Calgary Herald, 10 Jun 1920

Alberta Scored for not having fossil museum

WE Cutler declares support for investigations in local field is not furnished

Does not object to export of specimens

Complains specimen of Duck-billed dinosaur lies unprotected in Calgary

Referring to the matter of the raiding of Alberta for prehistoric specimens, WE Cutler, paleontologist, of Steveville, Alberta, scores the provincial government for its alleged apathy with regard to encouraging the unearthing of these fossils and providing a suitable museum in which to keep them.  He further makes several corrections in an article appearing in the Herald, May 1. He cites instances where for less than the mere asking, the government could have come into possession of very valuable and rare specimens. That it did not do so, renders whimsical in his mind, any criticism of those who have removed the natural history museums of the United States.

Alberta, he says, is not the only locality where the prehistoric remains of reptile monsters have been found. But only having been worked since 1880, the fauna was new to paleontologists.  That the American scientists have taken several carloads of specimens and parts of specimens from Alberta, was true, he said: but it was also true that every species save perhaps that of ornithomimus, the bird mimic, is duplicated in the collection of the Victoria Memorial museum at Ottawa.

Specimen in Calgary

Personally, he holds no brief for the American scientists, several of whom he counts among his friendsl but when one considers, he says that the complete skeleton of a duck-billed dinosaur, which he found for the Calgary Natural History Society in 1913, under Dr E Sisley, is lying unprotected in the basement of the Calgary Courthouse, subjected to all sorts of handling by visitors, then, he declares the remarks on the deportation at the end of the Herald’s article of May 1, sounds “somewhat breezy to put the matter gently.” Quoting the sentence in that article which he refers to: “and there is no reason why that same skeleton (Cory Duck) should not be reposing in a provincial museum” he explains that the main reason why such is not possible is that there is no money available for a man to work on in order to go into the field each summer with his party and in order to have a man or two to prepare the material when brought home.

British Fossil Molluscs

During the part of his war service spent in Britain, he made a collection of British fossil molluscs.  This, he says, was intended for Calgary’s museum, when a proper and scientific care and reception were assured. The work which produced them cost him something in the neighbourhood of $1000 and the collection reposes at present in the safekeeping of the British Museum of Natural History, London.  He had always desired, he said, that this province should inaugurate a museum to educate its people regarding the natural wonders which it contains, and which at present, when brought to light, occasion remarks of the greatest ignorance. A classified museum in his mind, would place the whole matter on an accurate scientific basis.

Commenting on the paragraph appearing under the sub-heading “Others Ate Him” which sub-heading referred the Cory Duch, that is supposed by scientists to have formed the piece de resistance of the sea serpents of that period, he declares that the pythonomorph was not only purely marine and therefore had never seen corythosaurus but he was also previous to him in existence.  Bronosaurus and diplodocus both related to each other, and with dentition too weak to eat anything harder than semi-aquatic vegetables, had both died out millions of years prior to the advent of the corythosaurus.  The tyrannosaurus rex, he says, did not live here, but this error was less, owing to the fact that the almost equally as large gorosaurus lived here then.  Pterandodon and pterodactyl would hardly have been able to handle him.