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 



