The daily Alaskan., 1915-10-14
WHEN AMERICA WAS YOUNG

The United States Geological sur veT has just published a report which, though technical, neyerthe1I less embodies some interesting his tory of the early ages of the North American continent. It tells of the rise and fall of a portion of the con tineDt millions of years ago, long before the age of man, at time when strange beasts inhabited the country, when the climate was sub tropical, and when peculiar swam vegetation flourished, the remains of which were converted into the present great coal beds of the West,
 Late in what Is termed by geo. logists "Carboniferous time," ac- cording to w. T. Lee, the author of the report Professional Paper 95- e, there were mountains in Colo aio and New Mexico comparable to the present Rocky mountains. Dur ing the Triassic period and much of the Jurassic, which followed @ time to be measured in millions of years, these mOuntains were erod- ed away, Late in the Jurassic per jed a wide area had been worn down so near Sea level that aI slight subsistence of the land al- lowed sea water to enter from the Pacific ocean and spread over Wy omiug, northern Colorado, and east ern Utah. Near the close of the Jurassic slight uplift expelled this sea. After some time this area began again to settle and the streams spread fine sediments ever the bed of the shallow basin lately occupied by the sea and over tho lowlying lands. This sub sidence introduced the Cretaceous period and eliminated in the occupa tion of the region by a sea which reached from Utah to the Mississip- pi valley and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic ocean.
 The subsistence was slow at first an! the stream spread their mud uniformly over an area extending from New Mexico to Montana and from Utah to Kansas. Only small areas of the Rocky Mountain region were not covered by them. In the streams, swamps, and bay ous of this early Cretaceous time lived huge reptiles; some of them were S5 feet long and 20 feet tall, With a bulk many times as great as the largest elephant of today, By the close of Lower Cretaceous time the water from the Gulf of Mexico had spread over the graded plain as far as the present Rocky noun tains. This invasion of the sea was followed, apparently without great lapse of time, by a still great CT invasion in the Upper CretaceOua epoch.
 The first deposits of Upper Gre taceous age-the Dakota sandstone wore spread out uniformly oyer the level plain, which then in Cluded the whole area that was lat CT pushed up to form the Rocky mountains. Over these sands, which were laid down along the advanc- ing front of the sea, were deposit ed the marine sediments as the sea moved forward. In its waters lived great numbers of serpent-like swim m'ng reptiles; and oyer it scared pterodactyls, the fossil remains of which show that they measured IS feet from tip to tip of wings. On its shores and in its waters sDorted large diving birds, which still re- tained the teeth inherited from tbe'r reptilian ancestors.
 On the shores of this sea- es- peciaIly along it's western mar sin, great swamps developed and in them grew a variety of semitropi- cal plants, such as palm and fig trees. The resulting carbonaceOus