Professor Caroline Winterer

And as you say, the Ammonites, these, you know, if you can imagine a car tire that is swirled, and they fill museums with these wondrous sea creatures. And imagine, you know, this North America that is so alien to them that now it's just flat sand. boring Midwest, what Americans call flyover territory, right? You fly from New York to San Francisco and it's all the flat stuff in between.

But now they thought, well, oh, it's flat because it used to be an ocean and God had seen to it that that ocean dried into a fertile landscape that now supports the farms of America.

But now they thought, well, oh, it's flat because it used to be an ocean and God had seen to it that that ocean dried into a fertile landscape that now supports the farms of America.

But now they thought, well, oh, it's flat because it used to be an ocean and God had seen to it that that ocean dried into a fertile landscape that now supports the farms of America.

And so every farmer who digs in his or her fields and finds an ammonite or a mosasaur or a ichthyosaur or any kind of swimming saurus should immediately ship those extraordinary, fun, ancient creatures to the museums of New York City and Philadelphia so that we could show them off to the world and to visiting British scientists like Thomas Huxley, you know, who comes to the United States and says, wow,

And so every farmer who digs in his or her fields and finds an ammonite or a mosasaur or a ichthyosaur or any kind of swimming saurus should immediately ship those extraordinary, fun, ancient creatures to the museums of New York City and Philadelphia so that we could show them off to the world and to visiting British scientists like Thomas Huxley, you know, who comes to the United States and says, wow,

And so every farmer who digs in his or her fields and finds an ammonite or a mosasaur or a ichthyosaur or any kind of swimming saurus should immediately ship those extraordinary, fun, ancient creatures to the museums of New York City and Philadelphia so that we could show them off to the world and to visiting British scientists like Thomas Huxley, you know, who comes to the United States and says, wow,

This is great.

This is great.

This is great.

There is a rush to get out there. So Darwin, sadly, himself never comes to North America. But Darwin's bulldog, Thomas Huxley, who is even more a Darwinian than Darwin is, he comes to America. He visits not only the extraordinary dinosaur fossils, but what came after the age of dinosaurs, which was the age of mammals.

There is a rush to get out there. So Darwin, sadly, himself never comes to North America. But Darwin's bulldog, Thomas Huxley, who is even more a Darwinian than Darwin is, he comes to America. He visits not only the extraordinary dinosaur fossils, but what came after the age of dinosaurs, which was the age of mammals.

There is a rush to get out there. So Darwin, sadly, himself never comes to North America. But Darwin's bulldog, Thomas Huxley, who is even more a Darwinian than Darwin is, he comes to America. He visits not only the extraordinary dinosaur fossils, but what came after the age of dinosaurs, which was the age of mammals.

And he realizes that some of these strata, for example, the Cretaceous and the Jurassic are more visible in North America than they were anywhere in Europe. So Europe had had those time periods, but they weren't sitting on the surface, easily accessible in the same quantity as they were in the giant space of North America. So America becomes the great fossil hunting ground for Europeans.

And he realizes that some of these strata, for example, the Cretaceous and the Jurassic are more visible in North America than they were anywhere in Europe. So Europe had had those time periods, but they weren't sitting on the surface, easily accessible in the same quantity as they were in the giant space of North America. So America becomes the great fossil hunting ground for Europeans.

And he realizes that some of these strata, for example, the Cretaceous and the Jurassic are more visible in North America than they were anywhere in Europe. So Europe had had those time periods, but they weren't sitting on the surface, easily accessible in the same quantity as they were in the giant space of North America. So America becomes the great fossil hunting ground for Europeans.

And in some sense, it still remains so today, although now, of course, many other areas of the world have been opened up for fossil hunting like China and North Africa, et cetera.

And in some sense, it still remains so today, although now, of course, many other areas of the world have been opened up for fossil hunting like China and North Africa, et cetera.

And in some sense, it still remains so today, although now, of course, many other areas of the world have been opened up for fossil hunting like China and North Africa, et cetera.

Yeah, well, again, taking us into the American Midwest in the dry landscape of the Dakotas of Nebraska, sort of the upper Midwest, right under Canada, Americans begin to build the transcontinental railroads in the decades after the Civil War.