Carnegie Museum Dinosaur Quarry

Jensen, Utah, Dec. 19, 1914

Dr. Wm. J. Holland

Carnegie Museum

Pittsburg, Pa.



My dear Dr. Holland,

I had shipped to you Dec. 17, three boxes of fossils as follows.

Box 262 - containing mandible of supposed Brontosaurus in Blocks 201/A1, 201/A2, 201/B1, 201/B2

Also Turtle, No. 203

Turtle, No. 215.

Box 266 Block 220/A containing head and anterior vertebrae of neck of Diplodocus-like Dinosaur.

Block 210/10 & 210/12a.	No. 210/10 is the bone concerning which I wrote you some time ago surmising that it might be a sternal bone.

210/12a is a detached portion of Block 210/12 which was shipped in Box 267.

Box 267 Block 210/12. This block with 210/12a was found near 210/10 and contains a number of bones which I could not determine from what I saw of them.



As 210/10, 210/12 & 210/12a were found near the "chest-portion" of the body cavity of the sauropod Dinosaur No. 210 and as you expressed yourself as being anxious to get more light on the sternal apparatus of the sauropods I thought it the wise thing to ship these with the skull, neck and jaw.

I will send diagrams of position of possible sternal bones, and large mandible.

As I said before we appear to be getting little material of the well-known dinosaurs. It looks to me now that nearly all the material will make permanent additions to science. The skeleton No. 150 is very Diplodocus-like but as I have remarked it seems not to be the species with which we are acquainted. I am not sure yet whether the skull and cervicals which I have shipped to you under the number 220 belong with No. 150 or not.

From where we first struck the tail of 150 there has been no disarticulation that I can see to the posterior cervicals which are turning abruptly and going downward. The tail went downward, the body -- the dorsals -- turned abruptly eastward at the pelvis and the neck turns abruptly downward from the last cervical or near it. The body has part of the ribs on the upper (right) side attached. The body lies up on something, but we do not yet know what it is.

The skull and anterior portion of the neck lie below and farther to the west.

We appear now to be striking a neck "as short as the slender one is long". We think perhaps it is the one (No. 130) of which we obtained the tail (with short vertebrae) in 1912. So we are getting necks "of all sizes and shapes".

As I previously remarked the work of untangling this "dam" of bones is the task of working around nearly every bone, so we are compelled to do the bulk of the laboratory work in the quarry. This is absolutely unavoidable yet it is a gain in at least two ways. We get the work done by men whome we pay far less than the men in the laboratory and then we will save a very large amount in freight. Of course there will be a good many blocks but on the whole, so far we have boxed far less matrix in proportion to the bone than formerly.

Where Kay is working -- just east of the jam the bones are in hard rock and come out (the greater part of them) in blocks.

There are 3 packages (not large) which ought to have been put in boxes sent to you. They may be part of sternal apparatus. If you work out these bones let me know and I will send them by express. Two of them are No. 210/11 of diagram.



Yours truly

Earl Douglass