User:Abyssal/MVL Citing 29

C. H. Sternberg's correspondance regarding the SS Mount Temple sinking examined

David A. E. Spalding published transcriptions and commentary regarding the correspondence of Charles Hazelius Sternberg regarding fossils lost when the SS Mount Temple was sunk by a German raider while carrying fossils to the British Museum (Natural History). This shipment was the better of two sent by Sternberg and his son Levi after they left the Geological Survey of Canada in 1916. Spalding sought to clarify existing confusion about the nature of the sinking as well as the impact on Sternberg's personal life and finances. The correspondence helps inform our understanding of Sternberg's work, personality and interactions with museums. Sternberg's letters also offer insight into his 1917 excavations in Texas and offers to the British Museum of Californian fossils.

The specific episode involving the loss of the dinosaur fossils being transported by the SS Mount Temple have been documented by Sternberg in a 1918 scientific paper and the second edition of his book Hunting Dinosaurs. Other works mentioning the incident have focused on the history of Canadian dinosaur paleontology or popular works giving it a "passing reference." Apart from a brief period of employment by Barnum Brown, between 1912 and 1916 Sternberg and his sons were working on a contractual basis with the Geological Survey of Canada, which at the time was responsible for maintaining the National Museum of Canada. Lawrence Lambe occupied a supervisory position in the project. The Sternbergs were initially competing with Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History in an event known as the (Great) Canadian Dinosaur Rush.

Barnum Brown stopped collecting in 1915.

Sternberg managed to continue collecting in a region he found to be abundant in dinosaur remains by working under contract for the British Museum who had previously bought fossils for him. Most of Sternberg's correspondance was with Arthur Smith Woodward. At the time Woodward was the Keeper of the Department of Geology and the museum's senior vertebrate paleontologist. His scientific interests were broad and included both fossil fishes and Piltdown Man. The Museum was able to acquire funding despite the ongoing conflicts of World War I thanks to the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund, a foundation headquartered at the Linnean Society which "encouraged natural history research."

Charles and Levi returned to the area around Steveville, Alberta to collect Late Cretaceous fossils from strata then regarded as being part of the Oldman Formation. The sites he was collected from are now part of Dinosaur Provincial Park. The father-son duo excavated several skeletons which were to be shipped to England in two separate batches. The first shipment was received without incident, but the second shipment was onboard the SS Mount Temple when German forces sank it while en route through the mid-Atlantic.

The Mount Temple sinking was not the first incident involving fossils lost at sea during shipping. Sternberg himself suffered previous loss as a Megatherium specimen was sunk. This specimen, however, was later recovered by divers. In 1883, Thomas Chesmer Weston, another collector who had done fieldwork in Canada, lost fossils recovered from the prairies of Alberta. These specimens were being transported across Lake Superior on the Glenfinlas when the ship sank. Sternberg's loss associated with the Mount Temple "seems to have been the most serious," however.

The Natural History Museum in London has kept a file of papers pertaining to Sternerg's correspondence in the wake of the Mount Temple disaster.

Before the shipments containing the fossils lost on the Mount Temple were sent Sternberg already had a history of collection for the museum and may have corresponded with them as far back as 1903. Spalding calls Sternberg's turn to Arthur Woodward after leaving the Geological Survey of Canada "natura[l]." Woodward had a high professional opinion of Sternberg, praising his experience, knowledge, and honesty. However, Sternberg's was regarded by museum officials as "difficult to deal with." Spalding speculates on possible causes for this, including Sternbergs potentially "jarr[ing]" entrepreneurship, embarrassing openness about his financial problems, carelessness with names, and use of American English during a time when  people from England were "still inclined to view foreigners as odd." The first shipment from Sternberg to the British Museum had much lower quality of fossils than the second one that sank on the Mount Temple. When the second shipment failed to arrive Sternberg's reputation was damaged beyond repair. Spalding described the museum as being "relie[ved]" that they had an excuse to quit dealing with Sternberg.

Sternberg was so eager for his fieldwork that he would offer his excavation services for rates that were "barely adequate." His son Charles Mortram said Sternberg had been working for $100 a month while employed by the Geological Survey of Canada, and that it was "a silly amount." Sternberg's contract with the British museum had him being funded to the tune of $1000 a month. The contract period was four months, but Sternberg actually worked for five. In future attempts to be employed by the museum, Sternberg offered to work for $500 monthly for a year long period. This money was just enough to let Sternberg and Levi work in the field and hire unskilled labor, but did not include Sternberg's personal income. Sternberg left his equipment, horses and wagon in Alberta to be "ready for use" but he and Levi were staying in Ottawa. At the time the badlands of Alberta were much more isolated from supplies than today.

Spalding assessed Sternberg's requested funds as "not unreasonable" "based on the sales figures he quotes." He criticized the British Museum's unfavorable reaction to the first shipment as "unfair, because by funding collecting time instead of purchasing already collected specimens it was assuming the risk of an unsuccessful hunt." Spalding speculated, though, that Sternberg may have been too vocally enthusiastic about his own prospects and raised the museum's expectations beyond what "he was able to realize."

Sternberg labeled his quarries by number as well as the specimens found in them. Spalding complains that Sternberg "confuse[d] the issue by writing about the 'second and third' skeletons," with Spalding presuming that Sternberg was talking about them in order of discovery. Sternberg's correspondence describe three incomplete Corythosaurus skeletons whose parts could be combined into "a complete display skeleton." Sternberg's specimen number 6 seems to have been on the first shipment to the British Museum since it was not listed among the boxes lost in the sinking. Specimens 9 and 13 seem to have been lost during the Mount Temple's sinking during the second shipment. Most of the content in the boxes are referred in the correspondence as "sections." These sections may have been "plastered blocks of associated bones" which could have been "referable to diagrams." Although the skeletons themselves are not described, the specific bones mention include:

Specimen 9

• Tail
• Neck
• Right foot

• Ischium
• Sacrum
• Femur

• Trunk
• Ribs
• Incomplete skull

Specimen 13

• Tail
• Right tibia
• Right femur
• Left front foot
• Front limb

• Right ribs
• Two humeri
• Left scapula
• Femora

• Right hind foot
• Pelvic arch
• Ribs
• "Large patches of the skin impression"

Specimen 13 was the second, not the third crested dinosaur specimen. Sternberg referred these remains to Corythosaurus. He regarded Specimen 13's quality as being second to that belonging to Barnum Brown, who described the genus in a 1913 paper coauthored with William Diller Matthew. Sternberg was aware of Brown's material because Brown himself had sent him copies of his papers. Sternberg himself had excavated similar specimens that Lambe would name Stephanosaurus in 1914.

Since multiple species have been referred to Corythosaurus and only one is currently considered valid it is impossible to confirm that Sternberg's diagnosis for these specimens is correct since there were no drawing or photographs included in the correspondance. However, since the species was already "well known" at the time, Spalding concludes Sternberg had probably made an accurate identification of the remains. By 1990 Corythosaurus would be known from about "ten articulated skulls and associated postcrania." Spalding notes that while there might have been new scientific information in the specimens, the biggest loss was to the British Museum whose visitors were "deprived of the opportunity to see this important material."

The sinking of the Mount Temple was surrounded by confusion. The ship was to set sail from Montreal on November 25th. On the 18th of January, the British Museum made a claim on its insurance. The actual sinking occurred sometime between these dates. Conflicting news reports claimed that the captain and crew had either been taken to "St. Vincent," a location either in the Azores or the coast of Portugal, or to Germany itself on a ship named the Yarrowdale.

In his book Hunting Dinosaurs, Sternberg says the ship was sunk by "a German raider" or "a torpedo." This led some to assume that the sinking was performed by a U-boat. Although Spalding saw this assumption as reasonable and helped perpetuate it himself, the Mount Temple was actually sunk by the Moewe, which was disguised as a cargo ship. One source has the Moewe evacuate the Mount Temple's crew, and then destroyed it. Later, the crew were transferred to another captured vessel, called the Hudson Maru, and shipped to Pernambuco. The crew finally arrived there on the 16th of January.

A notification was sent to Sternberg on the 18th to alert him to the Mount Temple's sinking. On the 23rd, he telegraphed the British Museum, although by that time "an insurance claim had already been made." Confusion surrounding the insurance policy prevented the issue from being settled swiftly. Many letters were exchanged both between America and England and between Liverpool and London. Because of Sternberg's German surname, his letters were all checked by censors, causing further delays. The British Museum were also slow in "ask[ing] Sternberg for missing documents." Additionally, to Sternberg's frustration, the British Museum was communicating with him by letter instead of by telegraph. Spalding said Sternberg's complaints about the museum not telegraphing him were "surely justified." Sternberg received his payment on May 5th, "nearly four months after news of the loss reached the parties concerned."

Despite having insured the shipments, the loss of the fossils on the Mount Temple were financially disastrous. Sternberg had tried to move back to familiar territory after parting ways with the Canadian Geologic Survey, and sold his home in Ottawa to move back to Kansas at considerable financial loss. Sternberg's "credit was pushed to the limit" by the time he received the insurance money on the lost fossils. If the British Museum had committed to further Albertan fossil collection, Sternberg would have lower expenses in continuing. Although Sternberg probably looked for other clients to fund his Canadian digs, none were to be found. Sternberg was forced to shift his operations to Texas, where the field season began earlier.

The emotional stress caused by the loss was even more severe than the financial damages incurred by Sternberg in the aftermath of the Mount Temple sinking. The impact of loss of the fossils was compounded by the breakup of Sternberg's family team after he left the Geological Survey of Canada. Sternberg wanted to recover face after the "disappointing" first shipment to the British Museum. When they proved uninterested in working further with him, it may have rubbed salt in the wound of a perceived rejection by the Geological Survey. Additionally, his relations with the American Museum of Natural History were poor "after the fractious rivalry of the Canadian Dinosaur Rush." By the time Sternberg was in his 60s he was still passionate about fieldwork, although reported difficulties dealing with cold weather. Spalding speculated that Sternberg may have seen the lost Corythosaurus as the "crowning achievement of his career." Indeed Sternberg himself called the specimen his "finest dinosaur," and said "I can never recover from a blow such as this."

Levi took a leave of absence from the Royal Ontario Museum to assist his father for one more field season. Afterwards, although employed in paleontology full time, Sternberg's sons worked separately from him. Sternberg was still collecting and selling fossils when he was 80 years old. He died in Toronto at 93 years of age.

Info used in

• User:Abyssal/2001 in paleontology
• Charles Hazelius Sternberg
• SS Mount Temple
• Levi Sternberg
• User:Abyssal/1916 in paleontology
• User:Abyssal/1917 in paleontology
• Canadian Dinosaur Rush
• User:Abyssal/1915 in paleontology
• Percy Sladen Memorial Fund
• User:Abyssal/1883 in paleontology
• Glenfinlas
• User:Abyssal/1903 in paleontology
• Charles Mortram Sternberg
• Corythosaurus

Reference

• Spalding, D. A., 2001, Bones of contention: Charles H. Sternberg's lost world: In: Mesozoic Vertebrate Life, edited by Tanke, D. H., and Carpenter, K., Indiana University Press, pp. 481-503.