After Tyrrell finished at the University of Toronto in 1880, he began studying for the bar and working at a local firm, as was the custom in the era before law schools became commonplace, but he was still weak from a bout with pneumonia a few years earlier. His physician suggested that outdoor work would restore him to health, so Tyrrell found a temporary post as an assistant at the GSC, which was moving its offices from Montreal to Ottawa and needed additional staff. His first task was to unpack and sort through hundreds of specimens of Canadian rocks.
Ventured into Rough Terrain
One of the GSC's leading names was George Mercer Dawson, a member of the International Boundary Commission. While surveying lands along the 49th Parallel, Dawson discovered the first dinosaur bones in southern Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1874. Such fossil finds were a relatively recent development. In 1770 in Holland, the first ancient skeleton of what was thought to be an immense marine lizard was unearthed. In 1800, the first ancient specimen uncovered by Europeans in North America was a set of fossilized dinosaur tracks in Connecticut.
Dawson, impressed by Tyrrell's dedication to his job, invited him to accompany a GSC survey that was planned to help the Canadian Pacific railroad determine its westward route through the foothills of the Rockies in 1883.
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