Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden

The settlement of the Great Plains would never have happened so quickly, if not for a few key figures. Among them was Ferdinand Hayden, a theologist and surgeon by training, but a naturalist and geologist at heart.

Hayden was born in Massachusetts, but a troubled childhood—an alcoholic father and an abandoning mother who were unmarried—led him to be raised by his aunt and uncle in Ohio. Eventually, he made it to Oberlin College and attained a degree in theological studies, and later to Albany Medical College, where he received his medical degree. In Albany, however, he also met a number of aspiring paleontologists, such as James Hall and F. B. Meek. These two encouraged him to reach out to others, and to go out west and explore. At this time, his field work was focused around South Dakota and the Missouri River.

Hayden began publishing geologic papers with Meek, as well as collecting vast collection of fossil and archaeological specimens. Together, he and Meek are credited with some big finds: the first soft-shelled turtle fossil in America, and the first dinosaur remains. That’s not all. Hayden also gathered fish, shells, plants, mammoth and mastodon teeth, mammal bones, and more. On the human side, he found axes, pottery, flint shards, and mining tools. The Smithsonian Institute was quite intrigued with these artifacts, and unofficially recruited him to help them expand their own collection. Hayden became part of the Megatherium Club with a few other gentleman scientists and collected thousands of specimens for the Smithsonian.

After a few years as a surgeon for the Union army during the Civil War, Hayden went back to his geology. He headed a party that discovered and surveyed the vast coal beds of Colorado and Wyoming, making news all the way across the pond in London. Hayden then went on to survey Iowa and Nebraska, Montana, Missouri, New Mexico, and Wyoming. His reputation as a geologist grew so much that his funding from the government grew from $5,000 to $75,000 a year. Hayden was even considered for the first director of the newly formed U.S. Geological Survey—though he didn’t get the job.

While not an active proponent of rain follows the plow, Hayden’s exploration did lead him to believe that the planting of trees in the Great Plains would be the key in the settlement and agricultural prosperity of the region. He had seen how the addition of trees might have increased rainfall in other regions and was ready to extend that idea to his beloved Great American Desert.

Featured photo courtesy of Thomas on Pexels stock photos:

https://www.pexels.com/photo/south-dakota-badlands-53817/

See the following sources for more info:

https://www.si.edu/sisearch/collection-images?edan_q=ferdinand%2Bhayden

https://siarchives.si.edu/featured-topics/megatherium/introduction

Foster, M. (1986). Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden as Naturalist. American Zoologist, 26(2), 343-349.

M. B. (1888). FERDINAND VANDERVEER HAYDEN. Scientific American (1845-1908), Lviii.(No. 1.), 9.

Picard, M. (2010). Revisiting the life and scientific reputation of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. Rocky Mountain Geology, 45(1), 75-81.

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Humans, the Short End of the Time Scale

The long-winded history of the Great Plains is recorded in the geological features we see today. The Precambrian shows itself in outcrops of the pink Town Mountain granite, the Packsaddle schist and Valley Springs gneiss. These rocks tell a story of massive chambers of boiling-hot magma being pushed to the surface to cool, and surrounding rocks being metamorphosed by intense heat and pressure. In the Paleozoic and later in the Cretaceous, ancient shallow seas covered the inner continent and produced carbon-rich rocks. Limestones, shales, and fossilized reefs are scattered throughout the Great Plains and nearby areas, evidence that the area was not always the ‘Great American Desert’. Decaying plant matter built up and compressed over time resulted in coveted coal deposits. When the waters retreated, the temperatures started going down, too.

Now, the Great Plains are dusted by a layer of younger sediments—sand and gravel and soil—eroded from the Rocky Mountains on the western border. These sediments help trap water underground in aquifers, supplying the region and its inhabitants. It is no surprise that pockets of water have been attracting all sorts of living beings for thousands of years, and early humans were no exception.

The common consensus among archaeologists is that humans began living on the Great Plains at least 11,000-11,500 years ago, based on carbon dating of various artifacts like bones, stone flakes and tools. This time overlaps with the last Ice Age, and the time of giant creatures like mammoths and saber-tooth cats (see Miocene and Mammoths). In 2005, a study took advantage of some broken mammoth bones that had been on display at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for nearly 30 years. The bones appeared to have been broken by humans rather than by natural means, and were carbon dated at about 12,200 years old. Many scientists are drawn to the significance of discovering the oldest site with clear evidence of human habitation, and so research continues.

Humans have been fascinated by the challenges and opportunities offered by life on the Great Plains for a very long time, whether because of water and food resources, the hunt for gold and precious materials, agriculture, or an adventure. This curiosity is prominently realized in the mid-1800s, when Americans were surveying the Territories and some people thought that rain would follow the plow.

 

Featured photo courtesy of U.S. National Archive:

 

See the following sources for more info:

http://geology.teacherfriendlyguide.org/index.php/rocks-sc/rocks-region4-sc

https://www.geosociety.org/documents/gsa/timescale/timescl.pdf

Denver Post Staff Writer. “Museum’s Mammoth Bones Exhibit New Life After Nearly 30 Years on Display, Fossils Found in Kansas Are Causing Scientists to Re-examine When Humans Arrived on the Great Plains. (DENVER AND WEST).” The Denver Post (Denver, CO), 2005.

Miocene and Mammoths

Ever wonder what it’s like to meet a mammoth? It was possible—only a few tens of thousands of years ago on the Great Plains. We call this epoch in time the Pleistocene, spanning from 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago. In the span of geologic time, this is a miniscule segment in the history of Earth. The world was in the middle of an extreme ice age, and North America was almost in the same position we see it now. North America was also host to the largest ice sheet at the time: the Laurentide ice sheet, a forceful tool that carved and shaped the landscape as it spread and flowed.

The Pleistocene is famous for its fauna, including Smilodon, the saber-toothed cat that was 30 percent bigger than a modern African Lion. The Smilodon is one of the most extraordinary cats to have ever lived, thanks to its incredible musculature, jaw strength, and extra-long canine teeth. Paramylodon, the cousin of the South American Megatherium (which became the namesake of a research club in the 1870s—look out for this post!), was a giant ground sloth. Unlike today’s sloths, they walked on the ground on feet sporting claws 18 centimeters long and lived and reproduced in caves. Glyptodons were a weird animal that looked like a combination of an armadillo and a tortoise. It had a six-foot long tail and possibly an elephant-like trunk. Animators made use of these quirky creatures in their film, Ice Age.

These, among other animals of the Pleistocene, are not only found in the fossil record of the Great Plains, but also in the unusually diverse La Brea tar pits. Thousands of excellently preserved specimens have been found in the gooey oil-tar underneath Los Angeles, California. After a few animals got stuck, their plight attracted predators interested in an easy meal. Some of the predators got stuck themselves, bringing in even more critters, creating a cycle. As a result, the tar pits have provided a snapshot of life in the Pleistocene, life that could be seen not just in (not so) sunny California, but across the continent.

Even more well-known are mammoths—some of the largest mammals ever walking the Earth. In the cold, harsh environment of the ice age, mammoths found refuge in a stretch of grasslands near the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Columbian mammoth remains have been found near ancient equine, bison, and sheep remains in the Upper Missouri Basin, the Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone Basin and more. Basically, if there was vegetation available for eating, mammoths lived there. Some studies have even found mammoth limb bones showing evidence of human modification—giving light to the claim that early humans shared a world with these giant animals.

 

Featured image courtesy of U.S. National Archive:

 

See the following sources for more info:

https://tarpits.org/la-brea-tar-pits/timeline

https://www.geosociety.org/documents/gsa/timescale/timescl.pdf

 

Flowers, Mark., Mags. Lightbody, Dominic. Frisby, and British Broadcasting Corporation. Ice Age Giants. Land of the Sabre-tooth. VAST: Academic Video Online. London, England: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 2013.

Hill, Christopher L. “Stratigraphic and Geochronologic Contexts of Mammoth (Mammuthus) and Other Pleistocene Fauna, Upper Missouri Basin (northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountains), U.S.A.” Quaternary International 142 143 (2006): 87.

Holen, Steven R. “Taphonomy of Two Last Glacial Maximum Mammoth Sites in the Central Great Plains of North America: A Preliminary Report on La Sena and Lovewell.” Quaternary International 142 143 (2006): 30.

The Great American Desert

What exactly are the Great Plains? Everyone has heard the name, at least in a history class at some point. Definitions of the region have changed over time, and continue to be murky even today. Officially, the Great Plains cover parts of 10 U.S. states, the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and bits of the Northwest Territories. Most people will consider the area west of the 100^th meridian line to the Rocky Mountains to be a part of the Great Plains—a space taking up nearly a third of the country.

The Great Plains are not as flat and boring as you may imagine. It is crisscrossed and mixed with rolling hills and valleys carved by raging rivers. Even mountains make an appearance, most famously in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Most of the area is characterized by the typical semi-arid grasslands one might expect, though there was a time that the Great Plains were considered a full out desert.

This worked both for and against people from all walks of life. The Great American Desert was a concept that settlers used to become heroes—only the bravest and most awesome people could drop everything to move out farther west and thrive as farmers in the desert. Obviously, those parties interested in selling the land for profit also used the desert label as a mark of success, hinging on the idea that ‘rainfall follows the plow’. By settling and plowing the earth of this mighty desert, people could increase rainfall and enjoy the fertility of this harsh environment.

While humans have been inhabiting the Great Plains Region for over 15,000 years, it wasn’t until the last couple of hundred years that attempts were made to survey the area. Boy, were they fascinated. In 1817, Lewis and Clark considered the area an incredible garden, ripe with agricultural prospects. Not everyone agreed, and just three years later, a scientific expedition led by Stephen H. Long observed the hot, dry expanses and expressed doubts whether people could ever settle the area. Both saw the wilderness differently, with very different motivations.

Regardless, flora and fauna have thrived in the Great Plains for longer than humans have even existed, from sagebrush and cacti and trees, to bison and rattlesnakes and wolves. People were eager to spread, despite the hesitance of explorer and scientists, egged on by naturalists and a heck of a lot of hope. Even today, residents embrace the desert culture, echoing the hardiness of their pioneer forerunners.

This blog will cover a brief timeline of events, even before humans enter the picture, deep into geologic time when prehistoric life roamed the Earth. Later, it will discuss the elephant in the room, and such big-name influencers like Charles Dana Wilber, Ferdinand Hayden, and others.

 

See the following sources for more info:

https://www.britannica.com/place/Great-Plains

Baltensperger, B. H. “Plains Boomers and the Creation of the Great American Desert Myth.” Journal of Historical Geography18, no. 1 (1992): 59-73. doi:10.1016/0305-7488(92)90276-f.

Dillon, Richard H. “Stephen Long’s Great American Desert.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 111, no. 2 (April 14, 1967): 93-108.

Samson, Fred B., Fritz L. Knopf, and Wayne R. Ostlie. “Great Plains Ecosystems: Past, Present, and Future.” Wildlife Society Bulletin 32, no. 1 (2004): 6-15.