The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-11-15

Important Geological Discoveries.
During the last year Prof. Lakes
has been engaged in q, series of geolog,
ical explorations, which have resulted
in the discovery of several new and
gigantic fossil remains Of prehistoric
animals of the DinosGurias,, or terrible
lizard Gas the Greek word means) or
der. Ono or two of them, according to
Prof. Marsh, are the largest known
land animals ever discovered. The re-
mains were found in the rocks of our
mountains of the cretacious or great
chalk periods period when millions
of little corals and other minute crea-
lures were secreting lime from the
ocean and leaving it, together with
their skeletons, cells and homes, to
form the chalk cliffs of England and
other places, and long lines of chalk
bluffs in Kansas; period remarkable
for It's extraordinary development Of
reptiles, and among them these truly
'sterrible lizards" or Dinosaurs of our
foothills.
The first Of these remains was dis
covered in March of this year. II
was a gigantic sacral vertebra about
two feet long by fifteen inches wide,
lying in bass-relief on bed of sand
stone. Several large fragments of ends
of limbs, thigh and leg bones, were
found near, resembling herculean war
clubs. These were, with great labor,
dragged through heavy snow to the
railway station and forwarded to Prof.
Marsh. of Yale College, and by him
were pronounced as belonging to new
and gigantic species of Dinosdur, the
largest ever discovered, and the largest
known land animal. He named it the
Titan Saurian of the Mountains Titan
osaurus Montanus). He Judged that
this creature, of which the modern alli-
gator and the lizard give very imper-
feet idea, was fully sixty feet long, and
when, according to the manners and
customs of the Dinosaurs, he stood
erect on his hind legs, he was thirty
five feet high, and fed partially upon
the boughs Of the forest that clothen
the islands of the cretaceous ocead
whose sea bottom now forms some of
the rocks of our foothills.
Strange as it may seem, the anato-
mist sees in these gigantic Dinosaurs an
affinity to the birds, and most of them
walked on their hind feet alone like the
ostrich. This is inferred from the
tracks which they have left in the
rocks, as well as the length of their
hind limbs.
In the same block with the Titan was
discovered an almost perfect crocodile's s
head with teeth and several procnlian
vertebre. Of this Prof. Marsh says, in
his address before the American Asso-
citation at Nashville, Tenn: The beds
of the Rocky Mountain Wealden have
just provided us with genuine miss
ing link not Muldoon). A Saurian
Diplosaurus, with essentially the skull
and teeth of modern crocodile and
the yertebre of its predecessor from
the Trias. This peculiar reptile clear
ly represents an important stage in the
progressive series, and evidently one
soon after the separation of the croco-
die branch from the main stem.
With these were found the remains of
a real turtle (not the concretionary
septaria) and in another locality, by
Prof. Nudge, of Manhattan, Kan, one
of the party, the smallest of Dinosaurs,
not larger than cat (,,a1aosaurus) !;
two or more species allied to the Titan,
and also Of titanic dimensions were dis
covered, and at present the party is en-
5agcu III AvasatinS uiIe remains OF a
monster who bids fair in size and per-
fectness of bones to exceed the rest.
Some twenty-five monstrous vertebra
averaging from eleven to fifteen inches
in diameter, and one sacral vertebra-
that is, the vertebra to which the tail
of an animal is attached, and which
usually consists of three vertebra
Joined or co-ossified together-meas-
ures two feet seven inches in length,
with arched processes on either side,
making huge mass of petrified bone
two feet seven inches square. Close
beside it is another large bone bent like
scimitar, three feet ten inches long,
and twenty-five inches at the butt end,
possibly a scapula.
But by far the most enormous bone
was discovered last Saturday a huge
limb bone, probably femur or thigh
bone, five feet long, shaped something
like boot; the butt end, namely, from
toe to heel, twenty-eight inches by
twelve diameter, and the shaft of the
leg fourteen inches wide by eight
thick. Lying as it does on the dump,
like the pillar of some ancient temple,
nothing can impress the observer more
than this bone with the magnitude Of
the animal to which it belonged. This
bone is not complete, but when so it
must have been seven and half to
eight feet long, and was part of a leg
fully twelve feet in length. The bones
of the paddle, of an hour-glass shape,
and fine ebony black shiny teeth, three
inches long, of conical shape, with a
fine serration on the cutting sides, were
found. These teeth are typical, we be-
lieve, of the Iguanodon.
The party have now been at work for
some months, but their work seems far
from accomplished. Great difficulty al
times has been experienced from the
intense hardness Of the sandstone in
which the monsters were frequently
entombed. and blasting had frequently
to be done in order to remove the rock
near the bones. -DcnUer (Coe.) Tri6-