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 articulating of the bones and posing of the limbs were equally difficult 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 lizards, crocodiles, etc., are so remote from them in either proportions or habits that they are unsatisfactory guides in determining how the bones were articulated and are of but little use in posing the limbs and other parts of the body in positions that they must have taken during life.

Nor among the higher animals of modern times is there one which has any analogy in appearance or habits of life to those which we have been obliged by the study of the skeleton to ascribe to the Brontosaurus.
"As far as the backbone and ribs were concerned, the articulating surfaces of the bones were a sufficient guide to enable us to pose this part of the skeleton properly.

The limb joints, however, are so imperfect that we could not in this way make sure of having the bones in a correct position.

The following method, therefore, was adopted.
"A dissection and thorough study was made by the writer, with the assistance of Mr.Granger, of the limbs of alligators and other reptiles, and the position, size and action of the principal muscles were carefully worked out.