HUNTING BIG GAME OF OTHER DAYS 



A Boating Expedition in Search of Fossils 

 in Alberta, Canada 



By Barnum Brown 



Associate Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology in the American Museum of Natural History 



With Photographs from the American Museum of Natural History 



SINCE the days of our jungle fore- 

 bears the quest of big game has ap- 

 pealed to man, his appreciation of 

 the sport being measured chiefly by the 

 size of the game and the difficulty of se- 

 curing it. 



Today we must go to Africa for the 

 biggest game ; but there was a time in the 

 dim distant past when America produced 

 animals larger than any now living. That 

 was so long ago that nothing remains of 

 these creatures except their bones, and 

 they are turned to stone. Hidden away 

 under strata of earth, their spoor has long 

 since grown cold, and the hunt I shall de- 

 scribe is in consequence difficult. 



The animals are dinosaurs ; for the mo- 

 ment we will call them lizards — not the 

 creeping, crawling kind, but huge reptiles 

 that stalked upright through the jungles, 

 rivaling in size the elephant, the hippo- 

 potamus, and the rhinoceros. 



The place is Alberta, Canada, and the 

 time of their existence 3,000,000 years 

 ago. 



Between the Great Lakes and the Rocky 

 Mountains, just north of the Canadian 

 boundary, lies a vast area of level land, 

 prairie in the east and forested near the 

 mountains, with «. narrow intervening 

 section that is brush-covered. East of 

 the timbered belt the central part of Al- 

 berta is level as far as the eye can see and 

 dotted here and there by small glacial 

 lakes, where nest countless numbers of 

 ducks and geese (see map, page 425). 



THE CANADIAN FARMER^ EEDORADO 



Fifteen years ago this level section was 

 prairie land covered with a luxuriant 

 growth of grass, on which grazed com- 

 paratively few cattle, with a ranch build- 



ing here and there, but sparsely settled 

 withal. Today the country is covered by 

 a network of railroads, and near the rail- 

 roads most of the available land is home- 

 steaded. 



The soil is very rich and of consider- 

 able depth, producing under favorable 

 conditions enormous yields of small 

 grain, yet only a fraction of the country 

 is under cultivation. When fully produc- 

 ing, the future wealth of this great terri- 

 tory cannot even be estimated; it is the 

 Canadian farmer's Eldorado. 



A number of small rivers drain this 

 area, uniting in the province of Alberta 

 to form the Saskatchewan, which flows 

 into Lake Winnipeg. The Red Deer 

 River is one of these tributaries that rises 

 in the mountains north of Banff. Num- 

 bers of lesser streams fed by mountain 

 snows and prairie lakes join it, making an 

 irresistible stream that has cut through 

 the prairie land, forming a miniature 

 grand canyon, a mile wide at the top and 

 from two to five hundred feet deep. 



ONCE THE BED OF A GREAT INLAND SEA 



Although black, fertile soil forms the 

 surface of the country, the earth below is 

 composed of horizontal layers of clay and 

 sandstone, and a journey of 250 miles 

 down the river reveals four distinct geo- 

 logic periods in the canyon walls. The 

 strata representing these periods overlap 

 like shingles on a roof, and in each are 

 preserved the fossil remains of animals 

 and plants which enable us to picture 

 former conditions and life during past 

 ages (see picture, page 413). 



In the lower reaches of the river, 200 

 miles from the mountains, only sea-shells 

 are found in the rocks, indicating that the 



407 



