30 The Teeming East 



the old mount in the American Museum, cover- 

 ing the iron half ovals that were fastened to the 

 limb bones with plaster to give the skeleton a 

 standing pose. I am sure it would look better if 

 the iron was exposed. Some time we will rectify 

 that error. I can never give you a pen picture 

 of the difficulties we met with ; they were legion. 

 We overcame them however. Among the most 

 important, perhaps, was the fact that we had to 

 work in cold iron, as we could not use a forge on 

 the fine floor of the Exhibition Room. If we bent 

 the rod a little too much it would break. Then 

 it was very hard to give the exact shape it must 

 have, or the skeleton would be distorted. Any 

 thing the least out of line, you know, is quickly 

 detected by the human eye, and any thing out of 

 plum would be an eye sore to the visitor instead 

 of an eye opener, or educator as we hoped. At 

 last we got to the ribs, and we thought our worst 

 troubles were over. But we found they had just 

 begun. They were badly broken, and no cement 

 we were familiar with, would hold them together. 

 All the bones we must bore into, to hold our irons 

 in place, were as hard as flint, it often taking 

 three hours to bore a hole three-quarters of an 

 inch deep. The ribs broken into many fragments, 

 we found must have a hole into the end of each 

 piece, a little rod of iron perhaps two inches, or 

 an inch and a half long, must have their ends 

 flared out, umbrella-like, to prevent coming out 

 when the cement is set. We used a solution of 



