New-York tribune., 1903-01-16
FE4RSOME BEASTS.
The Prehistoric -4nimals of Our
Continent

ANIMALS BEFORE MAN IN NORTH AMERICA
Ry Frederick A Lucas, Curator of C9mpars1I
Museum With many Illustrations. 12mo. PIP
29i. u Appleton & Co.
Few men in the United States have so COM
plete a mastery of the subject here treated as
Mr. Lucas and few scientific experts are aoie
to present facts in such simple and picturesque
language as he uses. Except for few names
of geological formations, needed to indicate the
order in which various animals appeared his
story would be intelligible TO a child of ten
wears The narrative itself is equally attractive
TO young and ola
The length of the palseoZoic age. extehoins
from The Carnhrfan to the Carboniferous peri
cd and chiefly distinguished by the existence
Of Invertebrates is variously estimated at from
five million 10 thirty million years MI Lucas
adopts twelve millions as a fair average an"
SAYS that fifteen thousand species are NO"
credited TO it. About five hundred Of these De
long TO the Canbrian rocks in which-at least
ia Europe-the earliest evidences of animal ire
have been detected. Imperfect shells in Aigoh-
kan rocks in Montana indicate, however uha'
on this continent il dates back little further
Another suggestion OF the same kind Is fur
nished by the somewhat abrupt way in when
the Csnnhrian record begins. 1t includes
sponses corals sea lilies. worms and three or
four other well defined families. Some day
Common. pre-existing stock in which they orlgl-
mated may yer be found. Among the wonders
of palsozoic times Mr.. Lucas mentions crus-
taceans which look q little like loosters' anu
which attained a length OF five or SIX 1eeI!
Fishes were most abundant in Devonian rocks
hut one family somewhat resembling the lam
prey. and wearing arTnor, has been found IN
the SfIurian deposits Of Colorado Although
amphibians reached their greatest size-nine
~, a e.
= little after the palseoSoc footprints were
left by salamanders on Devonian mud banks
The Age Of Reptiles (the mesozoic era) was
made up Of three comparatively short periods
the .Jurassic Triassic and Cretaceous MT
Lucas accepts Professor Osborns conjecture
that the one first mentioned was about one mill
son years long, but supplies no figure Tor the
others. It was in mesozoc times that the oi-
nosaurs ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS varying in size from
\ chicken to thrice the bulk Of an elephant
some carnfvorous and some herbivorous. and dlf-
fering much among themselves in shape. An aw-
full creature called triceratops short and
chunky stood ten feet high and was twenty-five
feet long Others were more slender. but pos
sessed tremendous necks and tails 1t is posi-
lively known that the brontosaurus was sixty
or seventy feet in length, while there is some
reason TO think that the camarasaurus meas
ured eighty feet from tip of nose to end of tail
Dragons OF the air" Mr. Seeley. British
naturalist, calls pterodactyls. apparently belong
20 the Cretaoeous period alone Few remains
have yet been found in this country.
Birds seem to have been developed almost
as early as the reptiles. although testimony
relative to their origin is sadly defective Pale
ontologists have no hesitation in regarding two
solitary specimens of archaopteryx. found IN
Trsassic rocks at Salenhofen. Germany, as typi-
Of fhousa nd
now living Neither the same formations in
America nor the succeeding one, the Triassic,
has vet afforded unmistakable signs of birds
although il is suspected that certain footprints
in Triassic sandstone in the Connecticut valley
were made by them Most Of the American
birds of the Cretaceous period have been found
in Western Kansas There at least two distinct
families existed One could fly and the other
couldn't Perhaps the most striking ornithologf-
cal species discovered there was Hesperornis re-
gals which was larger than a penguin and
measured about four and half feet in length
The rapid development Of mammals in the Ter
tiary era may have been due. to great extent,
Mr. Lucas thinks to the 6isa appearance of the
dinosaurs. A few wolves. panthers and other
mammals existed in nesozoc days but they
were scarce. Remains of animal that has
been classed with marsupials have been found
in Triassic rocks in North Carolina but some
doubt vet remains as TO its character. Hence
Mr.. Lucas hesitates to pronounce il the earliest
Of American mammals. However. in the Ter
tiary period there were almost simultaneously
developed the horse. sheep, camel for lama).
sabre toothed tigers rhinoceroses and. finally,
elephants.
one of the most remarkable animals whose
bones have been found IN the Eocene (early
Tertiary rocks has been called phenacodus
This was long five toed quadruped. about as
hig as a hog. 1t is good type OF the group
from which all hoofed animals have descended
The srrangest feature of this creature is the
iointing Of the first nger) of the forefoot
SO as TO swing inward. The animal probably
did not have the power of grasping. yet the trait
hand" The late Professor Cope, one of the
greatest of American naturalists. thinks that
I'VE must look 10 early members OF the group to
which phenacodus belongs for the ancestors Of
the lenUrs, while from these have come the
higher monkeys" Mr.. Lucas refrains from ado
ing 'and man. But while his readers are left
in doubt as to his opinions this point, there
are other paleontoogists who think it possible
that the human developed this CONT
rent independently of others, and are prepared
for other discoveries which will stablish that
theory
Mr.. Lucas's estimate Of the duration Of the
cenozoic age, which includes the Tertiary and
ouatenary periods. is from four million ten
million years