The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-03-13
THE SKELETON
OF A MAMMOTH FOUND IN
 ALASKA.
Remains of Brontosaurus-no Struck While Working Claim. "The Dragon of the
 Prime.

From the ice and snow of Alaska to | three Michigan men at St. ChaIIes tHeic nave recently come the remains or huge skeleton Of vast proportions, says Ihe seattle Post-Intelligencer. Ihougn convincing testimony as to the seoiosl- car formation from which these monster relics of prehistoric ages have been de- rived Is yet lacking, the opinion Is ex- pressed by the owners that they are tEe bones of a brontosaurus. the Dragon ot the Prime," and the greatest beast that ever lived.
 The foregoing statements and those which follow rest mainly upon the an- thority of Frank. William and George McCrory of St. Charlcs, Mich, in whose possession the alleged bones are, and who declare that they have refused all offer or SS.O00 for them. If they are not mis- | taken. the bones date back to time when tropical conditions prevailed in the Arc tic regions.
 The owners affirm that the largest bone. apparently the pelvis. is eight feet across and. though perfectly dry. weighs nearly 800 pounds. That this is the pei vic bone Is suggested by the vertebral groove which runs the whole length of 1t. If this belonged to a brontosaurus the monster when alive must have been from sixty to eighty feet in length and weighed from twenty to forty tons Fourteen-Foo1 Rib. One of the ribs is fourteen feet in length, and another, apparently broken in the middle. is eight feet long. A single vertebra, fitting exactly the vertebral orifice of the pelvic bone. showing that it was the first caudal vertebra, is two feet in diameter. and weighs fifty pounds. Another vertebra is said to be three feet across
 But next to the pelvic bone in import ance are two thigh bones. These bones are each trifie over seven feet Tn length. Besides these, there are num- Der of smaller vcrtebra, broken ribs and leg bones.
 According to the current version of the discovery. the remains were thirty feet down, solidly imbedded in ice and frozen earth This circumstance and the fact that they were not in contact with ele- ments containing calcareous salts may explain why the bones remained for thou sands of years in their natural state without fossilizing. Questions which are not fully answered are why they were not imbedded in rock of the Jurassic pe- riod. like the fossil dinosaurus of lower attitudes. or, If they had been thus im- bedded, how they came to be liberated so that only glacial debris covered them The circumstances resemble those under which the remains of mastodons have been found, both in Alaska and Siberia but a competent zoologist could distin- guish between the two on inspecting the skeleton.
 Around the discovery and disinterment of the skeleton and it's journey on dog sleds up the Yukon and over the Chilkoot pass to Skagaway are associated moTe thrilling adventures than are often writ ten in the history of paleontological dis covery. The skeleton was first brought to notice by James Buck of Desarc. Ark, who was working a claim on Bonanza Creek.
 Finds Enormous Bone.
 "I am golng to have trouble" remark ed Buck one day. I've struck a big piece of slide rock" Soon afterward the rumor spread up and down Bonanza Creek that Buck had struck a bone as big as house. It was in the early Alas kan winter, and prospectors left their work of "thawing outs to, aid in the ex- cavation. E.
 For a few days the lind created tre- mendous sensation. and fhe rumor quick ly spread among the indians that the re- mains of one of their gods had teen found.
 Then 1t suddenly occurred to the dis coverers that the skeleton might be of value. But the thought came too late to save the scores of pieces that had been carried. away. What remained of the monster was taken to Dawson, and there lay in a saloon for a time.
 Soon after that Buck abandoned his claim. More and more he became im- pressed with the idea that he had made a rare discovery. But only to a few did he conflde what he supposed to be his secret. As the days dragged on he be- gan planning for the removal of the bones 10 the United States. But Buck feared to approach the Dominion government for a permit to take the skeleton out of It's