Lantern Slide

This slide is one of a series of slides from the Princeton expedition to the John Day Valley in 1889. In the foreground is Professor William Berryman Scott bent over next to a supply wagon; in the background are exposures of the John Day Formation in an area referred to as The Cove. These slides were donated to the monument by Princeton University in 1985.

Paleontological exploration of the John Day Basin began in the 1860s. Othniel C. Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope published studies describing many exciting new species in the 1870s and 1880s. Tantalized by the potential for discovery, Professor William Berryman Scott of Princeton University led an expedition to the John Day Valley in 1889. Scott and his team were led by Leander Davis, a famous local expert that had earlier worked with Condon, Marsh, and Sternberg. The expedition had great success, amassing one and a half tons of fossil material which was brought back to New Jersey. Unfortunately, those fossils were stored in the cellar of Nassau Hall, during a refitting of the heating system workmen stole or destroyed nearly the entire collection. Professor Scott was devastated by the loss, which "would not be possible to duplicate in our time."