1897 Jurassic of Wyoming
The expedition had two objectives; to reopen the famous mammal quarry near Lake Como, Wyoming and the exploration of the neighboring exposures for the remains of dinosaurs. The expedition was temporarily placed in charge of Mr. Barnum Brown, a grad student at Kansas University, who with his assistant, Mr. H. W. Menke also of Kansas left early in May for Aurora, a small station on the Union Pacific R.R. near Lake Como. The early part of the season was spent in opening up the mammal quarry which had been accurately located through the kind assistance of Prof. Wilbur C. Knight and Mr. William Reid of the Wyoming University. Later in the season, during a visit by Prof. Osborn, a skeleton of a Diplodicous was discovered near the mammal quarry. Work began on excavating this skeleton and had progressed well when toward the end of June. Dr. Jacob Wortman arrived and took charge of the party. Several weeks later a second skeleton was discovered by Wortman and Prof. Knight a short distance from the first specimen. More people were needed to excavate these enormous skeletons, so Granger and Thomson were instructed to close up Hay Springs quarry in Nebraska and join the main party in Aurora. In Augest Dr. Matthew, who had completed his work in the Chalk beds of Kansas, visited the camp. He remained in the camp for two weeks and helped in the removal of the large dinosaur skeletons. Towards the end of August the two skeletons and the mammalian dirt had been all removed and were loaded and shipped to the museum. Because of the difficulties of dealing with the large, heavy and fractured dinosaur bones, new techniques were developed, which had not been used before, such as the use of burlap, plaster and boards, making a rigid jacket which could be handled without fear of breakage.