In September, 1913 at the camp from which I discovered the spiked Dinosaur, Mr. Lambe’s Styracosaurus, I found above our tent back in the badlands in a perpendicular escarpment, a fine skull of another strange horned dinosaur. Mr. Lamb called it Centrosaurus, while Brown still holds the name Cope gave a similar genus he collected in the Judith River Formation in 1876, namely, Monoclonius, of which genus I discovered two species that were new at that time. This specimen I discovered, was about two hundred feet above the river. The first work was to build a platform around it on which I could stand, so I could work around the specimen. Mr. Lambe, himself, found the type of this genus, which consisted of a neck frill about 1898. In this specimen of mine I found a large part of the skull. It was however, due to Charles M. Sternberg’s patient labor, that science is in debt for a perfect skull of this strange reptile. It was found the next year after I found mine, in the Dead Lodge Canyon near its lower extremity. You may think from my description of so many fine specimens that we had an easy job of it. When George found his plated dinosaur, he had thirty-five feet of solid sandstone to remove. He needed Charlie’s assistance very badly. But I was determined, if possible that he, and I too, each should find a specimen worth collecting. Our journey down to Dog Creek, Montana, had given George some three weeks the start of us in hunting, and he had been very successful. As every hunter likes to tell of his companions luck in the field, so also he likes to have trophies of his own. So we searched over miles and miles of badlands, week after week I was completely exhausted at night, after a day’s unsuccessful hunt. There is no work so trying, as that of clinging hour after hour to steep ascents, and searching every inch of exposed surface, in and out among the winding slopes. Often we would climb two hundred feet or more to the head of a coulee, to find after going a few rods, a land slide had taken down acres of shaken up strata. Then we would either climb to the summit, and go around, or go down to the bottom and climb up on the other side of the slide. In many places we were obliged to use our picks, as our chief dependence, in walking around some almost perpendicular escarpment, or to cut niches in which to secure a treacherous foothold in the steep slopes. I know that when I got to camp at night, and had set down to our camp table, to eat the fine supper, Mr. Johnson had prepared for us, appetising indeed, as he made bread and cakes and many other dishes not usually expected in camp where pancakes and baking powder biscuits are the rule generally; my feet would swell so badly I would often be obliged to crawl on my hands and knees to my tent and cot. There, stretched at full length, with lamp above me, I read until bed time, never thinking of getting on my feet until the next day, when I went through the same experience. Charlie, as I said was the lucky one, he found the most complete skull of this strange creature we have ever obtained. The Figure 26, shows it in its rocky sepulcher after it was uncovered ready for wrapping. In order to get to it we were obliged to leave our wagon on the prairie, and go down into a coulee some five hundred feet below; cross over, and on a road we made, haul our sled to it a hundred feet above the river. Although the skull is badly injured by pressure, it is so perfect that all the sutures between the bones can be detected, as in the case of the Chasmosaurus skull, George discovered.

I was able to completely restore my specimen from Charlie’s. So we have now mounted in the Hall of Vertebrates, two skulls. The picture No. 27 shows some of the characters quite well. The nasal horn is curved forward, and there are two short horns over the eyes; while in my specimen, Figure 27, there are none.

I would like to take you to my shop again; where George is at work. He is putting on the steel half ovals, that are to hold up the crest; he is using an electric drill as you notice, Figure 28, and boring holes through steel and skull so the bolts can be inserted to hold the crest securely to the skull. In the back ground is the inch tube that holds the ends of the half ovals, and is the standard that will support the skull, on the permanent base. It all looks very simple, but it represents a great deal of skilled labor. The strip of half oval steel that supports the crest, was heated hundreds of times and beaten to fit inequalities in the surface of the crest. It must fit exactly, so there is no spring in the steel, otherwise when the plaster jacket that covers the top of the skull is removed, the spring will break the bones. The jacket is made of separate sections fitted closely to the top of the skull. It serves two purposes, that of giving a firm, uniform base behind the bones, so they may be cleaned, and also to enable us to turn the skull over by looping a rope over it, fastening this to the triplex block that rides on a trolley moving on the eye-beams fastened to the ceiling. The skull (Fig. 28), is then gently lifted, turned over, and the upright set in the permanent base of polished mahogany. Then the jacket should lift off, as in the case in hand. After cleaning the upper surface, the skull is ready, as you see it, for permanent exhibition (Fig. 27), with the exception that the glass case so necessary to protect it from dust, and vandal fingers has not yet been put in place. It took all four of us, many months to complete this skull for exhibition. I worked on it nearly all one winter cleaning off the bog iron that covered it completely. If you will notice closely the rough skull, especially with a glass, you will see the bones were fractured in all directions. The first thing I had to do, was to fasten these fragments securely in their places, so I could remove the iron rust that clung firmly to them. After many experiments with shellac, I found a thin solution of ambroid was the most satisfactory. It would penetrate better than shellac, and when dry, was hard as the flinty rock itself. If any of the fragments broke loose under the tools I used, I must fill them again and again and wait twenty-four hours or more for the cement to set firmly. You will notice the lower jaw and crest seem rather smooth compared with the rest of the skull, and they are, because they are restored in plaster, from the complete skull Charlie found. The crest was chiefly prepared by Levi. This was done while it was still in the plaster jacket. It was first restored in moulding wax, copying exactly the perfect crest. I mean by that, the wax on the jacket was manipulated by my son until it was a facsimile of the original parts so as to be beyond criticism. Then a cast was made in plaster of the wax model, the wax taken away, and the place it occupied replaced with plaster colored as near the original color of the bone as possible, to prevent a discord, or lack of harmony in the completed skeleton. You see, then, we must be more than fossil hunters; and I must say though I have collected fossils nearly every year since 1867, and as my readers who have read my story know, have often suffered in the field, it all sinks into insignificance compared with the work of preparing the material for public exhibition. Take the skull I am describing from 9 in the morning, with an hour’s intermission at noon, until 5 p.m. I must have perfect control of myself, I must not make a mistake, or I may ruin the entire skull. That not only represents a great deal of expense, but is largely the result of a lifetime spent in a business to which I was born; without that experience and that of my sons, through most of their lives, in all likelihood, we could never have discovered or collected it. Then we do not work for today alone. As long as the Victoria Memorial Museum stands, this and the other Red Deer Dinosaurs we collected, and prepared, will be admired. It is because men will forget the worker in their admiration for these strange relics of a day some three million years ago, that I am going so exhaustively into detail, the life of a fossil hunter in field and shop, so that the observing public, when they go through one of our great museums may feel they are on holy ground. The creatures of the misty past are before them; God’s creatures, for if he cares for the raven, for the fall of a sparrow, he must have cared for the creatures of his hand, that existed so many ages before man appeared—these lords of creation, that domineer over God’s green earth.

Look at the picture again, and you will notice two long spike-like projections over the openings in the crest. They are evidently not horn-cores, but bundles of ossified tendons, over which the muscles intertwined, that controlled the powerful lower jaw. The entire skull is over five feet long. Two horn-cores bend inward in the center of the crest behind, and the rounded sides are sculpted into bony knobs that in life were doubtless covered with horn. This creature must have been as large as the spiked dinosaur nearly—at least nine feet long to the drop of the tail, although I did not discover any skin impression similar to that in Chasmosaurus, the environment was the same boggy swamps and mossy meadows, his skin scales were colored to harmonize with his surroundings. He would not be noticed when asleep in some rushy embrassure, and when feeding, he was ever alert, ready to flee from his enemy Gorgosaurus, or if need be face him and fight it out, as we saw the spiked dinosaur along the margins of the cretaceous lake.