26 The Teeming East 



exposed, we carefully removed the loose chalk 

 above it, then put a frame of two by four lumber 

 around it, in which we poured plaster. On hard- 

 ening thus stuck securely to the shattered shell, 

 holding the fragments in place. Then we dug be- 

 neath and turned over the panel, and in the shop 

 removed the chalk, leaving one side of the shell 

 exposed in the solid plaster. 



Prom New York I went to Yale, and met Pro- 

 fessors Lull, Schuchert and Weiland, and tho 

 preparator, Mr. Hugh Gibbs. What a splendid 

 time we had in what the oldest American Pale- 

 ontologist, Prof. S. W. Williston used to call "a 

 Paradise of Dry Bones." We saw the treasures 

 Prof. Marsh bad gathered through so many 

 years, some of them the most famous among fos- 

 sil vertebrates. Time or space would not allow 

 me to go deeply into the study and description of 

 these wonders of creation. Dr. Weiland told me 

 that if five of the most perfect fossil turtles were 

 chosen from all the museums of the world, his 

 great extinct monster turtle, Archelon ischyros, 

 from South Dakota, would rank first, and the 

 one I sent him from the Kansas chalk would be 

 second in the list. You may call it egotism, to 

 recall these delights, but it is the very spice of 

 life to know that years spent in the barren and 

 desolate fossil fields of North America, have not 

 been barren of results. Please remember, if T 

 am still collecting in the year of grace 1917, it 

 will mean that I have been a collector, or if you 



