MUSEUM NOTES 



75 



seum previously possessed only skulls; the 

 other of the helmeted tlinosaur Stephano- 

 saurus, not before represented in the Muse- 

 um's collections. Other notable specimens 

 are a complete skull and jaws of the horned 

 dinosaur Monodonius; a skull and part of 

 the skeleton of an armored dinosaur; and 

 the largest skull yet discovered (five feet in 

 length) of the duck-billed dinosaur, Tracho- 

 don. Another very rare specimen is a com- 

 plete lower jaw of a cretaceous marsupial 

 mammal. 



In addition to the vertebrate remains, two 

 large silicified tree trunks were secured, over 

 forty feet in length. When these are sec- 

 tioned it will be possible to determine the 

 genus to which they belong. They are of 

 especial interest because the center of the 

 tree is silicified, while surrounding it the 

 outer portion had carbonized, forming lig- 

 nite. Several large slabs were also obtained 

 on which impressions of many species of 

 leaves are beautifully preserved. This ma- 

 terial will be displayed to show the type of 

 foliage content^joraneous with the dinosaur 

 life of Alberta. 



After bringing to completion the Museum's 

 work on the Red Deer River, which has 

 extended over a period of six years and 

 been productive of four and a half carloads 

 of valuable fossils, Mr. Brown went to 

 Northern Montana. Here he secured a 

 large collection from the Upper Cretaceous 

 beds on Milk River. Work was continued 

 in this field until zero weather compelled 

 cessation of operations. 



Mr. N. C. NELSO>r returned to New York 

 about the middle of December, having fin- 

 ished the American Museum's archa?ologi- 

 cal investigations in the Rio Grande Valley 

 of northern New Mexico. Mr. Nelson has 

 spent four seasons investigating the territory 

 formerly occupied by the Tanos, which 

 embraces approximately twelve hundred 

 square miles, and in this area has found 

 forty-two true pueblo ruins, composed of 

 from one to forty-three communal houses 

 each, besides innumerable minor sites of 

 archaeological interest. These latter consist 

 of small houses, temporary camps, caves, 

 rock shelters, quarries and pictographs. Of 

 the forty-two pueblo ruins found, Mr. Nelson 

 partly excavated the twenty-seven most 

 important, clearing all told something over 

 seventeen hundred ground-floor rooms. He 



also investigated neighboring territory on the 

 north and on the west, in which were located 

 about twenty-five pueblos. Three of these 

 were tried out by excavation, and a fourth, 

 the historic pueblo of Kotyiti, a natural 

 stronghold in the days of the rebellion, was 

 entirely cleared. Out of these diggings over 

 nine thousand artifacts have been obtained, 

 exclusive of about an equal number of frag- 

 mentary objects, immense quantities of 

 broken pottery, animal bones and food stuffs. 

 Not all of the catalogued specimens however, 

 were of such a character as to make their 

 preservation worth while, being made up of 

 mealing stones, hammer stones and similar 

 common objects. Of the three hundred and 

 thirty-five human skeletons exhumed, about 

 seventy-five or eighty were in condition to 

 be kept for study. By excavation in the 

 large stratified refuse heaps belonging to 

 some of the ruins five successive styles of pot- 

 tery were recognized. With these different 

 styles of ceramics as a key it has been possible 

 to separate the forty-two Tano ruins and 

 about an equal number of ruins in neighbor- 

 ing territory, into five chronological groups. 

 Although this chronological determination 

 does not apply to the entire Pueblo area, it 

 will assist toward an understanding of a 

 large part of it, and marks a real step in the 

 elucidation of Pueblo history. 



In the course of the summer Mr. Nelson 

 also made an eight-hundred-mile recon- 

 naissance trip by team and on foot through 

 northwestern New Mexico and adjacent 

 parts of Colorado and Arizona. The journey 

 included the Mesa Verde district, famous for 

 its cliff dwellings; several tributary val- 

 leys of the San Juan where many ruins 

 were observed; the remarkable ruins of the 

 Chaco Canon of which Pueblo Bonito is well 

 known; and finally the ruins of the Zuiii 

 Valley. These four districts were somewhat 

 distinct culture centers in prehistoric times, 

 all but the last mentioned being apparently 

 abandoned by the Pueblo Indians when the 

 Spaniards first came into the country. 

 Many of the picturesque ruins observed 

 are in a fair state of preservation and Mr. 

 Nelson brought back about two hundred 

 and fifty photographs. Fragmentary pot- 

 tery was gathered everywhere for compara- 

 tive studies. 



The members of the Second Pan-American 

 Scientific Congress and their friends were 



