The University of Wyoming

	Office of the Board of Trustees

	Laramie, Wyoming



May 4, 1899

Dr. W. J. Holland

Director of the Carnegie Museum

Pittsburgh, Pa.



Dear sir;-

Your very kind favor of the 2nd inst. is received.

In order that the most complete understanding may exist between you, and the Museum you represent, and me, and the University I represent, I desire to state, while fully realizing the generous spirit in which you offered us the sum of Two Thousand Dollars for the Fossil discovered by MR. W.H. REED while in our employ, that had you been ten times as generous as you were the offer you made would have still been declined, because this Executive Committee which refused your offer had no power or authority whatsoever to dispose of or sell the State's property. The only thing to be done at that time was to agree, should this Fossil be placed on the market, to give you, as the representative of the Carnegie Museum, the opportunity to make the first offer. This we did.

The University fully realizes the importance of having scientific parties exhume these fossil bones, which exist in unequaled quantities and in such a perfect state of preservation that the world fails to give a parallel exhibition; and at the same time the Wyoming University has no desire whatsoever to appear selfish in the matter just because nature has given this State such rich fossil gifts which ask only to be disinterred.

In view of these facts, in order to establish those relations of desirable fellowship between two museums having a common purpose of education