CHAPTER VII 



EXPEDITION TO THE JOHN DAY RIVER 



IN 1878 



URING the winter i 877^78 I camped on 

 Pine Creek, Washington, exploring the 

 swamps in the neighborhood and fighting 

 against water to secure specimens. We 

 had dug a large shaft down to the bed of gravel, 

 twelve feet below the surface, in which bones were 

 to be found, but every morning we found that the 

 hole had filled with mud and water over night, and 

 we had to spend hours bailing it out. When we 

 finally got it clear again, we had little time or 

 strength left for securing fossils. This perform- 

 ance had to be repeated day after day, and of course 

 the farther we excavated, the more water there was 

 to be bailed out. I don't think that we were 

 dry a single day that winter. But luckily the 

 water was warm, and we did not suffer from 

 colds. 



On the twenty-third of April I started with a 

 team and wagon from Fort Walla Walla, ac- 

 companied by my two assistants, Joe Huff and 



170 



