Chapter XIV · CONCLUSION

Last May I resigned my position as collector and preparator for the Geological Survey of Canada. And soon afterwards went into the field for the British Museum of Natural History, London. Though the British government was spending no money in this kind of research, Dr. A. Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology there, secured the means for the first two months’ work from The Sladin Memorial Fund of Piccadilly, London. My son, Levi, was the only expert collector I had with me though I employed men and transportation in the field. We settled down in a camp a couple of miles below Steveville and remained there all summer, exploring the badlands near the mouth of Berry Creek.

Our success was as usual, great. We were able to collect three skeletons of duck-billed dinosaurs of the genus Corythosaurus, of Brown or Stephanosaurus, of Lambe. They were all three discovered by my son, Levi, who worked with remarkable persistence and enthusiasm. I too, after I had recovered from an injury I received due to being thrown from my wagon onto the ground, put in every moment I could see, in the heavy work of excavating three skeletons, and taking them up before frost, when no man can work in those beds. It will not do to let plaster freeze, and without plaster we could not take up any vertebrate fossil there.

Owing to the fact that the clay in the strata prevent water entering it, very little true petrification has taken place. If you will refer to the Life of a Fossil Hunter, page 258, you will see there what I had learned up to the time of writing, the process by which fossils are made. I found here in the Belly River Series entirely different conditions. The bones had not been replaced by silica and become petrified. There was very little change in the bones except that they were usually sheathed in a hard layer of bog iron. The spongy bone was as friable as that in a dry, recent bone; the cells were not filled with rocky material. The thin outer layer of compact bone was filled with the iron simply. I once said that if I could get my teeth on a fossil bone I could tell its age almost, by the amount of silica it contained. Here, however, I find that nature has more than one way of preserving her records, and that it depends largely on the matrix in which the bones are entombed. If clay prevents water passing through the bones, there can be no true replacement, as water is the vehicle used in transporting silica or lime or whatever the petrifying material may be, and it cannot pass through certain clays. This discovery of mine after having observed the fossilized animals and plants of many horizons prove that the most careful observer is liable to misinterpret the workings of nature, showing us that God’s laws are past finding out by finite minds. Nature is a well that man can never fathom, an ocean with no shore. As long as men observe and think, they will be drawing water from well and ocean with no visible effect. The well will still be full and the shores remain unexplored.

Levi found the most complete skeleton of a crested duck-billed dinosaur that had been discovered in the Belly River Series by my party. Mr. Brown discovered, close to the Steveville Ferry, the most complete one known, and which he has fully described in his Corythosaurus casuarius, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, November 2nd, 1916. This is the first specimen ever found in a swimming pose. As if in the very act of swimming it had died and was instantly covered up in the soft mud and never disturbed until Brown’s pick revealed it to the world. I firmly believe as I have said before, this specimen proves conclusively that the conventional pose taken of these duck-bills as usually standing on land erect is a mistake; as I have always believed. The one I prepared for the Victoria Museum proves the same thing, and every one I have seen in the beds, or have found myself, point the same way, but as it will be a costly thing to take down all the mounts in American Museums of Cretaceous trachodonts I do not expect to live to see my views universally put in practice.

This specimen, No. 9, I wrote of to Dr. Woodward, August 21st, 1913: “I have uncovered enough of the floor to be able to give you some valuable information. I have now traced the entire column, except four feet of the caudal region. I have found one femur in position with its tibia and fibula, one humerus and front foot, and many ribs. The most disappointing thing: we have only found the mandibles and predentary, the maxilla of one side, the occiput and part of the crest and the back of the skull.”

Later we found the entire skeleton except four feet of the tail just back of the pelvic arch, where it had been weathered out and destroyed, and part of the skull. This skeleton was about thirty feet long, and I considered it next in perfection to that of Mr. Brown’s Corythosaurus. There were in addition large patches of the skin impression. I show you the place where the body lay, after we had wrapped it. It also shows the vast amount of labor required to save it.

It lay up a narrow gorge, too narrow to get a horse up it. We were obliged to cut steps up and down the rough way from the nearest point we could reach it from camp and Levi had to carry nearly all the water, plaster, and burlap, and paper, etc., necessary to wrap a skeleton nearly thirty feet long. The distance from the wagon was nearly an eighth of a mile.

But that labor sank into insignificance compared to the labor he had to strap beneath the specimen his burlap strips in such a way that the rock did not fall out. It would often take him many minutes before he could get the strip to stick. He lay on his back and patted the plaster soaked burlap with the ends of his fingers until the blood came. Then often the plaster would harden before he could get it to stick. Then he had to take a new strip and go through the same hard and patience-trying labor, filling his eyes with the burning lime. In all the labor we do in taking up a complete skeleton, there is no part of it that requires so much patience and so much skill as strapping the under side.

After this specimen was ready for hauling out of the brakes we had to build a sled road to it from the prairie and haul it to camp around the badlands, about six miles, while it only lay about a mile from camp in a bee-line.

Now it seems almost incredible that after over two months of such exhausting mental, physical and soul-trying labor, it should be sent to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean by a German Raider on English Commerce. If anything on earth can prove the wantonness of such destruction, this is a good example. I have given fifty years freely to science without money, often, and without price. The best that is in me. So I could show to generations to come the wonderful works of God in creation. Ten minutes of vandalism destroys all my labor, my hopes, my life almost, because I never can recover from such a blow as this. I have not told the full story yet, because the second specimen Levi found was in many respects better than this one I have described. It was in splendid matrix. A strong sandstone, and the bones beautifully preserved, a specimen that could have been easily prepared. One hind foot was all that was exposed. I could not believe that this meant anything, but a few loose bones. It pointed heavenward, from the side of a cliff. We followed the foot down to the body and found the entire skeleton except a few inches of the tail and THE HEAD. With a restored head, (and we found one that could have been used) as far as the public was concerned, the British Museum could have mounted these two lords of the ancient bayous in that great store house of treasures, more rare than gold or silver, to be the heritage of the ages still to come.

This too, was with the first one and went to the bottom, with the Mount Temple and as far as I could learn, all on board. Perhaps some time when the sea will give up her dead, these noble examples of God’s handiwork may also be exposed to the light of day once more. I considered from every standpoint, money or science, these two specimens were worth double what the first two months of labor yielded up. I never entered the Victoria Memorial Museum where we had mounted one of the noble duck-bills without a feeling of awe, as if I stood in the presence of God himself. It dominates everything in the Museum, and attracts the attention of the dullest of men. How happy I was in the thought that for countless thousands of years to come, others could feel that same feeling of reverence for the Creator. In the twinkling of an eye the blue Atlantic covered them. I once prepared the skeleton of a Megatherium from Brazil; it too had gone to the bottom of the ocean, but divers had rescued it from its watery grave. I have little hope that this will ever be done to the noble duck-bills who were sent to Davies Locker by a German torpedo.

We discovered other fine material that was saved and the preparators are at work on it, so I hope our last year’s labor, the most strenuous for many years may not be entirely lost.

My dear readers my book is coming to a close. The other volume “The Life of a Fossil Hunter” is out of print. It depends on you whether we have another edition published. This I will gladly do, if each reader of this one, will send me a subscription for the other. You will certainly realize that this work, like the other has been a labor of love. Take this volume, I am at my own personal expense issuing five hundred copies. If I sell each copy I will not realize any more than the cost of publication. I worked all last winter from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. on the manuscript, and all day Saturday of each week, except Sunday. It has taken me all winter to look after the printing of this. My whole object has been to give the information I have acquired through years of toil and hardship in the desolate fossil fields to the public, so they may realize something of the wonders of Nature, and the hope it may lead some of my readers to Nature’s God, the Triune God we worship.

THE GRAND CANYON OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS

I have often heard the story Of that Mighty Canyon Grand; Powell pointed out the glory Of that deeply sculptured land. Where the Colorado river Has cut a passage deep, In the very heart of nature, With many gorges deep. To any doubting Thomas, It would almost make him smile, If I told him of a canyon Cut through earth’s crust a mile. But my own two eyes have seen it, And I’ll take the witness stand, Its the greatest ditch in story In our own historic land. It seems, during the Jura The land began to rise; Yes! the bottom of the ocean Perhaps to its surprise. Was lifted from the water, Became a level plain; Received the glorious sunshine, The first and latter rain. A river takes the drainage Back to the restless sea, Carves as it goes a passage Widening gracefully and free. “Tell me” asks my companion “How the river cuts its way, Where the stars faint light is shining In the middle of the day, So deep below the surface, That the sun’s most dazzling ray N’er gleams upon the water That is beaten into spray?” Well: then listen to the story How in ages long ago, The earth rose from the water And the land began to grow. As the earth was slowly rising, Rivers bed cut through the land, The rocks that tumbled in it The gravel, rock and sand Scoured out and carved the basin As the vast land masses rose, And the mighty Colorado Flows where it used to flow. For the land continued rising And the waters cut their way Through Earth’s upheaving bosom, Through granite, lime and clay. The rising cliffs receeding From the margins of the stream; Effects of frost and rainfall On every side are seen; For chips are falling ever, From exposed strata flanks, Roll down into the river, Leaping the waters banks, Fall in the whirling waters, That churn the rocky mass Against the boulders lodging Within the narrow pass. Then the great burden bearer Within its canyon grand, Bears out upon its bosom The wreckage of the land. And in the western ocean; ’Long California’s shore, The debris from Grand Canyon Are settling more and more. For near the gulf, the river Flows by a level floor, Spreads out upon the flood plain The ground up mountains core.

’LONG SUPERIOR’S DENTED SHORE

Have you ever made a journey ’long Superior’s dented shore? Where the glory of the landscape enchant one more and more; Where the green tints of the water, and its gravel covered floor, The surface, smooth and polished like a burnished oaken door. The mountains on the main land grown o’er with spruces green, While pine and whitened birches are sprinkled in between. Out there, a mighty freighter loads ten thousand tons of ore. Rounded islands with green woods are shrouded o’er. Red buttressed headlands, encroaching on the shore Form lines of wondrous beauty around the lake’s broad floor. Our railway bed is blasted from the earth’s foundation stone: Granite, Gneiss, and Green-Rock in many a sober tone. O! the beauty of the hillsides, ensheathed in living green, While the work of the old glaciers on every side are seen; The Age of Ice has eaten basins in the ancient rock; While the stone upon the hillside lie in many polished block. A glorious scene of beauty, scarce marred by human hand, Few boats upon the water, no farmers till the land. Five hundred miles we’ve traveled, by lake and hill, and brake, Upon earth’s rocky bosom our westward way we take. While the gleaming surface of Superior’s mighty lake Indent the land around us, a glowing picture make, Arrayed in living colors, a fairy isle is seen. Red boulders strew the hillside, a background for the green. The famous waters of Columbia’s inland sea Separate two nations of brave men true and free. No forts on either border; no soldiers pace the shore, No Dreadnaught plows the water, no mighty cannon roar. But now the sun is setting beneath the western sea. His level rays are glowing on sheets of water free, And in the lovely gloaming upon the watery way, The mountains change to purple, the waters turn to grey.

THE LAURENTIAN HILLS

I am riding on a railway that spans from sea to sea; Rocking on earth’s throbbing bosom, for my iron horse is free; How the scenes stretch out before me, as the coaches eastward roll, I am riding on the C.P. and to it I’m paying toll. I have reached a waste of waters, Superior’s mighty flood Indent the land before me, encroach the silent wood; For the vale, and gulch and valley, ever packed with spruces green, Mixed with the yellow poplar; with white barked birch between. The earth itself is covered with its own foundation rock, Granite, Gneiss and Green Stone, in many a mighty block, Carved and rounded by the Ice Cap, that once covered all the land: They rise in hill and buttress like some ancient castle grand. Birches standing, with trunks as white as snow, And slender spires of spruce trees, in serried ranks they grow. A gorgeous carpet underneath upon the rocks are spread, The different patterns blended might form a Titan’s bed. White granite peeps above it with streaks of reddish hue With God’s own arch above us! stars twinkling in the blue. Yes! I’m riding on the bosom of the oldest land that’s known, And Old Time, through countless ages, over it has ever flown, When England’s land was lifted above the ocean blue, The Old World is not the oldest, it should be called the new. O! could rocks but tell the story their rugged cliffs have know, They could tell us of this continent, and how it’s slowly grown. How the beds laid down by water, in ocean, river, lake Through all the changing aeons, from these rocks their tribute take. For the streams, (those burden bearers), on ocean floor have spread The loads they carry ever, to deposit on her bed. Granite Boulders from the hill side, choke up the rapid stream, They are ground by rushing water, till as pebbles they are seen, As the river current lessens, then are pebbles ground to sand, To be carried to the ocean, forming bars and banks so grand. Then the life that fills the ocean, the crustacean and the shell, When dying, left their skeletons the seas broad floor to swell. I can see Ontario’s mountains rise, where early life is seen, The mollusk of the ocean, and the sea weeds living green. The Laurentian Hills are rising at the margin of the sea. While the bordering waters throbbing with molluskan life so free, The globe’s thin crust is resting on the molten mass below, Transformed, as hard as granite, on her flanks the Trenton rest The land mass is slowing growing to the east, and south and west. Now the water of the ocean, bring forth a countless tribe, Of many forms of shell fish that are scattered far and wide. Crustaceans crowd the shore line, and that wondrous trilobite, Lives on through many ages till Time of chalk so white, So Silurian rocks are added to Laurentian narrow shore, And the Continents broad empire marches westward ever more.

II

Devonian seas are lapping round Silurian cape and bay, New fish life fills the waters, and over them hold sway. Strange forms in shield and buckler, in armor polished bright, Ganoids and other fishes show their colors in the light. I have seen a dozen fishes, impaled on block of slate Stand out, as carved by nature, they’re lying there in state: Seaweeds have left their impress in these enduring sands of Time, Stretched out in all their measures in many a lengthening line, For the ebb had stretched them seaward, while the fish swam ’gainst the tide, They were swimming toward the sea-shore, while swimming they have died. Both plants and fishes, in the old Devonian floor, After ages, tell the story, that the One we all adore, Keeps record of Creation in old oceans muddy floor. Footsteps of the Creator in ages that have fled, When a host of shells and fishes left their forms in oceans bed. And now the bed is lifted along the eastern shore: Increasing now the land mass, round Laurentian more and more, O! Time thou hast no limit to grasp of human mind, Unmeasured by the intellect of any of our kind. But Time to our Creator, is like forgotten fears, “A thousand years a single day, a single day a thousand years.” And let our study of the past cause reverence for His name Both now, and yesterday, through time, He ever is the same. So with these simple verses we’ll praise His Holy Name.

A JOURNEY IN THE MONTH OF JUNE IN EASTERN CANADA

I

O! the glories of a journey taken in the month of June,

When the gentle winds are sighing, and all nature is in tune:

While the fragrance of red clover, and the green tints of the trees,

Make me glad I am a rover, bathed in the evening breeze.

II

So all day I sit and wonder, on green plush I lay and ponder

On the glorious panorama, ever new,

And I raise my window curtain, for I’m very, very certain,

I have never, never witnessed such a view.

III

O! Columbia, how I love you, where my first new breath I drew,

What lines of grace and beauty on every side you strew.

I am rocking on your bosom for my iron horse is free,

And the flowers by the hillside waft their fragrance over me.

IV

Gazing from my open window, how my heart strings thrill, and thrill,

At the glory of the landscape I never get my fill.

Canadian hills embowered with crowning woods of green,

While fields and lakes and river on either side are seen.

V

Now white daisies blend their colors with the darker green below,

Or the shining yellow buttercups, their golden beauties show,

Wild mustard grows in masses o’er many a lengthening row,

Add color to the wheat fields stretching out, as west we go.

VI

Now and then, a clump of roses, add their sweetness to the breeze,

And June air is gently sighing ’midst the verdure of the trees,

Oh! the plain and flood and hillside, how they swiftly come and go,

While the power of the engine rocks me gently to and fro.

VII

Yes! the scenes move out before me like the pictures in a show.

While in the gentle gloaming, on wings I seem to go.

With wondrous lines of beauty with splendid brush so free,

For the colors of the rainbow cast their glamor over me.

VIII

Yes! the beauties of Dame Nature are most wonderfully fair,

And gazing on those beauties my soul seems free from care,

So my train swings ever westward, her coaches keeping rhyme

To the music of dear Nature that’s never out of time.

IX

The birds fly up above me, and the flowers bloom below;

For God cares for the Raven, on flowers love bestow.

We have an earthly Eden from a Father’s loving hand,

Angels guard us on the ocean and on the solid land,

X

And should we mount, as eagles, on wings in the mid air:

In blue expanse of heaven, His love would guard us there.

So as the night grows darker I seek my narrow berth.

I sleep the sleep of childhood, free from the cares of earth.