The evening times., 1899-05-09
PREHISTORIC REPTILES.
How Their Remains Are Recovered
and Prepared for the Museum.

and Prepared for the Museum.
New York, May 9.-At the last exhibit
tion of the Academy of Science there were
to be seen in the division Of paleontology
several gigantic skeleton legs that looked.
to the casual and unscientific observer, as
If they might have belonged to some stork
or ostrich Of colossal size, say, thirty or
forty feet high. And as such the un-
learned observer might pass them by with
no more than a vague wonder at their
size. To the scientific man, however. they
tell different story, and an extremely in
teresting one. These huge pillar-like legs
are not those OF birds at all, but Of great
prehistoric bird-like reptiles, and repre-
sent some of the most important work in
paleontology that has ever been lone.
The Museum Of Natural History hopes
in time to make a complete biological sur
vey Of the fossil fauna Of North America.
and to add to its selections skeletons OF
every discoverable species. For eight years
it has had parties working in the field
collecting fossil remains of extinct mann
mails. The collection now on exhibition
there is a remarkable one, including every
species which has been discovered in
North America from the first appearance
of mammals down to the Oligocene period.
At the present rate of work the collection
may be completed to cover the entire
Tertiary period, some two million years,
within the next ten years. In addition to
this, work has recently been begun on the
geologic period Just preceding this, that OF
the gigantic reptiles, and the great leg
bones seen at the Academy exhibition are
the first results now appearing in the mu-
scum.
Every summer the field expeditions go to
the great fossil beds of Wyoming and Kan
sas. places where, millions of years ago.
were the great fresh-water lakes, in and
about which lived the monsters whose
skeletons they are seeking. Here they be-
gin by prospecting along the bluffs. or over
the beds of hard clay, in which the bones
are found. When one is found protruding
above the surface, work is begun by care
fully cutting away the clay which sur
rounds the bone, not enough to lay the
bones completely bare, but to take out the
mass of clay in which they are embedded.
The bones are often found broken into
many fragments, and If they were laid
completely bare in the field, as has always
been done up to quite recently. they would
come apart, and there would be great
danger of losing some of the pieces and
difficulty in determining the relative posi-
tions of the rest. The new method OF
handling them is to leave them embedded
in enough of the original clay to hold them
together, and to cover the whole with a
plaster cast This is boarded up and
wrapped with wet rawhide, which shrinks
as it dries, and binds the whole firmly to-
gether. These great blocks, weighing from
100 to $500 pounds, are then Grated and
shipped to the museum, where the matrix
is taken off and the fragments removed
from the clay bit by bit and put together
at once, Just as they come out, thus avoid
ing the difficulty of solving the dissected
puzzle which would be encountered if the
pieces were separated in the field. The
bones thus completed are mounted in as
nearly as possible their relative positions.
A complete record Of every stage of the
proceedings is kept by photography. an
other new feature Of the work. affording,
as can readily be imagined, more ade-
Quate and graphic idea Of the process than
could be given by many pages Of printed
reports.
One of the specimens thus unearthed
and prepared is part of the skeleton Of
huge herbiverous reptile called by Cope
Camarasaur, and by the late Prof. Marsh
a Brontosaur. OF this skeleton the mu-
scum has two Of the dorsal and nineteen
Of the caudal vertebrae. and parts of the
pelvis and leg bones. The scientist finds
many points of particular interest in it,
among others the fact that it shows an
error in Prof. Marsh's restoration of the
skeleton, several dorsal vertebrae being
found which Prof. Marsh had omitted.
But to most people the interesting thing
about the skeleton is the fact that the
bones show unmistakable evidence of hav-
ing been broken and gnawed by the teeth
Of some other animal, presumably one of
the flesh eating reptiles, whose bones are
found in the same clay beds 1t sets ones
imagination a hard task to picture the
conf1ict-such one as might take place,
for instance, between an elephant and a
tiger II the elephant were eighty feet long