The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-08-18
SKELETONS OF GIANTS.
AN AMAZING COLLECTION OF PRE-
HISTORIC ANIMALS.

XIV ANNEiiN0 WILEY lOlN Ut FhG-
HISTORIC ANIMALS.
Beasts with Backbones Full of Hot Air
That Used to Float in a Marsh Where
Colorado Is Nova Reptile with a
Brain to Wag It's Tail.
Professor o. G. Marsh, who directed the
gathering of the government collection,
has mines of his own all over the west,
from which he can draw to order the most
astonishing variety of gigantic creatures.
He made the remark the other day that
there was one small valley be knew of
where relics of the ancient mosasaurus
were so plentiful that, passing through it
recently, he noticed the skeletons of six Of
those mighty swimming lizards, each
eighty feet in length, in sight at one time.
Usually these amazing fossils are found
Embedded in solid rock. After they have
been roughly quarried out, the sandstone
or other matrix iDclosiRg them is carefully
Bhiseled away from the bones. The latter
receive a coat Of glue to keep out the de-
composing air, and any that are broken or
bplintered are bound up with Irvine, after
which they are packed for shipment.
When one of these beasts of antiquity
died, its carcass being covered up with sed-
sment that afterward became stone, the
skeleton was apt to be preserved entire and
with its parts in position, all ready for
mounting in a museum.
A new reptile was found in Wyoming
the other day in such a conn lete state,
(which has been named brontosaurus. 1t
was sixty feet long, stood fifteen feet high
when alive, and weighe twenty tons. Cast
an the rock from which it was taken was a
perfect mold of one of it's eyeballs, with
which it looked upon the world three mil
lions of years ago. 1t had very small
head, long and flexible neck. a short
body and huge tail.
In the same neighborhood, also, has been
discovered recently another reptilian mon
Eter called the triceratops, which had an
Enormous bony frill around the back of its
neck This surprising development, meas
airing six feet across, was intended for the
Attachment Of great muscles that were
necessary for holding up the huge head.
The animal, though tremendously massive,
was only thirty feet long, but it was COW
cred with plates of aTmor and had a sharp
and horny beak, not to mention horn on
PTS nose and another on its forehead, the
MINE OF HUGE SKELETONS
In Colorado have been found great de-
posts of the bones Of titanosaurs, the big
gest land animals that ever existed. They
grew TO be sixty-five feet long and stood
forty feet high when erect upon their hind
legs. Instead of browsing, as did the bron-
tosaur and triceratops, upon the luxuriant
aquatic vegetation around the lake bor-
IL haxy cd = he fIIf p
the mountain sides. Likewise did the
iguanodon, several times as heavy as the
elephant, which had a nipping beak like
turtles and also walked erect, using its
huge tail for a support and towering to
The height of forty or fifty feet
In the mesoZoic epoch or Age of Rep
tiles" when these creatures lived, these
and other similar herbivorous animals
were the biggest of the beasts. One OF
them, the atlantosaur, was 100 feet long,
its thigh bones, many of which have been
found, measuring eight feet in length and
twenty-five inches through.
They had various methods of pursuing
existence. Some went on all tours and
had backbones that were mere shells filed
with warm air from their lungs, which
served them as floats while they walked in
the sea shadows in water deep enough to
cover their backs, extending their long
pecks to crop the vegetation alongshore
Of this sort was the camerasaurus, eighty
feet in length
Others had enormously long hind legs,
On which they were abs TO wade out far
into the ocean after seaweed, and were
provided with not fewer than 1900 teeth
for grinding their food. Such was the
mighty kangaroolike hydrosaurus. Yet
other species dwelt on land, like the tri-
Deratops, and these were provided usually
with armor and horns for defense.
A FoRTY-FooT KANGAROO.
1t would seem as If such monsters as are
described need have feared no living foes,
but in fact they were a common prey 70
great numbers of frightful carnivorcus
reptiles, smaller in size, but Of tremendous
activity and fierceness, which fed upon
these unwieldy vegetable eating giants.
Most terrific of all, perhaps, was the in
rredibly ferocious laefaps, which was forty
feet long, stood twenty-five feet high on its
hind legs and was built like a kangaroo
1t was the most astonishing jumper that
ever existed with teeth for cutting and
sharp claws on the front feet evidently de-
signed for tearing out the eyes of victims
or adversaries.
Hardly less formidable, and equally
large, was the stegosaur which was
Sheathed in armor plates from two TO three
feet in width, and employed as a weapon of
Ufense its powerful tail, armed near the
end on both sides with sharp spikes two
feet long This animal walked erect also,
and one of its peculiarities was great en-
largement of the spinal cord at the lower
ena of the back.
In fact, this expansion of brain material
Intended TO provide for the wagging of the
mighty spiked tail, was ten times as big
rs the brain in the skull itself Equally
large and dangerous were the megalosaur
and the dinossur their jaws armed with
huge saberhke teeth, which went about
On their bind legs looking for some
thing to devour. Against such fearful
foes what chance had the peaceful cetio-
Eaurus and elasmosaurs, dwelling IN
marshes and shadows with the bulk of six
or eight elephants.
Nevertheless some Of the herbivorous
land reptiles referred TO like the gigantic
horned and armOred agathumaS, could
make a good fight with the carnivores,
and were so well able TO defend themselves
that they lived and multiplied in the same
regions with the latter. But most of these
Vegetable feeders had no other means Of
defense than kicking, which they could do
with some effectiveness with hind legs If
teen feet or SO in leugth.-Rene Bache n
New York Sun
History Repeating.
There was a battle IN Dey street between