Read Online Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stephen Jay Gould
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the border of civilization. The railroad town of Field (population about 3,000, and probably smaller today than in Walcott’s time, especially since the Railway hotel burned down) lies just a few miles from the site, and you can still board the great transcontinental train from its tiny station.
Today you can drive to the Takakkaw Falls campground, near the Whiskey Jack Hostel (named after a bird, not an inebriated hero of the old West), and then climb the three thousand feet up to Burgess Ridge by way of a four-mile trail around the northwest flank of Mount Wapta. The climb has some steep moments, but it qualifies as little more than a pleasant stroll, even for yours truly, overweight, out of shape, and used to life at sea level. A more serious field effort can now employ helicopters to fly supplies in and out (as did the Geological Survey of Canada expeditions of the 1960s and the Royal Ontario Museum parties of the 1970s and 1980s). Walcott had to rely upon pack horses, but no one could brand the effort as overly strenuous or logistically challenging, as field work goes. Walcott himself (1912) provided a lovely description of his methods during the first field season of 1910—a verbal snapshot that folds an older technology and social structure into its narrative, with active sons scouring the hillside and a dutiful wife trimming the specimens back at camp:
2.2. Three views of the Burgess Shale quarries taken during my visit in August 1987. (A) The northern end of Walcott’s quarry, with Mount Wapta in the background. Note the quarry wall with cores drilled for the insertion of dynamite charges, and the debris from blasting on the quarry floor. (B) A similar view of the quarry opened by Percy Raymond in 1930, with yours truly and three avid geologists. This much smaller quarry lies above Walcott’s original site. (C) My son Ethan sitting on the floor of Walcott’s quarry as seen at the southern end.
2.3. The view from Walcott’s quarry. A geologist searches for fossils on the talus slope in the foreground. Emerald Lake lies beyond.
2.4. This reduced version of one of Walcott’s famous panoramic photographs gives a good impression of the technique, but lacks the grandeur of the original, which is several feet long. Walcott took this photograph in 1913. The right-hand side shows the Burgess quarry, with Mount Wapta to the left. Note some collectors and collecting tools within the quarry.
Accompanied by my two sons, Sidney and Stuart … we finally located the fossil-bearing band. After that, for days we quarried the shale, slid it down the mountain side in blocks to a trail, and transported it to camp on pack horses, where, assisted by Mrs. Walcott, the shale was split, trimmed and packed, and then taken down to the railway station at Field, 3,000 feet below.
A year before he discovered the Burgess Shale, Walcott (1908) described an equally charming, rustic technology for collecting from the famous Ogygopsis trilobite bed of Mount Stephen, a locality similar in age to the Burgess, and just around the next bend:
The best way to make a collection from the “fossil bed” is to ride up the trail on a pony to about 2,000 feet above the railroad, collect specimens, securely wrap them in paper, place them in a bag, tie the bag to the saddle, and lead the pony down the mountain. A fine lot can be secured in a long day’s trip, 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM .
The romance of the Burgess has had at least one permanent effect upon all future study of its fossils—the setting of their peculiar names. The formal Greek and Latin names of organisms can sometimes rise to the notable or the mellifluous, as in my favorite moniker, for a fossil snail— Pharkidonotus percarinatus (say it a few times for style). But most designations are dry and literal: the common rat is, for overkill, Rattus rattus rattus ; the two-horned rhino is Diceros; the periwinkle, an inhabitant of near-shore, or littoral, waters, is Littorina littorea
Today you can drive to the Takakkaw Falls campground, near the Whiskey Jack Hostel (named after a bird, not an inebriated hero of the old West), and then climb the three thousand feet up to Burgess Ridge by way of a four-mile trail around the northwest flank of Mount Wapta. The climb has some steep moments, but it qualifies as little more than a pleasant stroll, even for yours truly, overweight, out of shape, and used to life at sea level. A more serious field effort can now employ helicopters to fly supplies in and out (as did the Geological Survey of Canada expeditions of the 1960s and the Royal Ontario Museum parties of the 1970s and 1980s). Walcott had to rely upon pack horses, but no one could brand the effort as overly strenuous or logistically challenging, as field work goes. Walcott himself (1912) provided a lovely description of his methods during the first field season of 1910—a verbal snapshot that folds an older technology and social structure into its narrative, with active sons scouring the hillside and a dutiful wife trimming the specimens back at camp:
2.2. Three views of the Burgess Shale quarries taken during my visit in August 1987. (A) The northern end of Walcott’s quarry, with Mount Wapta in the background. Note the quarry wall with cores drilled for the insertion of dynamite charges, and the debris from blasting on the quarry floor. (B) A similar view of the quarry opened by Percy Raymond in 1930, with yours truly and three avid geologists. This much smaller quarry lies above Walcott’s original site. (C) My son Ethan sitting on the floor of Walcott’s quarry as seen at the southern end.
2.3. The view from Walcott’s quarry. A geologist searches for fossils on the talus slope in the foreground. Emerald Lake lies beyond.
2.4. This reduced version of one of Walcott’s famous panoramic photographs gives a good impression of the technique, but lacks the grandeur of the original, which is several feet long. Walcott took this photograph in 1913. The right-hand side shows the Burgess quarry, with Mount Wapta to the left. Note some collectors and collecting tools within the quarry.
Accompanied by my two sons, Sidney and Stuart … we finally located the fossil-bearing band. After that, for days we quarried the shale, slid it down the mountain side in blocks to a trail, and transported it to camp on pack horses, where, assisted by Mrs. Walcott, the shale was split, trimmed and packed, and then taken down to the railway station at Field, 3,000 feet below.
A year before he discovered the Burgess Shale, Walcott (1908) described an equally charming, rustic technology for collecting from the famous Ogygopsis trilobite bed of Mount Stephen, a locality similar in age to the Burgess, and just around the next bend:
The best way to make a collection from the “fossil bed” is to ride up the trail on a pony to about 2,000 feet above the railroad, collect specimens, securely wrap them in paper, place them in a bag, tie the bag to the saddle, and lead the pony down the mountain. A fine lot can be secured in a long day’s trip, 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM .
The romance of the Burgess has had at least one permanent effect upon all future study of its fossils—the setting of their peculiar names. The formal Greek and Latin names of organisms can sometimes rise to the notable or the mellifluous, as in my favorite moniker, for a fossil snail— Pharkidonotus percarinatus (say it a few times for style). But most designations are dry and literal: the common rat is, for overkill, Rattus rattus rattus ; the two-horned rhino is Diceros; the periwinkle, an inhabitant of near-shore, or littoral, waters, is Littorina littorea
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