72 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



bones. After much unsuccessful effort, I came to a 

 place at the head of a gorge, where a perpendicular 

 escarpment dropped downward for a thousand feet. 

 The upper ledge of sandstone had broken loose for 

 a space of thirty feet, and this huge mass of rock, 

 four feet thick, carrying with it the loose dirt and 

 polishing the underlying surface as it thundered 

 down the slope, had struck the lower ledge with such 

 force that it too had broken loose and plunged down- 

 ward into the abyss. A grove of pine trees at the 

 base of the cliff had been crushed to the earth by 

 this avalanche. To my view the remaining trees, 

 which I knew to be about fifty feet high, appeared 

 like seedlings, and the vast mass of rock like a 

 cobblestone. 



I concluded that I should have no difficulty in 

 crawling across the smooth space, for I reasoned 

 that if I began to slip, I could drive the sharp end 

 of my pick into the soft rock and thus stop myself. 

 So, climbing up the slope through the loose earth 

 to the base of the upper ledge, I started to cross. 

 When I was halfway over I began to slip, and con- 

 fidently raising my pick, struck the rock with all 

 my might. God grant that I may never again feel 

 such horror as I felt then, when the pick, upon 

 which I had depended for safety, rebounded as if it 

 had been polished steel, as useless in my hands as a 

 bit of straw. I struck frantically again and yet 



