He knew of Professor Marsh of Yale from his recent
discoveries of toothed birds in the chalk of Kansas, and reported the
find to him. As a result, the specimen, rock and all, was shipped to
him by express at ten cents a pound! And Professor Marsh immediately
announced the discovery of _Titanosaurus_ (_Atlantosaurus_) _immanis_,
a huge dinosaur having a probable length of one hundred and fifteen
feet and unknown height. And Professor Lakes was immediately set at
work in the "Morrison quarry" near by, whence comes the accepted name
of these dinosaur beds in the Rocky Mountains. Professor Lakes once
showed me the exact spot where he found his first specimen.
Mr. Lucas, teaching his first term of a country school that spring in
Garden Park near Canyon City, as an amateur botanist was interested in
the plants of the vicinity. Rambling through the adjacent hills in
search of them, in March, 1877, he stumbled upon some fragments of
fossil bones in a little ravine not far from the famous quarry later
worked for Professor Marsh. He recognized them as fossils and they
greatly excited, not only his curiosity, but the curiosity of the
neighbors. He had heard of the late Professor Cope and sent some of
the bones to him, who promptly labelled them _Camarasaurus supremus_.
The announcement of these discoveries promptly brought Mr. David
Baldwin, Professor Marsh's collector in New Mexico, to the scene. Only
a few months previously he had discovered fossil bones in the red beds
of New Mexico, the since famous Permian deposits.
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