56 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



rious effects of freezing. I should like just here to 

 express my gratitude to those ranchmen who gave 

 their time and strength to assist me in handling 

 these huge sections. 



When they had been packed with excelsior in 

 strong boxes, a wagon was backed up against the 

 level platform which we had made in throwing out 

 the rock and soil that lay over the specimen. The 

 boxes were then set on edge, and, with the help of 

 boards and rollers, loaded into the wagon for ship- 

 ment to the railroad thirty miles away. 



But my troubles with this specimen were not 

 over; on the contrary, they had just begun. When 

 the section containing the head was being raised on 

 to a table in my shop it fell and its weight was so 

 great that the head was badly shattered, as was the 

 plaster that secured the bones in place below. 



Then all through the winter, while I was trying 

 to dry out the specimen, so that it could be cleaned 

 and prepared for shipment, the rats, which inhabited 

 the walls of the laboratory in great numbers, kept 

 pulling out the bran and excelsior that had been put 

 around the delicate bones to protect them; thus 

 causing the broken plaster, with the bones of the 

 head, to sink lower and lower, as the packing was 

 carried away from underneath. 



Driven to think out some plan of saving the speci- 

 men from destruction, I conceived the idea of shov- 





