1938 Expeditions. Mr. Albert Thomson, supported by the Frick Pliocene Fund, spent about 3 months in South Dakota, being joined by Walter Granger for one month. Working out of Scenic, a collection was made, especially rich in rodents and insectivores. Exploration was carried on to the N side of Slim Buttes and Sentinel Butte. The Cretaceous beds in the vicinity of Fort Peck, MT was examined, where a mammal horizon was collected. The locality had been reported by Darwin Harbicht and small collection was presented to the museum that he had collected form this area. Dr. Simpson left in Sept. for Venezuela on a general paleontological exploration expedition. The expeditions sponsored partly by Mr. Horace S. Scarritt and is being carried out with the cooperation and assistance of the Venezuelan Government, which will share in the results. An important collection of Pleistocene fossils was made during the past 3 months. R. T. Bird left the museum by car in the middle of August, with the instructions to investigate a number of reported prospective fossil localities. He first went to Lusk, WY and examined ceratopsian dinosaur at Lance beds near there, reported by A. E. Wood. It was not a promising find. From there he went to Douglas, WY and investigated a mammoth skeleton reported by William Eastman, Jr. The skeleton was partial destroyed by erosion, and the rest collected by Mr. Eastman, who has it stored in his home. At Billings, MT, he was joined by Mr. George Shea and together they visited an invertebrate track localities on the Newman Ranch. Mr. Bird and Mr. Shea spent 2 weeks on the Crow Indian Reservation, 40 mi. S of Billings, prospecting the Cloverly exposures. 3 partial skeletons of camptosaurid dinosaurs were collected. They went next to Middle Dome, near Harlowtown, MT. A fragmentary Tenantosaurus skull was found. Near Livana, MT, they investigated a fossil tree truck reported by Mr. Shea, but it had been destroyed by erosion. Mr. Shea returned home and Mr. Bird went on to Plum Creek, N of Pryor, MT were he prospected Cloverly beds and found what seemed to be a promising sauropod skeleton. It was covered and a note made of its locality. Mr. Bird then went down to Shell, WY and investigated the Cloverly around all flanks of Sheep Mountain, a locality S of Lovall, one locality 3 miles S. of Lindeman's ranch and an old locality near Cloverly. He found a large ornithiscian skeleton near Cloverly and collected part of it; 800 pounds of bones, which he stored at Paton Ranch. He also located a quarry of disassociated sauropod material, high up in the Cloverly formation, S of Lindeman's. He then went to Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, where he took a series of photographs of the now completed cut. He visited Dr. Gilmore's sauropod quarry worked for the U. S. National Museum in 1937. He believes that Dr. Gilmore is correct in placing it in the Upper Mesa Verde Fm. Near Hurricane, UT, he investigated a cave reported by Prof. Gates, but found nothing but comparatively recent bone, which were not collected. Going S to Cameron, AZ, Mr. Bird prospected the lower blue beds of the Triassic near Tanner's Crossing and found and collected a fragmentary phytosaur skull. He found some fossil plants from a new horizon of the Triassic near Chin Lee, AZ. A Gallup Bird Packed and shipped a fine fossil cycad presented by Mrs. Barbara Cotton Seymour. Next he went to Pueblo, CO where he examined and photographed a series of large new dinosaur tracks brought to the attention of the museum by John Stewart MacClary of Pueblo. From there he went on to Glen Rose, TX to examine a lower Cretaceous trackway along the bed of the Paluxy River. Here he discovered some large and hitherto unknown sauropod tracks. He made casts of some of the tracks and of several carnivorous dinosaur tracks, and took photographs. Dr. Erich M. Schlaikjer, of Brooklyn College, conducted a reconnaissance survey during the month of August in the Morrison Fm. in NE Wyoming The principle result was the location of a rather extensive deposit of dinosaur remains in the vicinity of Sundance. The extent of these deposits, the excellent state of preservation of the bones in the soft matrix, and the slight overburden above the bones caused him to recommend that the deposits be investigated as a good quarry prospect.

1937

1939