CHAPTER IXTHE MARCH OF THE MASTODONS
Almost two years to a day from the time that the sand-storm struck the caravan on its way home from Ghizeh, Mr. Hunt, the old merchant, looked up from his morning mail at the breakfast table and said to his son:
“Perry, your Uncle George is back from Patagonia. He writes me from Washington that he has had a marvelous trip in a long search for a still-living specimen of the giant ground-sloth and that he will come out here to pay us a visit.”
“When’s he coming, Father?”
“In about two weeks, he says.”
“My word! I wish I could get that Pteranodon mounted before he comes!”
“Well, can you?”
The boy thought for a moment.
“I might be able to, at that. You know, Father, that Pteranodon of ours is going to be far and away the best Pteranodon in any museum in thiscountry. The American Museum of Natural History in New York will envy us. I wondered, when you bought the specimen from that Kansas chap, that you didn’t send it to New York.”
“I wanted to give our own little museum a start,” the old merchant replied, “and it seemed to me that if it had on exhibition at least one thing that was the best of its kind in the world, that exhibit would help its reputation more than anything I knew. I figure that the Pteranodon will put our local museum on the map.”
“It sure will,” agreed Perry.
“How are you getting along with the mounting of it?”
“Mighty well, I think,” the boy answered, “seeing that I’m doing it nearly all alone. But I’d never have been able to tackle it so well if you hadn’t invited Antoine here last summer. He taught me more about preparing museum specimens in a month than I’d have found out from our chaps here in a year. Why don’t you come over and see it now, Father? I’ve got all the plaster off, and the bones are laid out on a table ready for setting together.”
“Very well, I’ll go with you now,” the merchant said, looking at his watch. “I’m quite keento see how the thing shapes up. After all, I bought those bones on faith. I haven’t even looked at them yet.”
“It’s a crackerjack,” the boy assured him, “the best that’s ever been got hold of. We’re all tickled over it. The skeleton is pretty well cleared away from the chalk rock now, and I’m having heaps of fun making the model.”
“If you can manage to get the mounting of the Pteranodon finished,” his father rejoined, as they stepped into his car, “I’d be glad. I’d like to have it ready to show your Uncle George when he comes.”
In response to questioning about flying reptiles from his father, Perry, during the ride, chattered steadily about pterodactyls of every shape and size, until they stopped at the Museum building. The boy took his father to the top floor, which was used as a workshop. Running along one whole side of the building was a long table, and there, spread out upon it, were a number of blocks of pinkish chalky stone. None of these blocks was more than a couple of feet long, and most of them were only a few inches in length, but from each of them protruded a brown substance which, on close examination, displayed itself as bone. The merchantlooked at the fragments with interest, but also with a puzzled air.
“Is that all there is to it, just those little bits of stone?” he asked.
“Why, Father, what did you expect?”
“I thought you had almost a whole skeleton! That collector fellow told me there were very few bones missing.”
“There aren’t many of them lost, as a matter of fact,” the boy responded. “No, really, Father, it’s a bully specimen.”
“It doesn’t look it.”
“Wait just a second,” the boy rejoined, “and I’ll show you!”
He hurried to another part of the workshop and came back with a curiously shaped frame on which was stretched a piece of brown oiled-silk.
“What’s that?”
“One of the wings for the model,” the boy answered. He laid the frame down upon the table over the blocks that contained the bones, and, as though by magic, the whole shape of the great Pteranodon seemed to spring into view. The missing bones presented themselves to the imagination as though they were there, for the spread of the wing showed exactly how they would fit in.A group of little claws, that had been chiseled entirely free from the chalk, were carefully placed by Perry at the ends of the wing-fingers.
“So that’s what he looked like!” exclaimed the old merchant.
“I can give you a better idea yet. Hold on a bit,” said Perry, and he hurried away again. Back he came, carrying in one hand the companion wing, and in his other hand a wax model of the head and towering crest of the great flying reptile. As soon as this latter was placed beside the scattered array of bones on the table that represented the skull, their relation to each other was shown at once. Perry then laid the other wing on the table, the two great brown membrane-like wings stretching their whole spread of twenty-one feet, and making it seem as though that giant of the air had just glided down upon that workshop table.
“Great guns,” said the financier, “what a monster!”
“Doesn’t that give you an idea of his size, though!” exclaimed the boy.
His father looked thoughtfully at the bones of the skeleton lying embedded in the pieces of Kansas chalk in which they had been found, and atthe model with its semi-transparent wings that lay upon it, and said thoughtfully:
“It’s too bad we couldn’t make an entire hall, Perry, containing huge life-size models of all the kinds of trees that lived at that time, with perhaps a cliff and sea-shore and a few of those Pteranodons—models of course—flying around. I believe in that way people would get the idea of archaic life much more easily than they would from specimens in a glass case.”
“Oh, Father!” cried the lad excitedly, and stopped.
“Well?”
“It would be bully,” the boy agreed, “but you’d need such miles of space! The tree ferns would have to be a hundred feet high, and the cliff two hundred feet, so as to get the perspective right; the hall would have to be a couple of hundred feet square, and we’d need a different hall for each of the important periods.”
“About how many?”
“Seven or eight, I should think.”
The old merchant shook his head.
“I’m pretty well fixed,” he said, “but I couldn’t stand for anything like that. Those halls would cost half a million apiece.”
Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History.Into the Heart of Mexico.Museum expedition leader in the Tree Cactus Country.
Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History.Into the Heart of Mexico.Museum expedition leader in the Tree Cactus Country.
Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History.
Into the Heart of Mexico.
Museum expedition leader in the Tree Cactus Country.
Carrying Shell of GlyptodontEight Mexican peons bearing armor of giant armadillo.
Carrying Shell of GlyptodontEight Mexican peons bearing armor of giant armadillo.
Carrying Shell of Glyptodont
Eight Mexican peons bearing armor of giant armadillo.
“If you wanted to, Father—” the boy began, and stopped.
“Well?”
“You can get pretty nearly that effect by making models on a small scale, say, an inch to the foot. Then the tree ferns would be ten feet high, the Pteranodons would be two feet and all the other animals would be to scale. If you worked in the perspective and did the lighting the way that it’s done on the stage, people could get almost the same effect as by a big hall.”
The merchant looked thoughtfully at his son.
“That’s a good idea of yours, Perry,” he said.
“It’s not my idea,” the lad rejoined, “there’s a chap who’s worked it out for the Children’s Museum in Brooklyn and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. His stuff is great!”
“I wouldn’t mind spending a little money for a thing like that,” the financier answered. “Models like the ones you’re talking about are just what the small museums ought to have.”
“Big ones, too,” put in Perry.
“Of course. But a considerable part of the funds of the larger museums must be spent on expeditions and scientific work on a broad scale. That’s their main work. But in order to get thepublic interested—which I think is an important part of a museum’s duty to the people—that model idea catches me about right. Why don’t you have that fellow come on and spend a couple of days with us? I’ll see that it’s worth his while.”
“I’ll ask him like a shot, if you’re willing,” Perry replied. “I’d enjoy it heaps! I’ve never had more fun than I did last summer when you asked that American Museum artist down here. Jumping Jehu, couldn’t he paint!”
“Yes,” his father agreed, “when it comes to restorations of fossil monsters, he’s about the best ever. You picked up quite a bit about painting from him, too.”
“I certainly did. And I’d like to know a little more about modelling,” the boy added shrewdly, well knowing that his father was always willing to help him in every way.
“All right, then, Perry, if you want to drop a note to that sculptor-modeller, go ahead.”
The financier started to go and then turned back.
“I’ve been thinking about the missing parts of that Pteranodon,” he said. “Don’t you suppose, Perry, that the rest of those bones ought tobe somewhere around? If I sent the collector another check, do you think he could dig around and find some more? I’d like to see that skeleton absolutely complete.”
The boy shook his head.
“I don’t believe it would be any use, Father,” he said. “You see, that Pteranodon was found in chalk.”
“Well?”
“That means that he must have died and tumbled into the water and sunk to the bottom. The floor of the sea is pretty flat, especially when it’s made up of those microscopic shells floating down, so that the bones, when they reached the bottom, must have been spread out on a level. They’re too light to sink in much, and as the chalk shells steadily rained down, they covered the old monarch of the air like a sheet. Then the bottom of the sea rose and became dry land. When, millions of years later, and probably not long ago, rain and wind and all the rest of the things that make erosion, washed away the chalk that had accumulated on top of the Pteranodon, he lay there just as flat as ever, flatter, because his hollow bones were crushed by the chalk that once had lain on top of him.”
“Yes, that’s true,” said the merchant thoughtfully, “the bones would be on a level.”
“Sure. So if the collector who found those bones cleared away a space a little larger than the spread of the Pteranodon, say a stretch thirty feet square, and worked that down to a level, he’d really be looking at the bottom of the ocean as it was when the Pteranodon sank down. If he explored that stretch for a few inches further down, he’d certainly find all the bones he would be likely to find, for even an inch of chalk would mean a thousand-years’ deposit.”
“That may be all right, son,” said his father, “and you’ve made a good case for the collector. But just the same, the bones must be somewhere.”
“Sure, but where? See, right here, Father,” and the lad put his finger on the skeleton, “there’s the place where the sternum ought to be, one of the biggest bones of the whole Pteranodon. It wasn’t found at all. Yet you’d think that the biggest bone would be the easiest to find.”
“That’s just what I’m saying. It must be somewhere. A bone from a dead bird can’t get up and walk off by itself.”
“No, but a big primitive fish or a crab, or something, could have pulled away the bone when makinghis dinner on the dead Pteranodon at the bottom of the sea. Anyway, it’s a rare thing when there aren’t some bones missing in a fossil. In the Fayum, it used to seem to me an awful shame that the skeletons were so often broken up into little bits. But we had to take them as they came.”
“You’ll make up the rest of the skeleton in plaster, I suppose?”
“That’s nearly done, Father,” the boy replied. “But we’re not going to take the skeleton free from the chalk and mount it.”
“Why not?”
“Couldn’t be done successfully. As I was telling you, the bones are crushed. See, Father, a Pteranodon’s bones are hollow, like a thin pasteboard tube, and the pressure of the overlying chalk has squashed them flat, and splintered them. It would be an awful job to rebuild that tubular bone. No, we’re going to chisel away the chalk for about an inch below the level of the bones, soaking them meanwhile in shellac until they won’t absorb any more and cementing together the pieces that are cracked and broken. Then we’ll make a plaster model of the whole base, fitting in the bits of chalk we have, and we’ll color that pink like the rock inwhich the bones were found. On that model, which will be exactly to scale, we’ll be able to see exactly where the missing bones come and we’ll mold them on the model. We’ll color them slightly different from the true bones, so that an expert can see right away which are the restored parts, but the public will get the idea of the beast as a whole.”
“And your restoration will be of wax?”
“We’ve got a regular composition for that, and I’m molding it over a steel frame so as to give it strength. Then I’ll paint it up to look as much like life as possible.”
“How do you know what color to paint it?” queried his father. “There wasn’t any artist in existence to take notes when Pteranodon was flying around.”
“No,” Perry replied. “But there isn’t any reason to suppose Pteranodon was in bright colors and a blackish-brown is the usual thing in Nature, so I’m going to make it that.”
“Where are you going to put the exhibit?” queried the old merchant, as he went to the door.
“Right in this main hall,” the boy answered. “It’s our biggest prize, thanks to you, Father, and we’re going to make the most of it.”
His father laughed at the lad’s confident manner.
“I hope you occasionally consult the Director,” he said. “You talk for all the world, Perry, as though you were the only person in the building.”
The boy colored to the roots of his hair at the implied rebuke of boasting.
“I didn’t mean to,” he said, “but—but I have got the sort of idea that the Pteranodon is my pet, and they’ve let me work it all out, almost by myself. The Director’s in and out all the time, of course.”
With the goal before him of having both the skeleton prepared and also the model finished and hung before the arrival of his uncle, Perry worked night and day. The director of the small museum helped him, for he too was anxious to have the museum’s richest treasure on display before the coming of Dr. Hunt. Between them, they accomplished wonders, and the day before the expected visit of the scientist, the skeleton of the Pteranodon was safely affixed against the wall of the main hall, while above him, swooping downwards, was the 21-foot model of the giant flying reptile. He looked every inch his size, and the actual bonesthemselves, immediately below, showed how exactly true to reality was the restoration that had been made.
When, next day, his uncle came, Perry could hardly restrain his impatience until a visit to the Museum had been arranged. He was proud of his work, as proud in completing the preparation of the skeleton and the model as he had been when, one evening two years before, in the red sand of the Eocene river bed in Egypt, he had shown his uncle the skull of the Moeritherium. But, at the same time, he was a little anxious, for the director of the local museum, though a scholar, was not an expert in paleontology.
The lad was on pins and needles, therefore, when, with his father and his uncle, the car slowed up at the Museum. Perry led them into the main hall and pointed to the wall.
“There!” he said.
The professor cast a quick glance at the model overhead, but, as Perry knew well, it was not the restoration, but the actual skeleton itself that interested the scientist and he walked up to the case. Carefully, with an examination of details that amazed Perry, for even he did not realize how much importance might attach to a small groovein a joint, the scientist scrutinized every bone, and every fragment of the plaster.
Courtesy of J. B. Lippincott & Co.Pteranodon, Climbing for a Swoop.The great flying reptile, twenty-one feet long, clawing his way up the cliff to get a start for his soaring flight; restoration from Gregory, in “Geology of To-day.”
Courtesy of J. B. Lippincott & Co.Pteranodon, Climbing for a Swoop.The great flying reptile, twenty-one feet long, clawing his way up the cliff to get a start for his soaring flight; restoration from Gregory, in “Geology of To-day.”
Courtesy of J. B. Lippincott & Co.
Pteranodon, Climbing for a Swoop.
The great flying reptile, twenty-one feet long, clawing his way up the cliff to get a start for his soaring flight; restoration from Gregory, in “Geology of To-day.”
“Excellent,” he said heartily, “excellent piece of work! Very well handled indeed, Perry. You’ve got a real specimen there, and the preparation is first class.”
The director, who had hurried out of his office on the approach of the car, heard the last couple of sentences and smiled at the boy.
“Of course,” the professor continued, “there are one or two small points, quite small points, that I think might be changed.”
“What?” queried Perry.
“That crest, for one thing,” the scientist replied. “There is every reason to think that the Pteranodon developed that large crest sticking out the back of his head as a balance. As the genus grew in size, the toothed beak of the Pteranodon became longer in order to enable him to get food easily. Judging from the bones of his neck, which you see are small, Perry, it is unlikely that he could have carried heavy enough muscles to support the one-sided weight of a heavy jaw, and the crest acted as a balance. Now, you have the crest standing up from the skull at an angle of forty-five degrees. That would put more weighton the top of the skull and diminish the balancing effect. If you draw a straight line along the upper jaw to the skull and project that backwards, you will have the right line for the crest.”
“So that’s why he had that crest!” exclaimed Perry. Then turning to the director, he added, “Mr. Thompson, neither of us thought of that reason, did we?”
“Then,” continued the professor, “I think you have the stretch of the wings a little too straight. The wing-finger of nearly all the Pterodactyls was curved.” He also mentioned one or two smaller matters, but turning to the director of the local museum, concluded:
“I think, Mr. Thompson, if you will make those trifling changes, you will have in your Museum here without question the finest specimen of a Pteranodon extant.”
“Very well, Dr. Hunt,” the director answered, “I’m obliged for the suggestions. I think I’ll let Perry carry them out, since you think he’s done so well so far.”
“He has done a first-class piece of work,” the scientist said, quite enthusiastically, “one that would do credit to any museum. If you’ll let me have a photograph, Perry, and the exact dimensionsof all the bones, I’ll write a short scientific paper on it and give you the credit for the restoration, under Mr. Thompson’s direction.”
“Oh, Uncle George,” he said, “that would be great, but it was Mr. Thompson who showed me what to do.”
“No,” remarked the director, “Dr. Hunt is speaking of the restoration, and I let you go ahead on that in your own way. If Dr. Hunt writes a paper on it, the credit for the restoration is all yours. Mounting the skeleton, of course, is a different matter.”
The scientist was distinctly pleased with the lad’s work and reverted to it more than once in the course of the day. At the same time, the genuine scientific interest shown by the professor in the Pteranodon was grateful to the old merchant, who, as he said himself, had bought the bones “on faith.”
The third day of Dr. Hunt’s visit, at dinner, the scientist turned to his nephew and said quite unexpectedly:
“Perry, do you know the famous poem about the Eohippus?”
“No, Uncle George,” the boy replied. “I don’t believe I do.”
“You are acquainted with our little friend, the Eohippus, I suppose?”
Perry grinned.
“In books and in bones,” he said, “but I haven’t ever met him in real life.”
Then, for he never missed an opportunity of trying to persuade his uncle to take him on another expedition, he added:
“I’d be awfully glad to meet him, though, Uncle George, if you’re going to pay him a visit.”
“I am,” the scientist replied. “But if you don’t know that little bit of verse, which was written by a clever and quite well-known woman after a visit to our New York Museum, part of your education as a paleontologist has been seriously neglected, and I’m going to make up for that neglect at once.” And, without further preamble, he began:
“There was once a little animalNo bigger than a fox,And on five toes he scamperedOver Tertiary rocks;They called him Eohippus,For he certainly was small,And they thought him of no valueWhen they thought of him at all;For the lumpish old DinocerasAnd Coryphodon so slow,Were the heavy aristocracyIn days of long ago.”
“There was once a little animalNo bigger than a fox,And on five toes he scamperedOver Tertiary rocks;They called him Eohippus,For he certainly was small,And they thought him of no valueWhen they thought of him at all;For the lumpish old DinocerasAnd Coryphodon so slow,Were the heavy aristocracyIn days of long ago.”
“There was once a little animalNo bigger than a fox,And on five toes he scamperedOver Tertiary rocks;They called him Eohippus,For he certainly was small,And they thought him of no valueWhen they thought of him at all;For the lumpish old DinocerasAnd Coryphodon so slow,Were the heavy aristocracyIn days of long ago.”
“There was once a little animal
No bigger than a fox,
And on five toes he scampered
Over Tertiary rocks;
They called him Eohippus,
For he certainly was small,
And they thought him of no value
When they thought of him at all;
For the lumpish old Dinoceras
And Coryphodon so slow,
Were the heavy aristocracy
In days of long ago.”
“Except that the Dinoceras didn’t live at the same time as the Eohippus,” put in Perry, “he came along later.”
“Poetic license,” replied his uncle. “I didn’t write the verse. Shall I go on?”
“Oh, sure!” answered Perry eagerly.
So his uncle continued:
“Said the little Eohippus,‘I’m going to be a horse!And on my middle finger-nailsTo run my earthly course!I’m going to have a flowing tail,I’m going to have a mane,I’m going to stand fourteen hands high,On the psychozoic plain.’”
“Said the little Eohippus,‘I’m going to be a horse!And on my middle finger-nailsTo run my earthly course!I’m going to have a flowing tail,I’m going to have a mane,I’m going to stand fourteen hands high,On the psychozoic plain.’”
“Said the little Eohippus,‘I’m going to be a horse!And on my middle finger-nailsTo run my earthly course!I’m going to have a flowing tail,I’m going to have a mane,I’m going to stand fourteen hands high,On the psychozoic plain.’”
“Said the little Eohippus,
‘I’m going to be a horse!
And on my middle finger-nails
To run my earthly course!
I’m going to have a flowing tail,
I’m going to have a mane,
I’m going to stand fourteen hands high,
On the psychozoic plain.’”
“He got away with it, too,” commented Perry, “but I don’t wonder that the Coryphodon couldn’t see it coming.”
“Not only couldn’t he see it coming,” said his uncle, “but the poet represents him as being quite annoyed about it.” And he continued:
“The Coryphodon was horrified,The Dinoceras was shocked,And they chased young Eohippus,But he skipped away and mocked;Then they laughed enormous laughter,And they groaned enormous groans,And they bade young EohippusGo view his father’s bones.Said they, ‘You always were as smallAnd mean as now we see,And that’s conclusive evidenceThat you’re always going to be.’‘What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast,With hoofs to gallop on?Why, you’d have to change your nature!’Said the Loxolophodon.They considered him disposed ofAnd retired with gait serene,That was the way they arguedIn the early Eocene.”
“The Coryphodon was horrified,The Dinoceras was shocked,And they chased young Eohippus,But he skipped away and mocked;Then they laughed enormous laughter,And they groaned enormous groans,And they bade young EohippusGo view his father’s bones.Said they, ‘You always were as smallAnd mean as now we see,And that’s conclusive evidenceThat you’re always going to be.’‘What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast,With hoofs to gallop on?Why, you’d have to change your nature!’Said the Loxolophodon.They considered him disposed ofAnd retired with gait serene,That was the way they arguedIn the early Eocene.”
“The Coryphodon was horrified,The Dinoceras was shocked,And they chased young Eohippus,But he skipped away and mocked;Then they laughed enormous laughter,And they groaned enormous groans,And they bade young EohippusGo view his father’s bones.Said they, ‘You always were as smallAnd mean as now we see,And that’s conclusive evidenceThat you’re always going to be.’‘What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast,With hoofs to gallop on?Why, you’d have to change your nature!’Said the Loxolophodon.They considered him disposed ofAnd retired with gait serene,That was the way they arguedIn the early Eocene.”
“The Coryphodon was horrified,
The Dinoceras was shocked,
And they chased young Eohippus,
But he skipped away and mocked;
Then they laughed enormous laughter,
And they groaned enormous groans,
And they bade young Eohippus
Go view his father’s bones.
Said they, ‘You always were as small
And mean as now we see,
And that’s conclusive evidence
That you’re always going to be.’
‘What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast,
With hoofs to gallop on?
Why, you’d have to change your nature!’
Said the Loxolophodon.
They considered him disposed of
And retired with gait serene,
That was the way they argued
In the early Eocene.”
“Loxolophodon isn’t early Eocene, either,” protested Perry. “It’s a bully rhyme, Father, but it has got scientific kinks.”
“How?”
“Well, take the line, ‘On five toes he scampered.’ Eohippus didn’t have five toes, if I’ve got it right. I know when I stopped at New York, on the way home from that great trip we had in the Fayum, I spent over an hour in that alcove of the horses in the American Museum, and I’m just as sure as I can be that the Eohippus skeleton they exhibited there had only four toes on the forefeet and three on the hind feet.”
Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History.Finding the Eobasileus.Haystack Mountain, in the Bad Lands of Wyoming: the museum explorer is standing at spot where the skeleton was discovered.
Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History.Finding the Eobasileus.Haystack Mountain, in the Bad Lands of Wyoming: the museum explorer is standing at spot where the skeleton was discovered.
Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History.
Finding the Eobasileus.
Haystack Mountain, in the Bad Lands of Wyoming: the museum explorer is standing at spot where the skeleton was discovered.
Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History.The Eobasileus or Loxolophodon.A four-horned amblypod (blunt-feet) the largest and last of his race, of which vast herds roamed over the United States three million years ago.
Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History.The Eobasileus or Loxolophodon.A four-horned amblypod (blunt-feet) the largest and last of his race, of which vast herds roamed over the United States three million years ago.
Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History.
The Eobasileus or Loxolophodon.
A four-horned amblypod (blunt-feet) the largest and last of his race, of which vast herds roamed over the United States three million years ago.
The scientist looked across the table at his brother.
“We’re going to make a paleontologist out of this chap after all, I believe,” he said. “Now, Perry, was there any horse earlier than the Eohippus?”
“There’s one awfully like Eohippus that they found in the London Clay,” the boy answered. “Let’s see if I can remember what he’s called? He isn’t a ‘Hippus’ anything!”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Hyra—Hyratherium,” he said at last.
“Hyracotherium,” the scientist corrected him, shaking his head.
“That’s it. But I could never quite make out, Uncle George, whether he was much different from Eohippus. He didn’t have five toes, did he?”
“No one knows,” was the answer. “Some of these days we may find a complete skeleton of Hyracotherium in that big stretch of clay under London, but, so far, there’s only a skull known. Personally, I think he’s the same as an Eohippus. Of course there are rudiments of the fourth and fifth toes on the hind feet of that type. But was there ever a true five-toed horse?”
“I don’t know.”
“It seems to me,” said his uncle, “that you’d better come along with me and try to find out. I don’t know, either.”
Perry almost jumped from his chair.
“Oh, Uncle George,” he said, “you’re going off on another expedition!”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Wyoming.”
“And am I going?”
“That’s for your father to say. I’d like to have you along.”
The lad looked appealingly to the old merchant at the head of the table. The latter caught his son’s look and smiled.
“I think we’ll have to let the boy go with you, George,” he said, “if it’s only to give us a rest. I pledge you my word that there’s been so much paleontology talked in this house ever since Perry came back from that Egyptian trip, that half the time, when a bird comes on the table at dinner time, I hardly know whether I’m carving a modern chicken or an Archæopteryx.”
The scientist smiled broadly.
“In that case,” he said, “you’d better let him come with me.”
“Oh, Father,” cried Perry, “can’t I go?”
The boy’s mother began some protest from the other end of the table, but the old merchant paid no heed.
“Yes,” he answered thoughtfully, “I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t go.”
Perry wriggled in his chair with eagerness.
“Uncle George,” he began excitedly, “when are we going to start? And just whereabouts in Wyoming are we going? And what are we going to look for? And—”
The professor put up his hand in protest.
“Easy, easy there, Perry,” he said. “I’ve a lively remembrance of what you’re like when you start asking questions. Spare me now. I’ll take a walk with you after dinner and you can spring anything that you want to know, then.”
Accordingly, as soon as the meal came to an end—and Perry had never thought a dinner could seem so long and slow, he handed his uncle his hat and the big ironwood stick that the professor always carried, grabbed his own cap and half-pushed him out of the door.
“Now, Uncle George,” he said. “Please, quick, tell me all about it! When are we going to start?”
The professor took out his watch with an assumption of intense hurry and consulted it.
“The last Eohippus sank quietly to sleep about two and a quarter million years ago,” he said, “and somehow I seem to think that he’ll stay there and wait for us a little while longer. But of course, if you’re in such a tremendous rush—”
“Please don’t joke, Uncle George, I really want to know when we’re going to start. I’d like to make those corrections on that Pteranodon that you told me about before I go, any way.”
“You can probably do that,” the scientist replied. “I had planned to start for the west in a couple of weeks.”
“Whereabouts?”
“I want to correlate some horizons,” was the reply.
The boy looked puzzled.
“You don’t see what I mean?” the professor asked.
“I don’t, quite,” the lad replied.
“Well, Perry, I want to visit three or four points in Wyoming where different strata of rock are exposed, working from the Upper Eocene downwards. You remember, at the Fayum, there were rocks belonging to the Oligocene Period rightup at the top of the cliff, Upper Eocene on the next layer, Middle Eocene where we had our camp, and Lower Eocene down near that Birket-el-Qurun lake?”
“You bet I remember,” said Perry, “why, Uncle George, just for fun I made myself a model of it.”
“Good thing to do, it’ll help you to remember. Now, in the States we haven’t any one place where all these various strata show up clearly one above the other, with great ledges exposed for exploration and working, as they are in the Fayum. But, all over Wyoming, in different valleys and at different parts of the Bad Lands, there are these same strata exposed for miles and miles. At one place, Perry, such as the Washakie formation, where I’m going first, all the rocks deposited since the time of the Upper Eocene Period, have been washed or weathered away, so that the Upper Eocene layers are exposed. It’s a Bad Land country, too, where the rocks are soft, where there is no fertile soil and no steady rainfall. So, when the cloudbursts come, the rain eats easily into the soft rocks and carves them into buttes and ravines. The sand-bearing winds cut them away still further, so there are hundreds of thousands of squarefeet exposed to the weather and erosion is always going on.”
“Gee, what a chance!” cried Perry. “Why, you could go over a country like that every year and find something.”
“You can travel over it after every rainstorm or windstorm, for that matter. Then, after I’ve spent a day or two at the Washakie, I’m going to the Bridger Bad Lands. They’ve been cut down a little further, so that all the Upper Eocene has been eroded and the Middle Eocene is exposed. So you see, Perry, in the Washakie formation we have a chance of finding the fossils of animals that lived in the Upper Eocene Period; and, a few miles away, in the Bridger Bad Lands, we can find the fossils of half a million years earlier. Then, in the Wasatch, there are two places I’m going to visit, the Wind River Valley and the Gray Bull River country; the Wind River exposes the top of the Lower Eocene Rocks and the Gray Bull the bottom layers. Then, if I can get time, I’ll go to New Mexico, where there has been more erosion and the rocks are cut away down to the Basal Eocene, and, after that, I plan to come back to Wyoming for the famous Laramie formation, which is cut down to the CretaceousPeriod, or the Age of Chalk, and which has been our great hunting ground for the Dinosaurs.”
“My Pteranodon was from the Age of Chalk.”
“Certainly, Perry, but it was from a marine formation, earlier than the Laramie. You see the Cretaceous Ocean covered Kansas, but did not cover Wyoming. I want to make an exact map of the relations of these strata to each other so as to show clearly the way in which the rocks were laid down and to give a continuous picture of the life of the animals that lived during those times. You know well, Perry, that I’m always more interested in fossils for the sake of the ideas of primitive life that they give, than for fossils themselves.”
“Same here,” said the boy. “And where are we going to strike first, Uncle George? You said the Washakie formation. Whereabouts, at Haystack Mountain?”
Again the scientist looked approvingly at his nephew.
“You’re really doing quite well, Perry,” he said. “What made you think of Haystack Mountain?”
“I’ve been interested in Eocene deposits ever since that Fayum trip,” the boy replied, “and Ifound out that Haystack Mountain was the same age as the beds we worked in Egypt, where I found the Moeritherium. That’s sort of made me feel that Eocene fossils were my particular end.”
“Do you expect to find another Moeritherium in Wyoming?”
“No, of course not. The Moeritherium isn’t found anywhere except in Africa. You said so.”
“Are the elephants found anywhere else?”
“Oh, sure. They went everywhere.”
“Why didn’t the Moeritherium go everywhere?”
“Because—because; oh, I suppose, Africa wasn’t connected by land with Europe or Asia. Yes, that’s right. Africa was an island in the Eocene Period.”
“How about Zeuglodons, then? Would you find them in Haystack Mountain? The fact that Africa was an island wouldn’t matter to primitive whales.”
Perry rubbed his forehead in perplexity.
“I’ve a feeling,” he said slowly, “that there aren’t any there, but why?” He thought for a moment, then catching sight of a twinkle in his uncle’s eye, a sudden thought struck him. “Why, of course not,” he said, laughing at himself,“that’s inland. We’ve got Zeuglodons in the marine Eocene deposits in Florida.”
“I was wondering,” his uncle said, “if you were going to have whales walking all over the land. I just wanted to remind you that you’ve got to think of the conditions of the deposit as well as the age. One other thing, Perry. If, during the Eocene Period, Africa was an island, do you suppose America was connected with Europe and Asia or not?”
“N—no,” answered Perry doubtfully. “I think probably not. If it was a time when the land was depressed in Africa, it probably was depressed here.”
“Then if Africa had her own types of animals, like the Moeritherium, that we didn’t have, you might expect us to have some types that Africa and Europe and Asia didn’t have.”
“Like the giraffe-camels?”
“Exactly,” the professor agreed, “like the giraffe-camels. But in later deposits, the types mixed. Now, Perry, if you think you really want to come with me, you can either join me in three weeks at the Museum Camp near Haystack Butte, or you can join me a few days earlier and go with me to the Loup River formation in Nebraska.It’s on the way, and the Museum received a letter the other day from a ranchman, who seems to have found a fine specimen of the Columbian mammoth. They want me to go and look it over. I thought you might like to see a mammoth embedded. As I understand, this chap has had the sense to leave the skeleton untouched, so it may be in good shape.”
“I’d awfully like to go there,” said the boy, “but I do think I ought to finish up the Pteranodon first, and it’ll take me all of two weeks. I’ll join you out at Haystack Butte, if I may. I’d like to go with you to see that mammoth, though, ’cause I’ve never seen one really in the ground. And just what sort of a beast was the Columbian Mammoth, Uncle George? I’ve never got clearly in my head the differences between a mastodon and a mammoth.”
“It’s a thing you ought to know,” his uncle said, “particularly as you found the Moeritherium for us. You remember the Paleo-mastodon skull that Antoine found the night before you made your discovery, don’t you?”
“Of course!”
“And you remember that while the Moeritherium skull was found in an Upper Eocene bed,the Paleo-mastodon skull was found in a lower Oligocene.”
“Of course.”
“And you just now told me that Africa was an island during the Eocene period and that it gradually rose, making land bridges across the Mediterranean during the later Oligocene.”
“Yes,” Perry agreed.
“Very good. Then, when the land bridges were made, and the mammals from Africa first had the chance to make their way into Europe and Asia and so on to America, the ancestors of the elephants were a little more advanced than Paleo-mastodon. That’s clear?”
“Quite.”
“And so you might find the descendants of Paleo-mastodon in Europe in the Miocene Period, after the land bridges were made, but not earlier.”
“Yes, I see.”
“That’s exactly what happened. In the Lower Miocene of Europe is found the Trilophodon or four-tusked Mastodon. The European form is older and less developed than the four-tusked Mastodon of America, but the little fellow traveled from Africa to China, going through Arabia, and from Africa to Florida by way of the BehringStraits land bridges. They weren’t straits, then, of course.
“So, in that warm corner of Africa, the elephants slowly began to develop until the time of Paleo-mastodon and later, going on their own way without any interference from others. They managed to defend themselves from the creodonts and, little by little, developed trunks and tusks. Then came the land opening into Europe and Asia, and, like a stream bursting through a dam, the four-tusked Mastodons scattered to the four corners of the earth, trumpeting as they went.
“They grew more and more powerful. Soon the little four-tusked fellow decided to give all his attention to the development of his upper tusks and to let the lower ones go. One type, which we call the Beaked Mastodon, had a short jaw and his lower tusks turned down. It wasn’t a very good arrangement and his kind became extinct. The other two types are distinguished by a difference in the teeth—”
“Teeth again!” exclaimed Perry.
“Exactly. One had four crests on the second molar, the other had three, but it was the three-crested type that had the first success and the three-crested style that led to the modern Mastodon.The first big Tertiary two-tusked Mastodon, who is called Dibelodon, had the three-crested tooth, and he spread everywhere. All the South American Mastodons were of his race.
“Meantime, another of the family decided to develop the lower tusks, instead of the upper, and they stuck downwards at right angles to the lower jaw. If you can imagine an exaggerated walrus tusk effect, only coming from the lower jaw, instead of from the upper, you can get some idea of it.”
“What a queer-looking brute! What would be the use of tusks like that?”
“For roots,” his uncle replied. “It worked fairly well, for the family succeeded for a long time, too. The biggest specimen of Dinotherium, which was found in Roumania, was bigger than the largest Mastodon. But the Dinothere didn’t have the real emigration spirit. So far as we know, he never came to the New World.
“At last came the true American Mastodon, developed from the three-crested tooth type. He lived during the Age of Man. Primitive Man hunted the Mastodon and the Mammoth, and has even left pictures of the chase engraved on reindeer horn. When you stop to consider the crudetypes of stone weapons that Man used at that time, it looks like long odds against the Man. Yet the Mastodons have all gone from the earth and Man remains.”
“There were living Mastodons not so long ago, weren’t there, Uncle George?”
“Quite recently,” the professor answered, “but the stories you hear about Mastodons having been seen within historic times are untrue. Still, their skeletons are never deeply buried. They are generally found in bogs and swamps. A great many have been found in New York State and their fossil remains are plentiful all over the Middle West. You know that big swamp about twenty miles south of here?”
“You mean Jackson’s Bog?”
“Yes.”
“Sure. I’ve often gone after wild duck, there.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were Mastodons in that swamp. I don’t mean for shooting purposes,” and the professor laughed, “but buried there. Some of these days, if the swamp is drained, possibly many Mastodon skulls and tusks will be found. The animals swarmed all over this part of America. One skeleton, even,which was found in New York State, was so well preserved that masses of golden-brown hair were found still attached to the withered skin.”