Conclusion 275 



in the quarry for the first time, and beheld lying 

 in state the most complete skeleton of an extinct 

 animal I have ever seen, after forty years of ex- 

 perience as a collector ! The crowning specimen of 

 my life work ! 



A great duck-billed dinosaur, a relative of Tra- 

 chodon mirabilis, lay on its back with front limbs 

 stretched out as if imploring aid, while the hind 

 limbs in a convulsive effort were drawn up and 

 folded against the walls of the abdomen. The head 

 lay under the right shoulder. One theory might be 

 that he had fallen on his back into a morass, and 

 either broken his neck or had been unable to with- 

 draw his head from under his body, and had choked 

 to death or drowned. If this was so the antiseptic 

 character of the peat-bog had preserved the flesh 

 until, through decay, the contents of the viscera had 

 been replaced with sand. It lay there with expanded 

 ribs as in life, wrapped in the impressions of the 

 skin whose beautiful patterns of octagonal plates 

 marked the fine sandstone above the bones. George 

 had cut away the rock, leaving enough to give the 

 impression that even the flesh was replaced by sand- 

 stone, giving an exact picture of him, as he breathed 

 his last some five million of years ago. 



A more probable explanation, judging from the 

 shape of the skin outline which covers the abdomen 

 and is sunken into the body cavity at least a foot, 



