Ariel 

Vol. XXIII UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA , MINNEAPOLIS , FEBRUARY 10 , 1900    No. 19
 

GEOLOGICAL EXPEDITION 

Last winter Professor C. W. Hall took upon himself the task of interesting some friends of science in the necessity of securing a collection of Saurians for the University. The wisdom of such a move on the part of Professor Hall has been abundantly exemplified by the fact that all the prominent as well as many of the smaller institutions of learning and museums have had men searching for the skeleton remains of those animals that inhabited the earth millions of years ago. Financial aid being assured, no better man could be found to conduct the field work than Dr. F. W. Sardeson. With Messrs. Moore and Stewart to complete the party a trip into the Big Horn district was undertaken in search of Saurian monsters. 

Years ago the Big Horn Basin was a great inland sea with numerous arms into which many streams flowed. The coastal lands were covered with luxuriant vegetation such as grasses, bananas, palms , cycads , magnolias , oaks and walnuts . The lakes and the rivers swarmed with fishes, turtles, crocodiles and sea-serpents. The lands thronged with carniverous and herbiverous animals. It was at a time when the Mammalia were branching out and fast taking the place of the giant lizzard-like forms which were the terror of Mesozoic times. The sands of the shifting streams and the mire of the swamps afforded a ready means of preserving the dead and dying animals. Often a whole animal became covered by the sand or swamped in the mire ; and thus an entire skeleton is sometimes found. Where one whole skeleton has been thus preserved, however, a countless number died and their remains were scattered as if by the four winds of heaven. 

Through geological ages these animals became covered with perhaps twenty thousand feet of rock and came to occupy certain strata. The process by which the Rocky Mountains were formed tilted these strata and subsequent erosion has thus brought to light the burying grounds of millions of years ago. 

The business of the collector is to locate these fossil zones and then go to work. Hardly had the party succeeded in reaching a permanent camping place than armed with pick-hammers, they made their way to the picturesque Bad Lands for a hunt. Traces of the ancestral horse, Phenacodus , were observed , Such a find was exciting . In the solid sandstone was a whole skull. Nothing but a whole animal could have been more pleasing. A live Phenacodus resembled somewhat the modern bear cub. It was a small chunky animal with short ears and rather a long tail. Closely related to Phenacodus is the three-four toed horse, bones of which were found. This animal hopped and jumped about and in so doing would strike the front toes and thus they gradually came to replace the others in the purpose of the foot. The leader of the party became very enthusiastic over these finds and declared that if an animal could be found caged in sand stone , it should be shipped in bodily.

One of the largest land animals of Eocene times was the Coryphodon. This beast was from six to eight feet in hight and ten to fifteen feet in length. In relationship it was a full cousin to the modern tapir on the one hand and the elephant on the other. The Coryphodon is believed to have lived on the palm principally and had big teeth for pulling down and breaking off the branches. One tooth measured nine inches in length and three and one -half inches around. Strange as it may appear this annimal had six horns, some of the cores of which were found. 

Next in point of numbers were the turtles. The hard shells were the more numerous. The largest would be three or four feet across. Six or eight men might stand on one's back. The shell varied in thickness, the larger ones being an inch and one-half to two inches thick. 

Generally in the same region with the turtles were found skeletons of the crocodile. This animal was covered with plates some of which were about two inches square and raised to a half inch in thickness near the center. These plates are ornamented and doubtless gave an attractive appearance to the crocodile. 

Small, hollow bones such as belong to birds were occasionally found. There was also any number of broken jaw-bones with teeth, many of which are without doubt teeth of the ape. Having collected a large number of bones in the Eocene, the Cretaceous was visited in search of Saurians. It was through the best kind of luck that no time was lost in locating the exact region. In some places the ground was literally covered with broken and crushed bones, while in others entire huge bones were found in the chalky limestone. 

The original animal, in life, weighed probably forty tons. It had a neck twenty-five feet long, and a body cavity that would make a hall twenty-eight feet in length, twelve feet in width and arched over nine feet in height. Such a space would seat thirty people. A steak taken from the ham of the animal would be eight feet in diameter or about twenty -five feet in circumference. At each step it would cover a square yard of surface. Think of such an animal standing squarely on its feet or running and jumping like our modern animals. It is impossible to give an accurate and adequate idea of a living Dinosaur. It is only after seeing the bones or still better digging them from their entombed position in the solid rock, that such monstrous animals can in any sense be appreciated. 

The question is frequently asked, "of what use are these bones." They are a scource of knowledge and make teaching real. They open the mind of the student to the facts and thus widen his horizon of thought and extend his sphere of intelligence. They are an invaluable attribute to any well equipped university.                 W. B. S.