10 story of a Monster Fish 



the spring I was away, and Charlie was at work 

 on it. One evening he had left the shop to go. 

 home when a Kansas cyclone struck the building 

 and shoved one of the brick walls in as easily as 

 if the building had been a house of cards. The 

 weight of the brick falling on the skull not only 

 crushed it so badly that it could not be restored 

 and had to be thrown away, but it drove the 

 heavy tailor's table it was on through the floor 

 Mr. Constant the owner of the building saw the 

 storm coming and ran upstairs to shut the west 

 window. But before he could reach it the wall 

 fell in and he had to run for his life up the fall- 

 ing floor, and fortunately reached the steps and 

 got out of the building safely. Though the loss 

 of so valuable a specimen that had cost me much 

 time and labor was bitter indeed, the thought 

 that my son had so narrowly escaped with his 

 life made me more reconciled to the loss. I have, 

 as already related, both seen, and been in cy- 

 clones, but this was the first one that ever de- 

 stroyed such a valuable fossil for me. In the, 

 same building, but farther towards the east, wo 

 had a great fish (Portheus) , skeleton 14 feet 

 long. But when the floor from above feU in, the 

 rafters covered it in such a way that it was not 

 injured, and though covered with lath and plast- 

 er, it came out without a scratch, and is now 

 mounted in the Victoria Memorial Museum. Our 

 camp was visited by George's wife and babies in. 

 1910. We were camped on the Cheyenne River, 



