6 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



Visitors see liere the largest fossil skeleton that has ever been 

 mounted, and may obtain some idea of the variety and the ex- 

 traordinary character of the animals which populated the earth 

 during the Age of Reptiles, millions of years ago, before the 

 Age of Mammals had begun or the various races of quadrupeds 

 which now inhabit the world had commenced their evolution. 



The Brontosaurus skeleton, the principal feature of the hall, 

 is sixty-six feet eight inches in length, and stands fifteen feet 

 two inches high. Its petrified thigh-bone weighs 570 lbs. The 

 weight of the animal when alive is estimated at not less than 

 ninety tons. About one-third of the skeleton, including the skull, 

 is restored in plaster, modeled or cast from other incomplete 

 skeletons. The remaining two-thirds belong to one individual, 

 except for a part of the tail, one shoulder-blade and one hind 

 limb, supplied from another skeleton of the same species. 



The skeleton was discovered by Mr. Walter Granger, of the 

 Museum expedition of 1898, about nine miles north of Medicine 

 Bow, Wyoming. It took the whole of the succeeding summer 

 to extract it from the rock, pack it and ship it to the Musuem. 

 Nearly two years were consumed in removing the matrix, piec- 

 ing together and cementing the brittle and shattered petrified 

 bone, strengthening it so that it would bear handling, and re- 

 storing the missing parts of the bones in tinted plaster. The 

 articulation and mounting of the skeleton and modeling of the 

 missing bones took an even longer time, so that it was not until 

 February, 1905, that the Brontosaurus was at last ready for 

 exhibition. 



It will appear, therefore, that the collection, preparation and 

 mounting of this gigantic fossil has been a task of extraordinary 

 difficulty. No museum has ever before attempted to mount so 

 large a fossil skeleton, and the great weight and fragile character 

 of the bones made it necessary to devise especial methods to give 

 each bone a rigid and complete support, as otherwise it would 

 soon break in pieces from its own weight. The proper articulat- 

 ing of the bones and the posing of the limbs were equally diffi- 

 cult problems, for the Amphibious Dinosaurs, to which this 

 animal belongs, disappeared from the earth long before the dawn 

 of the Age of Mammals, and their nearest relatives, the living 



