The Teeming East 27 



please a Fossil Hunter for fifty years. So I 



should be excused, if I bring before you the choice 



of the big game I have gleaned through half a 



century. We visited these great museums not 



only for pleasure, but to learn something about 



the processes of making "Open Mounts," for I 



must confess, neither George or I had ever done 



this kind of work, although I had bound myself 



with George's aid, to mount the Titanotherium 



skeleton in this way, that is, mount it free from 



the rock in which it wa.s entombed. Fortunately, 



the preparators told us of many mistakes in their 



own mounts, and warned us not to fall into the 



same pits. Unfortunately, however, they were 



not mounting a titanothere, at th(^ Americar. 



Museum and the one we studied was among 



their first mounts, and they have been improving 



on it ever since. With the maxim of the late 



Professor Cope ringing ever in my ears "What 



mail has done he can do again, and he can do a 



little more." With the little knowledge we had 



gained we crossed the International Line, and 



found ourselves in Ottawa, Canada. We found 



that the great room that was to be the exhibition 



room of vertebrate fossils, was filled with boxes 



and barrels, and there was not a tool in sight. 



As I was obliged to mount the Titanotherium at 



my own expense, I could not afford an elaborate 



machine shop. I remembered how Charlie in a 



little log cabin on Old Woman Creek, Wyoming, 



was preparing a great skull of a horned dinosaur. 



