EONS UNROLL WITH FOSSIL DISCOVERIES

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7412, 20 December 1930, Page 16

EONS UNROLL WITH FOSSIL DISCOVERIES

Dr. Glenn L. Jcpscn, back from a Princeton University expedition 10 southern Montana, has announced the discovery of dinosaur eggs, the first to be found in America. The following story is a historic summary of this field of research, tracing such activities from discoveries in ISO2 and from the pioneer work of Professor 0. C. Marsh, of New Haven, from IS6S to IS 73, down to Dr. Jopsen’s expedition.

Tho first traces of dinosaurs to be discovered in North America scent to havo been those three-toed 15-inch footprints, on a piece of brownstonf, plowed up in the Connecticut Valley in 1802. These imprints became popularly known as the tracks of Noah's ravenl Not until the middle '3os were those tracks seriously studied. At about the same time, a flagstone, three feet by five, quarried near Middletown in 1778 and in use for 00 years —fortunately face down —was discovered to show in relief 48 tracks of the animal originally called brontozouni silli.inanium, and six of a lesser species.

This famous slab of browustouo is now in the museum of Amherst College. It is interesting to note that dinosaur tracks were being noticed in England and America about the same time, though not yet recognised for what they were.

Fossil remains were well known long before this, of course, but few persons publicly ventured the heresy that they belonged to extinct animals. West Best Source of Fossils. But though hundreds of dinosaur footprints havo been turned up in the Connecticut Valley, few of their bones have been found there. These have been swept out to sea, Frederic Lucas thinks, and buried beyond our rcacn. It is in the Western SStates of Wyoming and Montana, and in the Canadian provinces of Alberta, that dinosaur bones arc most abundant and most accessible, and it is in this region that Dr. Gienn L. Jepscn's dinosaur eggs have been reported now. The earliest fossils from the western plains were brought in by fur traders in tho ’forties. These were mostly bones of rhinoccri, water-deer and turtles; but a cretaceous dinosaur was described by Joseph Leidy in the early ’fifties.

Surveys for the transcontinental railways resulted in new fossil discoveries, and in 18(18 tho pioneer American, paleontologist, Professor O. C. Marsh, of New Haven, made his first trip to the Kockics for fossils. , ,

tlio first of a series of expeditions conducted by Professor Marsh from 187!) to 1573. He was accompanied on these by recent graduates and seniors at Yale.

These young gentlemen paid their own way and gave their services in return for the adventure. They had plenty of it, and plenty of real hardships.too. the menace of prairie fire and of Indian lighting being what they were in a West that was still comparatively wild. Rivalry Develops.

At the sarno time, Professor Edward Driukor Cope, of Philadelphia had expeditions in the field, and the sharp professional rivalry between the two groups resulted in much hasty collecting and a loss of valuable remains which later expeditions were to deplore; and resulted sometimes, too, in hasty reconstruction which made for amusing blunders. Each group made all speed in shipping its fossils back East, in tho race for classification and the announcement of a new find. It was Professor Cope, so the story goes, who reassembled an incomplete dinosaur skeleton of a kind having- a very long tail and a very long neck and, for lack of enough vertebrae to fill up the gaps, put the creature's head on the tip oi the tail. Rival laughter had hardly died away when Professor Marsh made a blunder, in turn, which evened up the score.

Como Bluff in central Wyoming, discovered as a dinosaur fossil source in 1877, has continued to yield valuable finds. It was not far from here that the famous "Bone Cabin" was found —a hut built by a Mexican sheep herder on a foundation of weatheredout dinosaur bones!

The general impression of the dinosaur as a creature of fantastic size is responsible for the disappointment felt by so many people at the small size of tho dinosaur eggs. Those from central Asia look very much like big, baked potatoes, but as dinosaur eggs they fall short of expected proportions. They were laid, of course, by one of the smaller varieties.

Tho name dinosaur, meaning terrible reptile, was given to these animals because some of the first discovered were big, powerful, flesh-eating creatures, like brontosaurus, the thunder' reptile, as big as half a dozen elephants shaking tho earth as he trod; or tyrannosaurus, most terrible of all beasts of prey, standing IS to 20 feet high, 47 feet long, with' an outfit' of curved double-edged teeth and long, sharp claws that are alarming to contemplate even in the peaceful surroundings of a natural museum. But there were ‘many kinds of dinosaurs, and members of the family ranged in size and outline from these giants down to little compsognathus, no larger than a hen. Hor&a is Traced. If the dinosaurs were more spectacular as. fossil finds, the extinct ancestors of the. horse, beginning with The-little Eohippus, were equally to catch the public fancy of the 'seventies. It was tho fossil series of these assembled at New Haven in 1876, that gave Huxley his most impressive arguments on evolution. The horse, one remembers, was extinct in both North and South America when the white man came. Yet

all of his fossil ancestors are here, and

they afford one of the most fascinating of natural history stories from the popular point of view. The exhibit of the American Museum of Natural History in New Fork, from the little “Dawn Horse’’ (Eoluppus), named by Professor Mars# in 187(5, to tho most recent prehistoric ancestor, differing little from the modern horse, shows the progress of the little fourtoed creature, adapting himself through the ages from a forest life to one on the open grassy plains. It shows that ho did so much running —for life was a race with competitors and a struggle with environment then as now—that he began to run on lus middle toe, getting a longer stride by lengthening his foot, until in the course of millions of years the unused toes disappeared, leaving the modern horse walking on a hoof which is in reality the development of a middle toenail. Found Birds With Teeth. Complete skeletons of tho dawn horse Eoluppus, are rare, but thousands of fragments ’have come from the Big Horn Basin, Wyo.; from Montana, Utah, Colorado and Now Mexico. * The lirsf complete skeleton of Eohippus was found by Dr. J. L. Wortinan in the Wind River Badlands of Wyoming, and was described by Professor Cope m 1885.

Fossil discoveries of -the ’seventies included, too, Professor Marsh’s sensational find of birds with teeth, said to prove their reptilian' ancestry. These came from tho chalk beds of western Kansas.

Earlier fossil discoveries, such is those of Ashley River, S.C. —the giant sloths, rabbits, tapirs and peccaries of Pennsylvania —and scores of others, now begin to be duplicated and continued.

Professor Marsh’s expedition resulted not only in proof that the dinosaur existed, but in' evidence of an extinct horse, tho first link in that impressive and dramatic fossil chain showing the evolution of the horse. This was also

Meantime, if less popular attention was being paid to them than to dinosaurs, evidences of the mammoth and the mastodon continued to turn up all aver the country. At Big Bone Lick, Ky., 20 miles southwest of Cincinnati, remains the. enormous herds of mastodons and Columbian mammoths were found as long ago as IS3O. The famous Warren mastodon was found at Newburgh, N.Y., in the ’fifties. That the mastodon survived to a late period, contemporary with man. seems to have been established by, tho excavation at Attica, N.Y., in ISS.7, when several

pieces of. charcoal were found underneath the skeleton, and addit-iona: charcoal and broken pottery nearby, I’lieso have given weight to the theory that the mastodon survived to prehistoric times and was hunted into extinction in North America by post-glacial man.

No North American discovery has squalled -in novelty the startling Liberia find of a mammoth, from 10,000 to 50,000 years old, perfectly preserved by frost, .but something very like it Was. reported from Alaska; and an American Museum expedition of .1007 got there in time.to. collect parts of the flesh. and some long black hair, still intact. -

The certainty that mammoth remains must exist in Alaska in tho same state nf : preservation as .those found in Liberia, and the difficulty of recovering them, has long been tantalising to tiio ipecialist. Klondike gold-miners, busy with their more glittering quests, reported but naturally took little interest in recovering ' mammoth tusks and skulls.

Lately Alaska College and the American Museum have joined forces, taking advantage of the present stripping operations of the mining industry in Alaska, and the expedition reports extensive collections of mammoth tusks, mammoth and super-bison and lion skulls. In the last 20 years much new light lias been thrown on palaeontology. In North America the armour-clad dinosaur, ankyloaa urus, has been discovered iu Alberta, a 15-foot beast described as “the most ponderous animated citadel the world has ever seen," and new information on the reptiles of the Pcrmian Age, encourages palaeontologists to feel that in them'there may bo a clue to the ancestors of mammals, but of all the discoveries of the period none is more dramatic .than the socalled tar pools of 11 audio La Brea, near Los Angeles, Calif. These soft, sticky, asphalt beds hart supplied much paving material for Los Angeles'streets, fossils and all, before the significance of the bones in them was 'recognised. Examination revealed that the deceptive pools of water cover-ing-the treacherous pitch had entrapped .the great animals of the Pleistocene period, literally, by the thousands. They came to tjich pools to drink and were caught and engulfed. The'wolf and the saber-toothed tiger which' came to prey on them in their peril, were themselves entrapped and sucked down, and finally in the grim procession, vultures and .eagles flocked to the scene, to be ensnared and to perish.

One account lias it that 2000 skeletons of saber-toothed tigers alone have been recovered from Itacho La Brea. The fossils now have been shared by the Los Angeles Museum of History, tfeieuco and Art, and the University of California at' Berkelev.

Still more recently,' fossil remains of 30 or 40 extinct bison have been recovered from a quarry at Folsom, N. M. With this fossil bones 10 arrow heads were found, “all of the same fluted high type of workman ship,” to quote Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History. These appear to offer important evidence of a very ancient prehistoric people.