[Illustration: Fig. 48.--Locality of Ankylosaurus skull in Edmonton formation in Red Deer River. The skull is in the rock just above the pick, about the center of the photograph.]
Along the upper portion of the stream are banks of Eocene age, from which shells and mammal jaws were secured, but near the town of Content where the river bends southward, a new series of rocks appeared and in these our search was rewarded by finding dinosaur bones similar to those seen at Wagner's ranch. Specimens were found in increasing numbers as we continued our journey, and progress down the river was necessarily much slower. Frequently the boat would be tied up a week or more at one camp while we searched the banks, examining the cliffs layer by layer that no fossil might escape observation. With the little dingey the opposite side of the river was reached so that both sides were covered at the same time from one camp. As soon as a mile or more had been prospected or a new specimen secured, the boat was dropped down to a new convenient anchorage. Box after box was added to the collection till scarcely a cubit's space remained unoccupied on board our fossil ark.
Where prairie badlands are eroded in innumerable buttes and ravines it is always doubtful if one has seen all exposures, so there was peculiar satisfaction in making a thorough search of these river banks knowing that few if any fossils had escaped observation. On account of the heavy rainfall and frequent sliding of banks new fossils are exposed every season so that in a few years these same banks can again be explored profitably. This river will become as classic hunting ground for reptile remains as the Badlands of South Dakota are for mammals.
Although the summer days are long in this latitude the season is short and thousands of geese flying southward foretell the early winter. Where the temperature is not infrequently forty to sixty degrees below zero in winter, it is difficult to think of a time when a warm climate could have prevailed, yet such condition is indicated by the fossil plants.
When the weather became too cold to work with plaster, the fossils were shipped from a branch railroad forty-five miles distant, the camp material was stored for the winter and with block and tackle the big boat was hauled up on shore above the reach of high water.