1901
  • Purchases: a Cretaceous fish, 16 feel long, blocks of sandstone with tracks from Turner Falls, mammoth skull with tusks 13 � feet long and 16 boxes of dinosaur bones with rights to the quarry. Report of the First William C. Whitney Expedition , explored Tertiary of eastern Colorado. Dr. Matthew, Dr. Loomis, a volunteer from Amherst College and Mr. Thomson proceeded southward to Pawnee Buttes, CO, examining outcrops on their way. They found one rather rich, but limited pocket N of Crawford, NE. At Pawnee Buttes they were joined by Barnum Brown, who had been working at Cedar Creek. The party spent a little over a month at Pawnee Buttes. There was no very rich place, but well preserved fossils were scattered throughout the formation. A large number of 3-toed horses were found. 8 or 10 land tortoises were collected. Report of First William C. Whitney Expedition, explored northwestern Texas. J. W. Gidley left New York June 15th and began work June 26th. The party consisted of Gidley, Mr. William Kendall and Mr. James Morton, cook. After working a few days on the Kendall Ranch, the party went into a camp at "Petrified Canon", about 20 miles NE of Clarendon where they collected fossil horses. Some cowboys told them about fossil bones that had been found years before on the top of a divide at the extreme eastern border of Douley Co., about 15 miles east of the camp of Petrified Canyon. The bones were of a mastodon skull, that was nearly washed away, but another mastodon skull was discovered, as well as other fossils. Camp was made on Skillet Creek, while working on this site. When finished the party returned to Clarendon started for Mt. Blanco and arrived August 17th. This area had nearly been worked out in the previous season. However, the nearly complete carapace of a glyptodon was found. From here the party traveled about 25 miles S. to the mouth of Blanco Canyon. Not much was found in this region, further exploration was not undertaken because of the extreme drought. The party returned to Clarendon September 21 where the horses were sold and the outfit broken up. Report of the Expedition to the Black Hills and southern Wyoming. Mr. Granger and Mr. Albert Thomson arrived in Rapid City on May 10th. They went to Hulett, WY, where they were joined by Dr. G. R. Wieland, who took charge of the expedition. On June 10th Dr. F. B. Loomis, a volunteer of Amherst College joined the party. They examined some dinosaur prospects discovered by Wieland the previous year, NW of Hulett, Nothing worth collecting was found in this area. They then went down the Belle Fourche River to a point about 130 mi. below Hulett, where the river cuts through the Jurassic rim. This proved to be barren and the party returned up the river to Devil's Tower. Several prospects were found north and west of the tower, but mainly of isolated and poorly preserved bones. One was of the hind limb and pelvis of a large sauropod; it was washed out with a series of caudals running into the bank. The difficulties of working the matrix, which was a very tough sandstone, together with the fact that all that remained was the tail, made it inadvisable to spend time on it. At this place we found the only indication of carnivorous dinosaurs on the western side of the Hills. Leaving Devil's Tower on June 10th the party proceeded southward and during the remainder of the month examined all the promising exposures between the tower and New Castle. Camps were made at Carlisle, Linden, Injan Kara and the head of Salt Creek. Bones were found but never in good condition. On June 30th Dr. Wieland left the party and Mr. Granger took charge. 4 days were spent examining the rim along Beaver Creek, 7 miles SE of New Castle and the party went to Rapid City and then on to Piedmont to the Dakota sandstone to the place Dr. Wieland had found a Camptosaurus femur. No trace of fossils were found. On July 16th the party returned to Rapid City and the following day Mr. Granger left for Medicine Bow. The Jurassic of Southern Wyoming. The work at Bone Cabin Quarry was carried on for the greater part of the season by P. C. Kaisen with assistance from Mr. George Olsen, who was hired as cook, but also worked at the quarry. Camp was pitched on May 11th, and the work was carried on until Sept. 18th when the outfit was moved to Nine Mile Crossing to work on the Brontosaurus prospect on 1899 in the hope of obtaining some additional parts. Mr. Granger joined the party on July 19th and remained until the close of the season, October 31st. During the later part of August negotiations were made by the department for the purchase of the dinosaur prospect and quarry discovered by Mr. W. H. Reed in 1900 in Six Mile Gulch (Prager Anticlinal), some 5 miles NW of Rock Creek and 14 miles from Bone Cabin Quarry. Two weeks were spent there taking out the material exposed in quarry R and 4 days in boxing it and leaving it with Mr. Alex. Beery in Aurora to ship it when a box car arrived. At Bone Cabin Quarry the work continued on in the same direction, as the previous year�to the north and west. In the sandstone, which was worked to a depth of 6 feet along the edge of the lower cutting, 2 layers were found. The upper layer contained very soft and worthless bones; the lower layer contained the best preserved bones yet found. as shown by the excellent skull material and complete sacra. Altogether the collection of 190l is probably the most valuable yet taken from this quarry. The total number of specimens secured from this quarry was 54, making 43 boxes. The work at Nine Mile Quarry consisted of stripping on two sides of the old excavation. The result was finding one astragalus, the distal end of a fibula, 2 small caudals, one good cervical and a dorsal. The Six Mile Gulch consisted of some 14 or 15 boxes of mostly unassociated bones, both carnivorous and sauropods. A separate prospect that contained a Stegosaurus in poor condition was left for next season.
19001902