Please, dear reader, return with me to the first camp we made below Steveville (Fig. 15). I would like to tell you of our successful hunt for horned dinosaurs, the reptiles that carry on their shoulders the largest known skulls of any land animal living, or dead. I had gone around the flood plain to the mouth of a ravine below camp and following it up to its head searching the denuded exposures, on either side. Suddenly, I stumbled on a couple of orbital horn-cores of a new genus of these strange creatures. The nasals and much of the face had been disintegrated by exposure to rain and frost; one complete lower jaw and part of the other was in place, however. With eager hands I used my little pick and digger, cutting into the face of the cliff. The horn-cores were pointed heavenward. I soon got behind them and followed up the great crest that projected backward into the rock, of which some fifteen towered above; I needed help and returned to camp a mile over the hills, for the boys. George and Levi responded to my call. The rock was thrown out and scraped away with team and scraper, tons on tons of it, my enthusiastic assistants threw down. We soon found that most of the skeleton was present, and it required a large floor to lay all the bones bare. At least enough of them so we could take them up without injuring them.

While working around the skeleton, we dug up what appeared to be impressions of mud cracks, but Charlie who came to visit us, concluded at once they were skin impressions. This seemed too good to be true, as none were known before from horned dinosaurs. We were soon, however, forced to believe it, when a large chunk of rock broke in two and revealed the regular casts of polygonal scales, the upper and lower sides. They were arranged in the most beautiful mosaic patterns, some mere tubercles, as in the trachodonts, especially under the limbs. Along the back there were larger scales, often rounded or six sided, from two, to two and a half inches in diameter. This was new, and unexpected, as the men of science who had made a special study of the horned dinosaurs believed they had a thick skin with heavy dermal scutes, or plates inserted into it, as a protection against the rapacious carnivores. But here, as in the Trachodonts, we were so fortunate as to prove what we had proved so oft before, “The wisdom of man is foolishness to God.” How could it be otherwise. Yet I am free to acknowledge there are no class of men so positive in their conclusions. I once heard four different men at a Scientific Academy deliver four papers on the Creation of the world, each one was different and each man thought he was right. I have proved too often in my own experience in the field that I was mistaken, to doubt that other scientific men might be also. I could write a book about the mistakes of scientific men but will not burden my pages with them except as I discover facts absolutely different from those commonly accepted, as in the case of my Chasmosaurus under discussion. In the past men have been too anxious to publish results before complete skeletons have been found and almost invariably, when one is found, it does not bear out in its own person the expectations of their authors.

This field, so rich in material, in which we get the skin impressions, as well as complete skeletons enables us to speak “as one having authority” about them. Here then, although we have an animal with limbs of equal length, the body was covered with thin scales arranged like mosaic-work in a pavement. Without much doubt the skull had been subjected to great pressure for many ages. The rock in which it was embedded has been lifted some twenty-five hundred feet above the position it occupied when it was mud at the bottom of the lake. Mr. Lambe, the Vertebrate Paleontologist of the Geological Survey of Canada, has called this remarkable dinosaur Chasmosaurus, on account of the great chasms or gaps cut into the crest and skull. As far as I know this is the most complete skull known of this species. While at work on my specimen I learned some remarkable things. There is always an opening between the horns of these saurians. In Triceratops, it is midway between the end of the beak, and the crest. In this specimen, however, it is two feet from the end of the beak, and three feet to the further end of the crest. Then, though the skull proper in front of the crest is quite heavy and strong, and with large mandibles, and rather a large horn over the nose, as compared with the small ones over the eyes. The crest seems to be built for strength, as the central bar, the side and distal bars are strong, but beveled off to the large openings; and masses of bone are scooped out of the skull—adapted evidently to add to the strength, but to reduce the weight. This is not to be wondered at, when we study the skeleton. For we find the neck-crest not only covered the neck and shoulders, but extended back over seven of the dorsal vertebrae, to within a few inches of the pelvic arch. I do not think the animal was much bigger than a cow: about 9 feet from beak to drop of the tail; and the latter was short, barely dragging on the ground. When cutting a path through the dense sub-tropical foliage of reeds, rushes and grass, with many a bog, he simply parted the rank vegetation with his triangular-shaped head and crushed it under his four large spreading feet. But when he was attacked, down went the head, up went the crest, and a shield well armed with horns on the face, and horny projections along the sides of the crest was instantly presented to his foe. As the only vulnerable place of attack, to the tiger of the everglades, he would try to strike with his powerful claw-armed feet somewhere in the flank, for then he could lay bare the vital organs and soon destroy his prey.

But our Chasmosaurus was on the watch to prevent this very thing. The grass is beaten down, a ring is formed, and he often rushes forward with open beak. If his pincer-like bill once closes on the quivering flesh of the carnivore, he would surely get his “pound of flesh.” If a moss covered bog is within reach he would try to get to it, for then he would plunge in, and be safe, as no bipedal flesh eater will dare to follow. Our herbivore, however, can swim through it, or through the morass as easily as a living hippopotamus.

You will notice the horny beak is shaped like that of a great turtle, though the lower jaws supporting it below are two feet in length. The crest behind, where it overhangs the back, is nearly four feet along the curve. We approximately can guess the distance from the lower margin of the jaw to the top of the nasal horn to be nearly two feet. At each angle of the cross-bar behind on the crest, is a long horn-covered spike, while the sides of the crest are also armed with smaller and blunter ones. The orbital horns are round and conical, not much over six inches in length, while the one on the bridge of the nose is over a foot long.

Now, with the rapidity of thought we will return to our workshop. When George prepared the head of this fine specimen, I found it was the exact size of the one I found in 1913. I therefore took a cast of the parts that were missing in mine. In order to accomplish this, I covered the front of the head with lard oil and then with molding wax, being careful to make it in sections so it would come off and be heavy enough to prevent distortion. When all was ready and we had colored our plaster to resemble the fossil bone—no small task, by the way, as we had to learn to mix colors as well as do the work of a sculptor—with wax. Then the mold is separated from the skull and stuck together, plaster strengthened with dextrine is poured into it, and on hardening I got an exact facsimile of the original specimen. This I fastened to my skull in which these parts were missing, and this gave us two specimens for public exhibition. Otherwise we could not have exhibited this dinosaur, as it would not have done to guess at these missing parts, as the early scientists were in the habit of doing. Now we can point to the complete specimen should anyone doubt the truthfulness of the restoration. All through the Belly River Series of rocks are bone-beds. There are two below Steveville, one near the top, and the other near the bottom of the exposures. They lie usually on a bed of clay, as if they had been drifted in from a lake (into which, they had been carried by a river) and lined the shore in the mud. In some places I secured hundreds, yes thousands of bones and teeth of many species, as well as shields of sturgeons and the enameled scales of gar-pikes as perfect as if picked up along a recent lake shore. There were also bones and shells of a great variety of soft-shelled turtles, and others, with beautifully sculptured shells; they range in size from less than six inches across, to over two feet. Crocodile bones, and the dermal, or skin plates of plated dinosaurs, were common. We secured hundreds of the pavement teeth of the ray Cope called Myledaphus, also countless vertebrae of the reptile Champsosaurus. Probably all the species of this rich fauna, are represented in these bone-beds. The fragments we collected came in good play, when Charlie and I mounted the Trachodon skeleton. As we were able to restore the missing tail from the caudal vertebrae we picked up in bone-beds in the Edmonton Series, near Drumheller, Alberta. We found many horn-cores also in the bone deposits. Although we found many of the long bones we were unable to take up many on account of the expense. First, the bone has to be located, i. e. discovered. Then likely a road has to be built to it in order to haul in to it plaster and water. After one side is uncovered and plastered, it has to remain twelve hours to harden. Then we must return to turn it over and plaster the other side, allowing it to harden before we go after it with a horse and sled. During all this time we might have found a complete skeleton.

When we reached our big scow in 1914, we found the seams had opened along the bottom and we were forced to recaulk it. The first thing was to clean out the old oakum and coal tar. Our eyes filled with the poisonous tar irritating them almost beyond endurance. After that was done, with arms above our heads, we drove in the oakum with caulking tools and then retarred the seams. I will acknowledge I did not do my full duty here, I spent most of my time in the hills exploring, which was more to my liking. This trying work the boys accomplished at last. Then came the supreme test. Will it keep out the water? We slid her down on skids into the river, and she rode as buoyantly as a duck, though not so gracefully.

We had picked out a place to camp three miles above “Happy Jack Ferry.” So George, Charlie, and Mr. Johnson, hauled the scow up to the camping ground with our motor boat, accomplishing a feat, I had thought impossible. Fortunately they had a strong wind in their favor, and the tents pitched on board, acted as sails and helped them breast the current. Levi and I moved the lumber up to camp in our wagon pulled by our team of horses. We crossed many narrow gulches, and were obliged to dig roads across them. In fact we got stuck in the mud of one, where backwater from the river had deposited several feet of mud in it. We got into camp, however, ahead of the scow. In my note book I often speak of the terrible heat of those days. We had hot work on the rough exposures without water. Who of us will ever forget, when at night, we returned to our camp, how we lay with faces half submerged in the cold water of the river, and drank from her refreshing flood until we could drink no more. Drinking often a quart or more without injury. The hardest work of all was to tramp over the burning beds without success. How many days we spent in useless effort. Near this camp, however, Charlie got a fine skull of a new trachodont or duck-billed dinosaur, described later by Mr. Brown as Prosaurolophus. Near here, also, George found his famous Chasmosaurus belli, Lambe. Mr. Brown, however, retains Professor Marsh’s name of Ceratops. Here too, I secured the complete club at the end of a plated dinosaur’s tail, of which I will have more to say later. Showing as has been my experience that untiring effort will accomplish results in the fossil fields as in every walk in life.

During Charlie’s and my absence in Montana, George found a large skeleton of a Corythosaurus. The remarkable part about it was the complete limbs in position. It was discovered in Mr. Jackson’s pasture. Now Mr. Jackson is an old cowman. He was range boss for the brother of Admiral Beresford of England, who built a ranch here. On Beresford’s death, Mr. Jackson took possession of the ranch and the ferry is named “Happy Jack” after him. In fact he is quite a noted character and one of the few old cattle men living here.

At this camp too, Mr. Patrick Disney, from Oxford University, England, joined my party as a guest. He came to these wilds to learn something about fossil hunting. He was indeed helpful, and welcome, but the war breaking out he started for the front, he wanted to be, and was among the first to join his colors from Canada. We learned later he became a gallant officer in the aerial fleet.

We continued to suffer all summer from the intense heat. The mosquitoes, however, were not as bad as usual. All the grass on the prairies dried up. The crops were a perfect failure. But for the liberality of the government in supplying the homesteader with food through the winter and spring and seed to plant, they would have been obliged to leave the country. This timely aid, however, enabled them, owing to the great rainfall in 1915, to reap the greatest harvest in the history of these people, so far east of the mountains on the semi-arid plains.

On August fifth, we succeeded in getting our scow some two miles below “Happy Jack Ferry,” (See Fig. 32) to a camp we made near a specimen George had found of a plated dinosaur. Charlie and Disney brought down the motor boat, but owing to the very low stage of water, they were in it, most of the time, hauling the boat through sand, by main force. Our scow floating with the current beat them to the landing. We left Levi to haul all the fossils from our upper camp to Denhart on the new branch of the Central Pacific Railway, between Swift Current and Bassano, Alberta. For two months George labored with never less than one assistant on his plated dinosaur, the prize of the season. It seems that some caudal vertebrae were seen by him sticking out of a hard siliceous concretion in the face of a bluff, with thirty-five feet of sandstone on top. This was tough and hard to dig up. He used blasting powder as you see in two pictures where George is running away after firing the fuse, the other shows the explosion. It took a month of constant labor to get down to the concretion and another to cut away enough of it, so it could be handled when cut in sections. The constant hammering opened closed seams in the flinty rocks so it could be removed in chunks, with the sections of the fossil within them. George secured the pelvic arch, hind limb bones, many ribs, caudal and dorsal vertebrae (likely the entire column in front of the pelvis), the skull, with its necklace of dermal plates behind. Then there were many of the huge plates though not all in position.

The figures show the quarry, and the road we made with four horses straining to haul the sections out. You will also see George running from the quarry after lighting the fuse, and in the next picture the explosion. We expended far more labor in this quarry than any we found, or on any other individual specimen. Yet our labor was nothing compared to what must be expended before the skeleton is mounted, owing to the difficulties of preparation. The last picture in this series shows the amount of labor required to throw out the loose material, as well as the beautifully sculptured rock in the vicinity.