In December 1916, the Canadian cargo ship S.S. Mount Temple sailed from Montreal towards London. In her hold stood 40 horses, ready to be sent to the warfront in France; on the decks above a mixture of Navy men and civilians hitching a...
moreIn December 1916, the Canadian cargo ship S.S. Mount Temple sailed from Montreal towards London. In her hold stood 40 horses, ready to be sent to the warfront in France; on the decks above a mixture of Navy men and civilians hitching a ride. Packed next to the horses, swathed in a coat of white plaster and linen, were 22 crates filled with hundreds of dinosaur bones unearthed by Charles Sternberg from quarries in Alberta’s badlands. They were headed for the halls of the British Museum, but before she reached England the German warship SMS Möwe captured the Mount Temple. Misreading a signal from a Canadian passenger, the Germans fired on the ship and sunk it on 6 December 1916. The bones rest on the floor of the Atlantic, and are unlikely to ever be brought to the surface.
The sinking of the Mount Temple serves as an example of the power of war on the international trade of culture and scientific development. This paper argues that the First World War took place during an auspicious time for palaeontological acquisition, and that the conflict’s effect on historical institutions prevented them from expanding their storerooms and exhibitions. It contrasts that European sparsity with an exploration into the boom in freelance palaeontology happening in the West – because many young Canadian palaeontologists were sent to war before their American colleagues, a cottage industry sprung up north of the border for American “diggers”. Through correspondence between Sternberg and the British Museum, we learn how war affected the transfer of trans-national environmental knowledge.
