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- Herausgeber: Publisher s11838
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
The Life of a Fossil Hunter written by Charles H. Sternberg who was an American fossil collector and amateur paleontologist. This book was published in 1909. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.
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The Life of a Fossil Hunter
By
Charles H. Sternberg
Contributor: Henry Fairfield Osborn
Table of Contents
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS AND WORK IN THE DAKOTA GROUP OF THE CRETACEOUS
CHAPTER II. MY FIRST EXPEDITION TO THE KANSAS CHALK, 1876
CHAPTER III. EXPEDITION WITH PROFESSOR COPE TO THE BAD LANDS OF THE UPPER CRETACEOUS, 1876
CHAPTER IV. FURTHER WORK IN THE KANSAS CHALK, 1877
CHAPTER V. DISCOVERY OF THE LOUP FORK BEDS OF KANSAS AND SUBSEQUENT WORK THERE, 1877 AND 1882–84
CHAPTER VI. EXPEDITION TO THE OREGON DESERT IN 1877
CHAPTER VII. EXPEDITION TO THE JOHN DAY RIVER IN 1878
CHAPTER VIII. MY FIRST EXPEDITION TO THE PERMIAN OF TEXAS, 1882
CHAPTER IX. EXPEDITIONS IN THE TEXAS PERMIAN FOR PROFESSOR COPE, 1895, 1897
CHAPTER X. IN THE RED BEDS OF TEXAS FOR THE ROYAL MUSEUM OF MUNICH, 1901
CHAPTER XI. CONCLUSION
Charles H. Sternberg.
American Nature Series
Group IV. Working with Nature
PREFACE
I wish to call the attention of the reader of my story “The Life of a Fossil Hunter” to the fact that I am under obligations especially to Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn, President and Curator of Paleontology of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He has supplied me with many of the most beautiful of the illustrations that illumine these pages and has assisted the work in many ways.
I would also express my gratitude to Miss Margaret Wagenalls of New York, who edited the manuscript; to Prof. Dunlap of the Kansas State University, for his kindly criticisms; and to Dr. W. K. Gregory, Lecturer on Zoology at Columbia University, whose untiring efforts have brought the book to its present form.
I hope it may awaken a wide interest in the study of ancient life, and I thank my friends everywhere who are contributing to that end.
Charles H. Sternberg.
Lawrence, Kansas,
January, 1909.
INTRODUCTION
ByHenry Fairfield Osborn,
President and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology of the American Museum of Natural History, New York
Our bookshelves contain the lives or narratives of adventure of many hunters of living game, but the life of a fossil hunter has never been written before. Both are in the closest touch with nature and, therefore, full of interest. The one is as full of adventure, excitement and depression, hope and failure, as the other, yet there is ever the great difference that the hunter of live game, thorough sportsman though he may be, is always bringing live animals nearer to death and extinction, whereas the fossil hunter is always seeking to bring extinct animals back to life. This revivification of the past, of the forms which once graced the forests and plains, and rivers and seas, is attended with as great fascination as the quest of live game, and to my mind is a still more honorable and noble pursuit.
The richness of the great American fossil fields, which extend over the vast arid and semi-arid area of the West, scattered over both the great plains region and the great mountain region, has resulted in the creation of a distinctively American profession: that of fossil hunting. The fossil hunter must first of all be a scientific enthusiast. He must be willing to endure all kinds of hardships, to suffer cold in the early spring and the late autumn and early winter months, to suffer intense heat and the glare of the sun in summer months, and he must be prepared to drink alkali water, and in some regions to fight off the attack of the mosquito and other pests. He must be something of an engineer in order to be able to handle large masses of stone and transport them over roadless wastes of desert to the nearest shipping point; he must have a delicate and skilful touch to preserve the least fragments of bone when fractured; he must be content with very plain living, because the profession is seldom, if ever, remunerative, and he is almost invariably underpaid; he must find his chief reward and stimulus in the sense of discovery and in the despatching of specimens to museums which he has never seen for the benefit of a public which has little knowledge or appreciation of the self-sacrifices which the fossil hunter has made.
The fossil fields of America have fortunately attracted a number of such devoted explorers, and one of the pioneers on the honorable list is the author of this work, who by his untiring energy has contributed some of the finest specimens which now adorn the shelves and cases of many of the great museums of America and Europe.
Although special explorations have been described, sometimes in considerable detail, this is the first time that the “life of a fossil hunter” has been written, and it is fitting that it comes from the pen of the oldest living representative of this distinctively American profession. The name of Charles H. Sternberg is attached to discoveries in many parts of the West; discoveries which have formed distinct contributions to science, to the advance of paleontology, to our knowledge of the wonderful ancient life of North America. His is a career full of adventure, of self-sacrifice, worthy of lasting record and recognition by all lovers of nature.
CHAPTER I.EARLY DAYS AND WORK IN THE DAKOTA GROUP OF THE CRETACEOUS
I do not remember when I first began collecting fossils, but I have always loved nature.
Fifteen years of my early life were spent in Otsego County, New York, at dear old Hartwick Seminary, where my father, the Rev. Dr. Levi Sternberg, was principal for fourteen years, and my grandfather, Dr. George B. Miller, a much-loved, devout man, professor of theology for thirty-five. The lovely valley of the Susquehanna, in which it stands, lies five miles below Cooperstown, the birthplace of the Walter Scott of America, James Fenimore Cooper, and my boyhood was spent among scenes which he has made famous. Often my companions and I have gone picnicking on Otsego Lake, shouting to call up the echo, and spreading our tablecloth on shore beneath the very tree from which the catamount was once about to spring upon terrified Elizabeth Temple.
My greatest pleasure in those early days and best, was to live with a darling cousin in the woods. There among the majestic trees,—maples, hickories, pines, and hemlocks,—we used to build sylvan retreats, weaving willow twigs in and out among the poles which I cut for supports; and there, to those great trees, I delivered my boy orations. We delighted also to visit and explore Moss Pond, a body of water on top of the hills across the river, surrounded entirely by sponge moss. We could “teeter” across the moss to a log that gave us support, and catch blind bullheads, or eat our lunch in the cool, dense hemlock woods that surrounded the water, where the heavy branches, intertwined like mighty arms, shut away the light, so that even at midday the sun could barely pierce their shadows.
How I loved flowers! I carried to my mother the first crocus bloom that showed its head above the melting snow, the trailing arbutus, and the tender foliage of the wintergreen. Later in the season I gathered for her the yellow cowslip and fragrant water-lily; and when autumn frosts had tinged the leaves with crimson and gold I filled her arms with a glorious wealth of color.
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
