106 BULLETIN 89, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



History of the specimen. — The skeleton was collected by Mr. M. P. Felch during 

 the years 1SS5 and 18S6 from quarry No. 1 (pi. 1, lower figure) in Garden Park, 

 Fremont County, Colorado. That Mr. Felch recognized the importance of the 

 specimen is clearly shown by the carefully made diagrams, notes, etc., which he 

 prepared in order to facilitate the fitting together of the blocks of sandstone and 

 broken pieces when it should be assembled in the laboratory. 



The specimen was shipped to Prof. O. C. Marsh at New Haven, Connecticut, 

 where it was partially assembled and the rock covering was removed from what 

 was the lower side in the quarry, as shown in plate 4. The skull was the only 

 part worked out free from the matrix. In this condition the specimen was studied 

 and in 1887 ' briefly described by Prof. Marsh as the type of the species S. stenops. 

 It was then sent to storage, where it remained until after the death of Professor 

 Marsh. In 1899 all of the vertebrate fossils at New Haven belonging to the Gov- 

 ernment (comprising five carloads) were shipped to the United States National 

 Museum, the present specimen forming a portion of that collection. In 1904, under 

 the direction of Mr. F. A. Lucas, the specimen was unpacked and sufficiently assem- 

 bled to obtain the necessary data for the life restoration made in that year by 

 Mr. C. R. Knight (pi. 33, lower figure). The drawing of the dermal plates shown in 

 plate 14 was also made at that time. It was again placed in storage and remained 

 there until September, 1911, when its final preparation was begun. So that now, 

 after a period of 28 years since it was first discovered, this most perfect specimen 

 of a Stegosaurus is at last available for exhibition and study purposes, and it will 

 long serve as a standard for interpretating and coordinating the scattered parts of 

 others of its kind. 



Position of the skeleton. — The specimen as assembled and as now exhibited in 

 the United States National Museum (pi. 2) shows the skeleton in the position it 

 occupied in the quarry. Every bone occupies the precise relative position it did 

 when found. In order to show the series of dermal plates that were folded back 

 beneath the body of the animal a large mirror was installed in such a manner as to 

 display these plates to the observer. A second mirror was likewise placed below 

 the overturned skull, so that it reverses the head to its normal position and at 

 the same- time shows the elements composing the top of the cranium. 



The adaptation of mirrors to the better display of large fossil specimens, here 

 used for the first time, is most gratifying in the results obtained. 



When the skeleton was found it lacked the greater portion of the posterior 

 half of the tail, the hind feet, and some other minor portions. The animal lies on 

 its left side 2 with the bones so closely connected that there can be no question 

 raised as to their belonging to this one individual. 



The vertebral column is largely intact and to a great extent articulated — at 

 least it is so little disturbed that the axial skeleton appears to be complete from 

 the tip of the nose to the seventeenth caudal. The distal half of the tail, as men- 

 tioned above, is largely missing, although five caudal vertebrae, three plates, and 



i Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. 34, 1S87, pp. 414-115, pi. 6. 



- In a letter to Professor Marsh, dated June 23, 1SS6, Felch says: 



The animal here lay on Its left side and up against the bank of our old river bed, bringing its left [nght] hip the highest, the 

 right [left] hip and some bones having slid downhill toward the bottom of the bed. Most all of the plates along here lay up 

 and on the outside of this bank, resting on the marl bed. 



