56 We Explore Dead Lodge Canyon 



land and Mr. Peterson the paleontologist and 

 also Mr. Earl Douglass, the noted collector and 

 preparator of the huge Brontosaur us material 

 from Nevada. All three agreed, that in their 

 opinion we should make a panel mount of the 

 carnivore, not taking it out of the original mat 

 rix. They used the argument that a student 

 could then come to his own conclusions in re- 

 gard to it as easily as if he had collected it him- 

 self, while if we made an open mount of it, he 

 would have to depend on the veracity of the pre- 

 parator. We were kindly treated here and saw 

 the magnificent Brontosaur Mr. Douglas had 

 found in Nevada. It is a fourth larger than the 

 famous Diplodocus carnegii. World renoAvned, 

 because of the casts Mr. Carnegie has sent to the 

 Museums of Europe. The Brontosaur is sixteen 

 feet high at the hips and eighty-two feet long. 

 We hurried on to Washington, and there both 

 Mr. Gilmour and Gidley,the vertebrae paleontolo- 

 gists, were warm in their opinions that it would 

 be a crime to take it out of its original matrix, 

 and thus lose the authority that goes with it. Mr. 

 Gilmour showed me the fine skeleton of a Steyo- 

 saur they had just mounted in the way he pro- 

 posed we should mount ours. It lies on a base a 

 couple of feet above the floor, in the rock in which 

 it was buried. He assured me that people show- 

 ed more interest in this mount than in any other 

 in the National Museum though they had some 

 splendid open mounts. Mr. Gilmour claims that 



