The Dinosaurs of Wyoming - Wyoming State Geological Survey ...

CHAPTER IV
Historical Account of the Discovery of Dinosaurs
in Wyoming
It is. of course, not possible to state the day, nor the
month, and not even the year in which dinosaur bones were
found .in Wyoming, for such a discovery could only follo\\'
a realization of what dinosaurs are. In the early days, up to
1870, no one had the slightest idea that dinosaurs ever existed
in Wyoming. because dinosaurs themselves were unknown in
America. although Sir Richard Owen in England had already
proposed the name Dinosauria. A discovery of dinosaurs anywhere
could only be made by one with scientific training, although
one without such training could have called attention
to some of the queer things which later turned out to be dinosaurs.
Many people have queer notions about the nature of petrified
objects. Centuries ago petrified sharks' teeth were called
glossopetrae or fossil tongues. A piece of red and light
striped chalcedony "vas petrified bacon. A coiled fossil shell
was a petrified snake.
It may be that the primiti\'e inhabitants of \Vyoming. the
Indians, had seen the huge dinosaur bone fragments weathered
out of the cliffs in southern \Vyoming, but if they thought
of .them at all, it was merely that they were queer looking
rocks, somewhat different looking than the other rocks.
As a knowledge of the nature of fossil animals grew. the
significance of the scraps and fragments of bone was realized.
I do not suppose for an instant that the :Mexican sheep herder
who made the foundations of his cabin out of weathered dinosaur
bones. realized that he wa using the bones of giants.
He would have been greatly surprised if anyone had told him
of it. and probably would have considered it an untruth. Dinosaurs
were outside of his line of thought. Yet the Bone Cabin
Quarry yielded the American 1\1useum of Natural History
many scores of dinosaurs.
The discO\'ery or realization of the nature of the inimense
dinosaur deposits in the Rocky Mountains (\iVyoming chiefly)
came in l\farch. 1877; truly a great advance. unequalled by
any later discovery in paleontology. The fact that the discovery
was made by three observers 5ho\\'s that the seeds
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