structure.