Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-07-01
Taa Great Cemetery in Colorado.

In an extremely interesting paper with
the above title. in The Popular Science
Monthly, Prof. Samuel Lockwood, of Rut-
gers College, n. j., gives an account of the
explorations of Prof. Z. ID. Cope. in what
he terms d" the great graveyards of the
ancient dead in our Western territories
These explorations We're conducted under
government auspices, and some idea may he
formed of their extent from Prof. Lock
woods statement that . we have for a sum-
mer's work by Prof. Cope not less than one
hundred and fifty species of vertebrate an
imalS alone, Of which one hundred are
new, without taking any account of the
collections of invertebrates. Prof Lock
woods detailed account of the several
classes of these eXhumations is profoundly
interesting to the scientific student, but we
have been particularly interested in his at
tempt To present II description of the pre-
historic ages suited TO popular comprehen-
sion, with which he opens his graphic
paper as follows:
. In the composition of his ecclesiastical
history, an erudite historian chaptered the
narrative into centuries. Perhaps for his
subject these divisions were sufficiently GEN
erous. Still, MS measurements of time they
We're but puny epochs; and vet thev were
vast enough for the treatment of that
ephemeral worker, man. But He. who
worketh hitherto who, as the true Earth's
Bioorapher, wrote on the stony rocks
made His divisions the Ages! Indeed, can
those epochs be reduced to wears? What
Il scope must the record of His doings have
with whom a thousand years are as a dav, q,
Accepting these life cycles with sienifi-
cance so grand, we reverently look into
Ire
the Cambrian age. But-amazng. the
stony lamine that make up its leaves are
scarcely less than one hundrcd thousand
feet in thickness 1t was a time of drearv
wildness. and its primeval life forms were
few, and huge rock moses We're tilted up
from that sea, and worn down for the bed
of the waters. Next came the Silurian
age. singing the weird music of its one
world-encrcllng sea. Its forms of life
were innumerable.- Then f1ourished the
Branchiopods. or hell-bearing worms. and
MOllusca, Crustacea, corals and u few
fishes. Then comes the Devonian aCe.
Now it IS that what seemed a monotonous
watery waste becomes as weary Sahara.
with many green-fringed oasis cheered
The late universal sea is dotted with low
lying islands. Very beautiful, though
lowly in rank, and not over-luxuriant in
numbers, Were the plant-forms that fringed
those shores. Then the fishes composed
the nobility of life. Their patterns were
grotesque; and they were clad in mighty
plate-armor, massive osseous tiles. of
quantity sculpture. 1t was an armature
that spoke unmistakably of crimson con-
flicts; for, in sooth, these were not piping
times of peace Next came the carb; nif-
erous age. The area of land is greatly in
creased; and it is beautified with new and
amazingly luxuriant vegetation In this
plant regime the queenliest being is the alb
crescent fem. And this luxuriant vegeta-
ton stores up the solar force, rich leg
acy for the tar-off bat coming man.
At this time a few air-breathers occupy the
land. With frog-like affinities, they are of
very low reptilian rank.
Passing the Permian and the Jurassic
next comes the Cretaceous age. with the
elimination of that reptilian race of mon
sters of amazing size and most singular
aspects. 1t was indeed the companionshir
of Beauty and the Beast for at this
time, also, the nautilus, and the ammonite
those peerless structures of the molluscan
life, reveled in beauty and vastness of mum.
bers. But sad change, and the CAV nau
titus tribe was reduced to the merest repre-
sentation in the animate scale; while the
star of the respondent ammonite wen
down in utter death. And there mus
have been peculiar conditions of both lant
and sea, in that Cretaceous day, or thos,
strange reptiles of Brobdingnagian alti