The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-03-13
! HANDY ARRANGEMENT.

A HANDY ARRANGEMENT. The more We read and think about that twin-brained Colorado dinosaur the more we are impressed with the possibilities I belonging and appertaining to such an animal. There being no newspapers in the days when the great lizard wriggled or crawled amid the dack swamps of Colorado, we have no account of his method of conducting himself, or just how his double brain helped him in his business. ~ Modern scientists have developed won- derful faculty of theorizing on subjects of this nature. Give one of them a bone from any animal, 1t matters not if it lived millions of years ago, and he will proceed to reconstruct the animal in the ory giving its size, appearance and hab- its, and will even tell the food 1t lived on, if fequired. And so 1t has been in the case of the great dinosaur of Colo rado whose skeleton Professor Earring ton is now mounting in Chicago. He is sure the animal had two brains, and in this he is to some extent sustained by Professor Marsh of Yale, who says of one of the same family of animals, that the second or rear brain was much the larg- est and that it was necessary, in order to work the powerful hind legs and tail" Likewise. Professor Harrington, speaking of his great find, declares that fin order to control its huge body it needed sec ond brain, and this was to be found in the pelvis.''
 Here We have the explanation of the whole business. The front brain of the new dinosaur, judging from the cavity in which 1t was located, was not heavier than that of an ordinary human being. As the animal is judged to have been at least seventy-hve feet long, and to have weighed fifteen or twenty tons, 1t Is clear that this one small brain was not suffi- cient to control the whole affair. Most of our readers have noticed the long wagons used by the fire companies, which have a steering gear at the rear as well as in front, by which they are better en- abled to turn corners and otherwise guide themselves In tlght placeS
 Something of the sort evidently obtain ed in the case of dlnosaur brontosaurus, to give him his full title. From the little we know of the swamps and forests of Colorado say, ten million years ago. it required good judgment for such huge animal to get about with safety. and here is where the double brain got in it's work While the prov of the creature was pick ing its way through the woods with the help of its limited brain, the other and larger brain. which was situated near the rudder, enabled the rear end of the com- bination to get along without colliding with everything in the neighborhood. It was an excellent and well-devised ar rangement to enable such huge and ap- parently unwieidy animal to slosh around through the prehistoric wilds with any thing approaching safety and comfort.
 The one hitch which some unbelievers will find in the program is that the two brains might not always work in har- mony, and that would cause trouble. If the front part of the animal wanted to stop to eat and the rear part wanted to hurry home before the lights were put out. or if the front end got in a hurry and the other wanted to sit on a log and rest ,how could they settle it? And the head end might wish to turn to the left while the rear preferred another diree- ton, and that would cause more trouble. However, as the two brains were connect ed by the spinal cord. perhaps We may reasonably conclude that they were bound to act in concert, and that both acted together in such manner that there would never be any conflict between them.
 Reading about this monster we have wondered how the same system would operate in the case of a human being. There are a few of us so blessed with a sufficiency of brain matter that one is sufficient for all ordinary purposes, but there are others whose small brain cavi- ties do not hold enough to do business with, and they might be better off with duplicate in some portion of the anat- omy. We don't know just where the other one would be located. but suppose the scientists could pick out a place for it. However. 1t isn't likely that any change in this respect will be made ,and human beings will have to worry along with a single brain. They are behind the dinosaur brontosaurus, however.