BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF JOHN BELL HATCHER. XIX 



The small mammals are pretty generally distributed but are never abundant, and on aeount of their small size are seen 

 with difficulty. They may be more frequently found in what are locally known as "blow-outs" and are almost always asso- 

 ciated with garpike scales and teeth, and teeth and bones of other fish, crocodiles, lizards, and small dinosaurs. These 

 remains are frequently so abundant in "blow outs" as to easily attract attention, and when such a place is found careful 

 search will almost always be rewarded by the discovery of a few jaws and teeth of mammals. In such places the ant-hills, 

 which in this region are quite numerous, should be carefully inspected, as they will almost always yield a goodly number of 

 mammal teeth. It is well to be provided with a small flour sifter with which to sift the sand contained in these ant-hills, 

 thus freeing it of the finer materials and subjecting the coarser material remaining in the sieve to a thorough inspection for 

 mammals. By this method the writer has frequently secured from 200 to 300 teeth and jaws from one ant-hill. In localities 

 where these ants have not yet established themselves, but where mammals are found to be fairly abundant, it is well to 

 bring a few shovelfuls of sand with ants from other ant-hills, which are sure to be found in the vicinity, and plant them on 

 the mammal locality. They will at once establish new colonies, and if visited in succeeding years will be found to have done 

 efficient service in collecting mammal teeth and other small fossils, together with small gravels, all used in the construc- 

 tion of their future homes. As en instance of this I will mention that when spending two days in this region in 1893, 

 I introduced a colony of ants in a mammal locality, and on revisiting the same place last season I secured in a short time 

 from the exterior of this one hill 33 mammal teeth. 



In the meantime, in 1891, Hatcher was made assistant to the chair of geology in Yale 

 University. During these highly successful explorations for the remains of Ceratopsia he was 

 in the service partly of Professor Marsh and partly of the United States Geological Survey; 

 so that the collections have been divided between the Yale University Museum and the National 

 Museum in Washington. 



He was now at the age of 32, and had been at work nine years without giving any intima- 

 tion of his original ability as a thinker and writer. He now began his career as a publicist, 

 producing his first paper entitled "The Ceratops beds of Converse County, Wyoming," in the 

 American Journal of Science, February, 1893. 



In the spring of 1893 Hatcher accepted a call to Princeton University as curator of verte- 

 brate paleontology and assistant in geology. 



For the seven succeeding years he was associated with Prof. W. B. Scott, who has given 

 a full account of his great services to paleontology in Princeton University, which, perhaps, 

 surpassed those he had rendered to his alma mater. His work included three divisions : (1 ) The 

 exploration of the western Tertiaries, (2) the arrangement of the entire collection of mammalian 

 fossils in the E. M. Museum of Geology, and (3) the expeditions to Patagonia. Professor Scott 

 says: 



The most important work which Hatcher undertook during his connection with Princeton was his exploration of Pata- 

 gonia in the years 1896 to 1899. The plan was all his own and was not proposed to the geological department until every- 

 thing was nearly ripe for action. He procured the greater part of the necessary funds, and, with characteristic generosity, 

 was himself a liberal contributor. How successful this great undertaking was is very generally known and needs not to be 

 repeated here. Great credit for his success is due to Messrs. Peterson and Colburn, who were associated with Hatcher in 

 the work, but the soul of the enterprise was Hatcher himself. In his "Narrative of the expeditions" he has left an extremely 

 well written and interesting account of these explorations. 



In addition to the "Narrative and geography," Hatcher had undertaken to write reports upon the geology and also 

 upon the fossil Litopterna and Marsupialia. How much of this material can be put, into shape for publication can not yet 

 be told. In any event he has raised for himself an enduring monument in these volumes, which owe their existence to him, 

 however much or little may be his verbal contribution to their contents. 



Hatcher finally returned home in the autumn of 1899, and on February 1, 1900, accepted the 

 position of curator of paleontology and osteology in the museum of the Carnegie Museum of 

 Pittsburg. As soon as he was installed he began to lay out, in consultation with Director W. J. 

 Holland of that museum, plans for very extensive paleontological collections, and for the four 

 succeeding summers he carried on explorations in the Western States and Territories. Through 

 the generosity of Mr. Andrew Carnegie the work begun by Dr. J. L. Wortman in the season of 

 1899 in the upper Jurassic of Wyoming around Sheep Creek was continued under Hatcher's 

 direction. He initiated renewed exploration in the Upper Cretaceous of Converse County, Wyo., 

 in the Daemonelix beds of the upper Miocene of Nebraska, and in the Oligocene White River 

 formations of South Dakota and Nebraska. These divisions of the work were organized on a 

 large scale under Messrs. Peterson, Gilmore, Utterback, and Douglass. In the following year 

 he began the further exploration of the Jurassic dinosaur quarries of Marsh and Cope near 



