The Monster's Bones by David K. Randall

Author:David K. Randall [Randall, David K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781324006541
Publisher: Norton
Published: 2022-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

A Very Costly Season

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE, BARNUM BROWN DID not know where he belonged. As a child, the answer had always been simple: anywhere but on the farm. He spent his time at college obsessed with rising above the life expected of him, willing himself to find fossils that would open a path beyond Kansas and into the wider world. Now, having secured a toehold on his dream only to fail to keep up with a rival at a crucial moment, some of the first pangs of doubt began to creep into his conception of himself, taking over the space once occupied by his desire to be more than he was.

He had every reason to feel cast aside. At the start of the 1901 field season, Brown looked forward to returning to South Dakota, where he planned to redeem himself through the discovery of a Triceratops skull. Osborn, however, ordered him to Flagstaff, Arizona, to assist an expedition headed by the Smithsonian Institution that was searching for fossilized pine cones near the Grand Canyon (“great quantities of fossil wood” were available, Brown later wrote in a letter to Osborn, not quite concealing his lack of excitement at searching for something plentiful while far from the action). For dinosaurs, Osborn turned instead to George Reber Wieland, who had recently completed his doctorate at Yale. Wieland had once caught Marsh’s attention after he uncovered a complete skeleton of Archelon ischyros, which at fifteen feet long was the largest turtle ever known to exist. He worked at the Peabody alongside Marsh until the professor’s death in 1899, and now seemed in the best position to take over his mantle.

A short man with a booming voice and an infectious sense of purpose, Wieland easily wore the qualities Brown lacked: an Ivy League degree, a comfort with his status that allowed him to interact with Osborn on an equal level, and an ability to convince himself and everyone around him of his worth even when evidence was lacking. Osborn was so taken with Wieland that he readily accepted his steep demand for a salary of $150 per month, a rate nearly double what he paid more experienced collectors such as Granger. “I regret to tell you how important the financial side is for me,” Wieland wrote to Osborn before agreeing to work for the American Museum that summer. “I wish you could feel disposed to name some better sum as wages, for I expect direct results.” To justify his rate, he hinted that he had a lead on a Barosaurus, a plant-eating sauropod that can be distinguished from the more common Diplodocus by its longer neck and shorter tail, though no one has ever found its skull. Osborn placed Wieland in charge of the museum’s dinosaur expeditions that summer, demoting field collectors who had been with the American Museum for several summers. “[Wieland] is very confident of success . . . you will therefore refer matters to him,” Osborn wrote

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