The Teeming East 27 



please a Fossil Hunter for fifty years. So I 

 should be excused, if I bring before you the choice 

 of the big game I have gleaned through half a 

 century. We visited these great museums not 

 only for pleasure, but to learn something about 

 the processes of making "Open Mounts," for I 

 must confess, neither George or I had ever done 

 this kind of work, although I had bound myself 

 with George's aid, to mount the Titanotherium 

 skeleton in this way, that is, mount it free from 

 the rock in which it was entombed. Fortunately, 

 the preparators told us of many mistakes in their 

 own mounts, and warned us not to fall into the 

 same pits. Unfortunately, however, they were 

 not mounting a titanothere, at the American 

 Museum and the one we studied was among 

 their first mounts, and they have been improving 

 on it ever since. With the maxim of the late- 

 Professor Cope ringing ever in my ears "What 

 man has done he can do again, and he can do a 

 little more." With the little knowledge we had 

 gained we crossed the International Line, and 

 found ourselves in Ottawa, Canada. We found 

 that the great room that was to be the exhibition 

 room of vertebrate fossils, was filled with boxes 

 and barrels, and there was not a tool in sight. 

 As I was obliged to mount the Titanotherium at 

 my own expense, I could not afford an elaborate 

 machine shop. I remembered how Charlie in a 

 little log cabin on Old Woman Creek, Wyoming, 

 was preparing a great skull of a horned dinosaur. 



