In the Red Beds of Texas 247 



had to make the long journey through the awful 

 heat over the dust-laden roads to the well at Sey- 

 mour, twenty miles away. When we reached it at 

 last, how we buried our faces in the bucket and the 

 cool water ! 



But I will not dwell on this side of the picture, 

 because there is another side. We were finding in 

 wonderful abundance the material which we had 

 come to secure, and the hardships were forgotten in 

 the joy of success. In spite of the many obstacles 

 with which we had to contend, we secured the collec- 

 tion described in that great letter from Dr. von Zit- 

 tel which I publish here in facsimile and which I 

 prize more than any letter I ever received. 



Before I accepted von Zittel's offer that I should 

 conduct an expedition for him in the brakes of the 

 Big Wichita, I wrote to him, telling him how my 

 work for science had had, from a material stand- 

 point, no great returns. My life, I said, had been a 

 constant struggle to secure sufficient funds to carry 

 on the work, and the men who had bought my 

 material had for the most part felt that they were 

 doing good service to their museums by securing it 

 at the lowest possible price, without taking into con- 

 sideration that even a fossil hunter has to live. 



It was with pleasure indeed that I received the 

 answer of this great German, whose works on pale- 

 ontology are used as text-books in our universities. 



