FOSSIL HUNTING IN NEW MEXICO 



By CHARLES W. GILMORE, 



Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology, U. S. National Muscmn 



The San Juan Basin in the northwestern corner of New Mexico 

 contains an extensive area of broken country called " bad lands " in 

 which occur fossil remains of turtles, dinosaurs, and other extinct 

 animals. It was in 1902 that the first fossil remains were reported 

 from this region, and ever since, from time to time, the National 

 Museum has l)een the recipient of small collections made by various 

 members of the United States Geological Survey in the course of 

 their explorations of the area. Especially noteworthy is a collection 

 made by Dr. John 11 Reeside, Jr., in 1916, consisting of no less than 

 50 turtles together with several fragmentary dinosaurian specimens. 

 The excellent preservation and great variety of many of these fossils 

 indicated a field of much promise for future paleontological explora- 

 tion. Furthermore, the opportunity of establishing adec_[uate faunas 

 that would assist in the more exact correlation of these Upper 

 Cretaceous formations with adjacent as well as more distant areas, 

 made it a project having both paleontological and geological interest. 

 Thus it was that the National Musuem had long considered such an 

 exploration. 



Plans for this field-work were finally approved, and in May of the 

 present year I left Washington for Kiml>etoh. New Mexico. At 

 Thoreau. the end of my railroad journey, I was joined by Mr. Norman 

 H. Boss of the paleontological stafif, who had been working for some 

 weeks in southern New Mexico, and we proceeded by automobile to 

 Kimbetoh, some 60 miles distant. On the way out we stopped at 

 Crown Point where I called upon Mr. S. F. Stacher, superintendent 

 of the Navajo Indian Reservation, who assured us of every assis- 

 tance at his command whenever our work took us onto the Reservation. 

 Our next stop was at the famous old ruin Pueblo Bonito, where we 

 were delayed for two days because of the impassable condition, due to 

 recent rains, of Escavada Wash, which lay between us and our desti- 

 nation. This was my introduction to a " wash," of which there are 

 many in this country and with which we were later to become better 

 acquainted. For those unacquainted with the term I may explain 

 that a " wash " is nothing more than a wide shallow stream bed filled 

 with sand, which in dry weather has no particular terrors after one 



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