186 THE CEEATOPSIA. 



improvised stone boat and hauled along the road by means of the block and tackle and one of 

 the heavy horses. 



When the load reached the wagon the latter was run into two parallel trenches, so as to 

 bring the wagon bed on a level with the ground, when the specimen was hauled into the wagon 

 with comparative ease. The other concretions were all smaller than the first, most of them 

 containing a single vertebra or one or more small bones, but the deeper lying ones were extremely 

 hard, being composed of a perfectly homogeneous bluish sandstone, and had to be removed 

 bodily to New York, where better tools were available, before their final reduction could be 

 accomplished and the contained bones freed from their matrix. 



Our first Triceratops specimen (quarry No. 2), consisting of vertebrae, ribs, the sacrum, 

 the lower jaws, and a few limb bones, lay in a peculiar joint clay of a bluish color, though occa- 

 sionally stained a rusty brown along the joints. The bones were poorly preserved, presenting 

 in this respect a marked contrast with the admirable condition of those of the carnivore, as 

 the joints in the clay ran through the bones as well, which therefore required the most delicate 

 manipulation. The process consisted in the removal of the overlying material, first with a 

 heavy pick and spade, a process technically known as "stripping," then with a light prospector's 

 pick, and finally with a harness awl and whisk broom. The exposed bone surface was then 

 treated with a solution of gum arabic to harden it and then covered, first with tissue paper and 

 finally with strips of burlap dipped into flour paste. The bones were then excavated still far- 

 ther, the exposed surface being covered as before, and finally were lifted from their age-long 

 bed and the lower side treated in the same manner. While the smaller bones were now ready 

 ior packing, the larger ones had to be provided with a plaster of Paris jacket, sometimes with 

 splints of wood for further support, just as a surgeon prepares a broken limb. The bones were 

 then packed in hay in heavy boxes ready for shipment. 



Quarry No. 3 contained the great skull of Triceratops serratus, No. 970, before referred to 

 and figured in this monograph (fig. 26, p. 29). This was found, together with some limb and 

 foot bones, about 1 mile down Hell Creek from the camp, and presented a third aspect of Laramie 

 collecting. 



The specimen in this instance was in unconsolidated sandstone, the skull lying in normal 

 position, with the supraorbital horn cores protruding on the surface and sustaining an abun- 

 dant growth of vegetation, which aided largely in the disruption of the bone. 



The nasals, with their horn core, were eroded away, and the small rostral bone lay dis- 

 placed on the right side of the snout, while one complete dentary, with perfect dentition, and 

 other portions of both jaws lay beneath the skull, as though still attached by ligaments when the 

 specimen came to its last resting place. As is usual with Ceratopsian skulls, the upper teeth 

 had almost entirely disappeared, which leads one to believe that the huge head must have had 

 great powers of flotation, owing to the cavities in which the expansive gases incident to decay 

 could develop, and was as a consequence probably the last portion of the creature's frame to 

 become buried in the sand. 



Our specimen was in fine condition where it was completely buried, though extremely 

 fragile, and the process of excavation was carried out with the utmost caution, the exposed 

 portions being covered at once with plaster bandages to guard against possible injury. 



As the broad expanse of frill, measuring in this instance 5 feet in width by nearly 3 feet in 

 length, would not bear its own weight, it was supported from beneath by vertical props as fast 

 as the earth was removed. It was decided to retain the matrix under the palatal portion of 

 the skull for safety's sake, so it was necessary to spray this repeatedly with gum arabic solu- 

 tion, which hardened it, so that it was self-sustaining. The under side of the frill was then 

 plastered, and by occasional tunneling the matrix was bound fast to the skull by means of the 

 burlap strips. Next a complete trestlework was built of scantling underneath the entire struc- 

 ture, and the whole was bound fast with the plastered strips, so that the resultant fabric was 

 extremely solid. The box, which was built beneath and around the specimen without disturb- 

 ing it in the least, was of the smallest possible dimensions, yet measured 7 feet in length by h\ 

 feet in breadth, and about 4 feet in depth, and weighed, with its contents, 3,100 pounds. 



