THE CERATOPSIA. 185 



COLLECTING CEKATOPSIAlSr MATERIAL. 



In the chapter of the present memoir devoted to the history of discovery reference is 

 made to the various expeditions which have searched for these interesting forms. While 

 not the pioneer ceratopsian collector, Hatcher brought to light by far the major part of 

 all of the known material pertaining to this group. His work was mainly among the larger 

 genera of the Laramie, especially in the Converse County locality, and his experience was such 

 that he could have written a most interesting and instructive chapter upon the difficulties 

 and dangers incident to the collection of such huge fossils. 



In one specimen collected in Converse County by Hatcher the concretion containing the 

 skull weighed 6,850 pounds when received at the Yale Museum. This is by far the largest speci- 

 men of Triceratops yet found, having an estimated length of 8 feet from the tip of the rostral 

 bone to the hinder margin of the frill. In the same concretion were many other bones and a 

 large fragment of vegetable origin, further evidence in favor of Hatcher's conception of the 

 habitat of the Ceratopsia. 



The present author's experience in the field in search of Ceratopsia, though limited to a 

 single eventful season, was of such a nature as to present a full measure of experience from the 

 variety of conditions met with. This expedition will be taken as an illustration of field methods 

 and the problems to be solved. 



During the summer of 1902 Mr. Barnum Brown, of the American Museum of Natural 

 History, accompanied by the author, was sent into the northern part of Montana to explore a 

 new locality for Laramie dinosaurs. The locality was made known to Professor Osborn 

 through Mr. William Hornaday, director of the zoological gardens in Bronx Park, New York, 

 who, in company with Mr. L. A. Huffman, a photographer, of Miles City, Mont., had taken a 

 trip up into the Hell Creek region the season before. While there these gentlemen found a 

 ceratopsian horn core, which showed that there were prospects of finding these fossils in this 

 locality. 



The great majority of the Laramie Ceratopsia found by Hatcher were incased in hard sand- 

 stone concretions, which, while vastly increasing the weight of the specimen and the difficulty 

 both of collecting and of subsequent preparation for exhibition and study, generally insured 

 its preservation from destruction by the action of the elements. As many of Hatcher's finest 

 specimens had already weathered out of the bank in which they had been embedded, the impor- 

 tance of this fact can readily be imagined. 



Our party found no fewer than thirteen skulls, but all of these except one had entirely dis- 

 integrated, and the portion of this one that protruded on the surface of the ground was destroyed. 

 This specimen was in unconsolidated sandstone; another was in joint clay; while a third fossil, 

 not a ceratopsian, was inclosed in concretions and gave us a very perfect idea of such collecting. 

 As each of these three matrices presented its special problems for solution, they will be described 

 in some detail. 



At quarry No. 1, that opposite the camp, a specimen of a huge carnivorous dinosaur (Tyra- 

 nosaurus rex Osborn) was found embedded in a number of separate concretions. The largest of 

 these was but partially buried, and from the exposed end a broken portion of a huge tibia pro- 

 truded. By searching down the hill most of the fragments which had been broken away were 

 recovered and afterwards restored to their original position. The excavation of the concretion 

 itself was easily accomplished, but it was far too heavy for shipment, and the work of reducing 

 it to a more moderate bulk was arduous enough, as the rock was hard and the facilities for 

 sharpening and retempering dulled and broken tools were very crude. The block, which con- 

 tained a tibia and the coossified pubes, weighed 1,700 pounds when all of the matrix possible 

 was removed, and the task of loading it upon the wagon presented a serious engineering 

 problem. A road was cut along the face of the butte to the little valley which divided it from 

 the neighboring hill, to which place the wagon could be brought. The block, carefully swathed 

 in strips of burlap dipped in liquid plaster to protect the protruding bone, was placed upon an 



