44 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



of a Kansas mosasaur. Clidastes tort or Cope named 

 it, because an additional set of articulations in the 

 backbone enabled it to coil. Its head lay in the cen- 

 ter, with the column around it, and the four paddles 

 stretched out on either side. It was covered by 

 only a few inches of disintegrated chalk. 



Forgetting my sickness, I shouted to the sur- 

 rounding wilderness, " Thank God ! Thank God ! " 

 And I did well to thank the Creator, as I slowly 

 brushed away the powdered chalk and revealed the 

 beauties of this reptile of the Age of Reptiles. Its 

 snake-like tail and flexible movements caused it to 

 appear to Cope a veritable serpent, so that he put it 

 in his new sub-order Pythonomorpha. 



I well remember the terrible journey over the 

 rough sod to the station with this specimen. I was 

 seized with another attack of ague, and as I jolted 

 about in the bottom of the wagon, I thought that 

 my head would surely burst. Little I cared, 

 though, so that I got my beloved fossil to the 

 Professor. 



And I felt amply repaid for my sufferings when 

 the next winter I laid out the skeleton on the plat- 

 form of St. George's Hall, in Philadelphia, where 

 the Professor spoke for an hour to a spellbound 

 audience, unfolding to them the wonders of the 

 creatures that lived when this old world was young. 

 At the close, which came suddenly, as was usually 



