1915
- Expedition to the Cretaceous of Alberta, Canada, by Barnum Brown. The party consisted of
Barnum Brown, in charge, A. F. Johnson and part of the season Wm. F. Stein. Brown stopped in Indiana
to see some mastodon remains found by Mr. Arthur Fry 2 2/1 mi. SE of Fulton, Fulton Co., IN. The
bones were disassociated and scattered over a considerable area and represented several individuals.
Brown purchased the lot for $200. He then made a reconnaissance trip through southern Alberta and
reached camp on the Red Deer on July 21st. Mr. Johnson, who lives in the area, had been instructed
to prospect a small area of exposures on Sand Creek that hadn't been worked in previous years. He
began to work on May 10th, locating a camp on the Red Deer River just above Sand Creek. Mr. Stein
left Basin, WY on July 21st and reached camp on July 28th. In the middle of Sept. a second camp was
established at a C. P. R. ditch-rider's house near the head of Sand Creek. They spent the entire
season working this one pocket of badlands. The Red Deer River was higher this year than any time
since this country had been settled.. The Sternberg, Ottawa Museum party consisted of 8 men working
in the Belly River Fm around and through the AMNH's territory and above Drumheller in the Edmonton Fm.
Both groups were fairly successful. Besides a good selection of dinosaurs, 2 large silicified tree trunks
and a big slab of fossil leaves were collected. They finished work on the Red Deer and loaded the box car
with 65 boxes on Oct. 21st, at which time Stein left for his home in WY. On Oct. 24th Brown and Johnson
started from Brooks for the Cretaceous of South Milk River, Blackfoot Reservation in northern
Montana, 120 miles distant. They crossed the Bow River at Bow island and the Belly River at Tabor and at
Chin Coulee separated. Johnson driving on to Webster's ranch on the Milk River, while Brown rode
east 90 miles to a small outcrop of Belly River rocks on Manyberries Creek. In this pocket of badlands
Jack McLean had located some bones and one lot turned out to be a skeleton with about 25 feet of
vertebral column of a carnivorous dinosaur. It was to late to uncover it, so it was left for another
season. Brown then joined Johnson at the Webster's ranch and they collected leaves from the mouth of
McDonald Creek in beds of questionable age. Proceeding across the boundary they entered the
Blackfoot Reservation and established camp on South Milk River in the big bend 4 miles S of the
international boundary line. Here there are bad land exposures chiefly grass covered but in places
bare and at least 1000 feet thick of uniform alternating sandstones and shales. The U.S.G.S. determined
them to be Judith River age, but stratigraphically and faunistically they are without a doubt Edmonton and
exactly like the Edmonton exposures at Sandstone, Alta. They opened one large quarry in shale
containing finely preserved bones, mostly small disassociated trachodonts and small ceratopsians and
collected several. While prospecting they located a large Saurolophus which could not be fully
determined because of the weather. During the last week one snow storm after the other came and the
temperature dropped to 4 degrees below zero. They covered specimens and broke camp on Nov. 17th.
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