Gastroliths
These are interesting, prehistoric gastroliths, found in the stomach cavities of dinosaurs, usually eaten by herbivores to help with the crushing and digesting of their foods.
Now, a little annoyed I didn't know about these when I did my abundant dinosaur hunting in the Drumheller regions, but - unless they were found in-situ, as in the space above, how would you recognize them? Especially given the abundant glacial/river gravels.
Another photo:
Link: Wiki on Gastroliths
And, on a completely unrelated note, did you know that Prospectors in Africa once hunted Ostriches for the diamonds in their Gizzard?
From FascinatingEarth.com:
For the ostriches that inhabited the plains of southwest Africa, choice of stone almost became their undoing. About a century ago a hunter shot a wild ostrich. In preparing it for the evening meal he cut open the gizzard and found several pure gem—quality diamonds among the stony contents. He set out early the next morning to hunt diamond—bearing ostriches. To keep such a find quiet is just about impossible, and word spread quickly. Within a week there was a grand rush onto the plains, and the slaughter began. Prospectors killed the defenseless birds by the thousands. Not all the victims contained diamonds, but some were fantastically rich; in one bird's gizzard 63 diamonds were found.
The ostriches were hunted almost into extinction in this part of Africa. The killing stopped only when too few survivors were left to bother with. The ostrich population has grown since the massacre, but an occasional potential diamond "mine" is still illegally brought down by the ever—present poachers.
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Of Pencil Sharpeners
A blue-hued dream of being in a big city, glass windows reflecting everywhere, evening-ish, waiting (looking for?) someone...I'm talking to an old schoolmate, he's a bit dry, boring, I'm trying to explain who I'm waiting, looking for - I can't remember who it is ... my cousin, what's her name? I'm racking my brain and it comes to me ... "Valerie" and she appears...
And she's seeing if I'm ready to go, I am, and then we walk to a courtyard in the middle of the city, and there's a shelf, maybe 6' tall, 4' wide, metal, and on it I recognize my belongings, more than I can take with me, clothes, notebooks, miscellaneous I've collected, my things, they shouldn't be in the street like this, anyone could take them, and I find on the shelf some things I didn't know I had, I'm DEFINITELY taking these with me, there's a small cube pencil sharpener, and then there's a couple of bigger ones, out of crystal, brightly coloured, 3 holes in each side, and now, now I'm ready to go...
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The Canada Flag
Seeing it juxtaposed with Confederate flags, Nazi flags, American Flags, flying off the back of trucks, always trucks, the worst sorts of people...
Honking, yelling, drawing attention to "Their Cause", not a single participant could articulate with any certitude what, exactly, their cause is, vocal about their own freedoms, but they seem to take everybody else's freedom as an affront, a challenge to their own...
It's becoming less a point of pride (was it ever?) than a point of shame. Maybe it's time to come up with a new flag, that right-minded people can display without embarrassment.
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Alaska and the Klondike Gold Fields - (con't)
Finished the book, some more gems:
Gold Rushes of Other Days:
George W. Custer, Auditor of the Board of Education, Chicago, another '49er, who went overland in 1850, remembered the hardships well enough to shudder as he talked of them. He said :
"It was the fourth day of April, 1850, that my father made up his mind to go to the California gold fields, and started with his family across the country to where we were told men could dig up nuggets with their heels right out of the soft surface mold all over the peninsula of California. I shall never forget our experiences on that trip. Hundreds of people started out without sufficient money or provisions, and as a result they perished of hunger and thirst on the great American desert of the Salt Lake district, through which their path lay.
Our family formed a portion of the caravan known as the Patterson Rangers. It was composed of twelve wagons, forty- seven men and a boy (myself). We ate dinner on the Fourth of July, 1850, right in the heart of the desert, and on that evening we practically ran out of provisions. It was the poorest Fourth of July dinner I ever remember to have eaten. I remember it well. We each had a small piece of smoked meat and a biscuit. My father, who had smuggled a small jar of sweet jelly with him, smeared a little of it over my dry biscuit in honor of the occasion.
Our trail was littered with the remains of other caravans of pioneers who had preceded us across the deadly waste. The skeletons of men and animals dotted both sides of the trail, and wagon wheels, old arms, rusty swords, broken rifles and other relics of the victims of that terrible summer were lying around in profusion. The value of the material that lay there decaying on the desert would, I believe, if fairly computed, run up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars."
And this from "Side-Lights & Other Attractions"
Clairvoyants on Deck.
Clairvoyants put in their bid to be recognized as factors in the Klondike development. Something in the nature of a grub-stake company was formed by a number of spiritualists in Chicago and an advance agent or prospector sent out to locate the rich claims which a well-known " medium" professed to be able to discern clairvoyantly across the vast intervening distance. Some of these claims were said by the " spirit guides" to be fabulously rich and all of them well worth the finding. Maps were drawn and explicit directions given and a new field for "prospecting" duly opened.
A Description of the Theatrical Fare:
Barkeeper Charley.
"The title had local significance, as Douglass Island is just across the channel from the town. It was a very successful play. The hero was a barkeeper named Charley, and the heroine, to use the hero's own words, was a ' perfect lady/ who had a desire to see something of the town with a fancy, rather unusual in a person of that description, for incidentally 'hitting the pipe.'
There was a bootblack, a Chinaman, an Irish policeman, a dude and a number of sports and ' ladies ' in the piece. After the requisite amount of adversity and bad luck had been ground out, the hero, with the help of the bootblack, triumphed over the dude, got a 'pull' with the policeman, married the heroine and otherwise attained brilliant success as the proprietor of the ' finest joint in the town,' to quote his own language again."
This sounds like it should have been a movie with Matt Damon...
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