64 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
Visitors see here the largest fossil skeleton that has ever been 
mounted, and may obtain some idea of the variety and the ex- 
traordinary character of the animals which populated the earth 
during the Age of Reptiles, millions of years ago, before the 
Age of Mammals had begun or the various races of quadrupeds 
which now inhabit the world had commenced their evolution. 
The Brontosaurus skeleton, the principal feature of the hall, 
is sixty-six feet eight inches in length, and stands fifteen feet 
two inches high. Its petrified thigh-bone weighs 570 lbs. The 
weight of the animal when alive is estimated at-not less than 
ninety tons. About one-third of the skeleton, including the skull, 
is restored in plaster, modeled or cast from other incomplete 
skeletons. The remaining two-thirds belong to one individual, 
except for a part of the tail, one shoulder-blade and one hind 
limb, supplied from another skeleton of the same species. 
The skeleton was discovered by Mr. Walter Granger, of the 
Museum expedition of 1898, about nine miles north of Medicine 
Bow, Wyoming. It took the whole of the succeeding summer 
to extract 1t from the rock, pack it and ship it to the Musuem. 
Nearly two years were consumed in removing the matrix, piec- 
ing together and cementing the brittle and shattered petrified 
bone, strengthening it so that it would bear handling, and re- 
storing the missing parts of the bones in tinted plaster. The 
articulation and mounting of the skeleton and modeling of the 
missing bones took an even longer time, so that it was not until 
February, 1905, that the Brontosaurus was at last ready for 
exhibition. 
It will appear, therefore, that the collection, preparation and 
mounting of this gigantic fossil has been a task of extraordinary 
difficulty. No museum has ever before attempted to mount so 
large a fossil skeleton, and the great weight and fragile character 
of the bones made it necessary to devise especial methods to give 
each bone a rigid and complete support, as otherwise it would 
soon break in pieces from its own weight. The proper articulat- 
ing of the bones and the posing of the limbs were equally diffi- 
cult problems, for the Amphibious Dinosaurs, to which this 
animal belongs, disappeared from the earth long before the dawn 
of the Age of Mammals, and their nearest relatives, the living 
