 Similar fossils were reported in 1902 from nearby Mount Field , another part of the Stephen formation . These may have been why Charles Doolittle Walcott visited Mount Field in 1909 . While taking photographs there Walcott found a slab of fossils that he described as " Phyllopod crustaceans " . From late August to early September 1909 , his team , including his family , collected fossils there , and in 1910 Walcott opened a quarry that he and his colleagues re @-@ visited in 1911 , 1912 , 1913 , 1917 and 1924 , bringing back over 60 @,@ 000 specimens in total . Walcott was Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to his death in 1927 , and this kept him so busy that he was still trying to make time for analyzing his finds two years before his death . Although he drew attention to the exceptional detail of the specimens , which were the first known fossils of soft @-@ bodied animals from the Cambrian period , he also had other research interests : the Early Paleozoic stratigraphy of the Canadian Rockies , which took up the great majority of his time there ; and Precambrian fossils of algae and bacteria , to which he assigned as much importance as to the fossils of animals . He managed to publish four " preliminary " papers on the fossil animals in 1911 and 1912 , and further articles in 1918 , 1919 and 1920 . Four years after Walcott 's death his associate Charles <unk> produced a package of additional descriptions from Walcott 's notes . Walcott 's classifications of most of the fossils are now rejected , but were supported at the time , and he accepted a change for one of the few where his conclusion was disputed . Many of the later comments were made with the benefits of hindsight , and of techniques and concepts unknown in Walcott 's time . 
