6 Story of a Monster Fish 



stretched to their full length, while the hind feet 

 pointed downward. The animal lay on the ven- 

 tral surface with the abdominal wall spread out. 

 The skull was four feet long. Trunk and head 

 12 feet and 2 inches and the tail 5 feet and 6 

 inches. The entire body was covered with skin, 

 not clinging to the bones as in the American 

 Museum specimen George found in 1908, but cov 

 ered as if with round muscles, the sand having 

 taken the place occupied by the original flesh. 

 Owing to the great size of the specimen, and as I 

 was determined to save every particle of the skin, 

 the sectons we took up were very heavy, espec- 

 ially those composing the trunk, one of which 

 weighed about 3,500 pounds. It took considerable 

 skill and the combined strength of the four of us 

 to handle these huge masses of rock and bone, es- 

 pecially as we had no tackle. We learned, however, 

 that with a couple of cotton-wood poles for levers 

 and blocks of the same for fulcrums, we could 

 hoist a section up, and then while the boys held 

 it a few inches above ground I would shovel sand 

 under it and tamp it with my shovel handle. Of 

 course when they loosened their hold to take a 

 new bite, it sank deeply into the sand again, but 

 still we found we had gained an inch or two. 

 Working thus all day we not only raised a sec- 

 tion weighing 3,500 pounds four feet in the air, 

 but moved it several feet to one side so we could 

 run the wagon under it and load. I then came to 

 the concluson that if four men with nothing but 



