e 
ae 
Pa 
358 On-the Mounting of Fossils. [April, 
must be fitted to its own place by experiment. When a new 
curve is put into one end of a crooked wire the path of the other 
end through space defies mathematics. 
With heavy bones it is sometimes hard to make them rest in 
their supports without strain, though it can be done. We have 
an enormous femur of a mastodon which seems to be held up by 
a post behind it, while really the whole weight is borne by a plas- 
ter base in which the condyles rest, and the upper end does not 
even touch the post or the guard wires. The hind leg of Lox- 
olophodon is mounted on a plaster base of the computed height 
UINTATHERIUM Hb. 
| ae 
Fic, 6.—Skull, thirty-one inches long. 
of the foot, which takes so much of the weight that there is no 
strain on the rod which guards the head of the tibia. ‘ 
` We have now five mounted skulls of the Uintatherium family, 
and their mountings give a fine example of evolution. The first 
one is sustained by five distinct iron rods whose flat feet are 
secured by sixteen screws to a painted pedestal of white pine, the 
irons weighing over eight pounds. a. 
The last one, a much larger and finer specimen, is carried by 
two rods screwed into the black walnut pedestal. The rearward 
= rod (Fig. 7) sends off a branch from each side just below the 
