The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1920-08-06
SZEG0SAZ12ZES

Of wind from the side would blow it over. II Is
ridiculous to think that an animal a hundred feet
long would have legs close together in the mid
die and have threequarters of It's length sticking
out in front and behind unsupported in the air.
My idea is that the brontosaurus was a reptile,
practically a crocodile, with a snakelike neck,
and not a mammal, that it carried itself as a
crocodile does, chat is, crawled on it's belly when
on land and did not walk on straight legs.
Il think it crawled with it's neck drawn back
so as TO strike like q cobra and most likely had
poisonous fangs. In fact, it was a big poisonous
lizard, and that it was brilliantly colored, like
them, and perhaps discharged poison through its
skin like a toad when irritated.
The best weapon TO shoot it with would be
the m~agnifed Mauser rifle, such as the Germans
used against tanks, only with an explosive she'll
instead Of an armor-piercer. If ! were younger
I should be off after him."
Anyway, the monster is sufficiently real to
have set the scientists disputlng about his posi-.
bility, his identity and his looks. They call him
all sorts of triceratops, bro
alOsaurus, tyloSaurus and so on. One EXPERT
writes to the press:
'The animal in question can not be q bromo-
surus, if the illustration in H.. G. Wells book,
Outlines of History are correct. The ilustra.
tons show a very different creature from the de.
s%criptions in the newspapers Of this one. What
this one really appears to be is q triceratops, only
that animal has two horns"
Another zoologist heaps scorn on the entire
idea, asserting that while he believes there are
undiscovered animals living in the heart Of Africa,
he doubts that a dinosaur or any other primeval
beast exists anywhere today. He writes:
"The period i'm which they lived is incredibly
remote as man counts time. Their bones are
found in the strata of the Eocene period. The
brontosaurus was remarkable for his very small
head and small brain cavity. Els whole skull was
no larger than his neck bone. The name means
thunder beast and one species was we'll over fifty
- -. v---3l .-1 9Th
or more"
The evolution Of man has been a long process
so long that the biologists and other scientists
prefer to dodge the question Of the millions ne
years involved and reckon in eraS, an err beinp
anywhere from six to 40 millions of years. Tbev
call the first era Archeozoic; it is ancient beyond
all knowledge. Then comes the Proterozoic. with
it's very primitive forms of water life. lasting 90
millions Of years. The Paleozoic, with fish. am.
phibians and land plants, lasted 10 millions. The
Mezozoic, the age Of reptiles and amphibians and
of trees, saw the first mammals It lasted IN mil
lions Of years. The present era, the CenozoIc hos
seen the rise and development Of the highest or
ders Of plants and animals and the appearance OF
man It's duration to date Is put at 6 million years
So that's what we are up against when ~
talk of there being at large I'm Africa n survivor
of the Age of Reptiles.
anyway, we know these REPTILES octrouv
existed because we find their fossil remains prettv
much all over the world. Why> these fossils are
so thick out in Utah, o.. S. A., that we have tho
Dinosaur National monument. You see. once unon
a time, the waves OF an open sea rolled over tho
SPOT where now stands Longs peak Q4255 faa,I
king of the Rockies" In this sea sported tho
marine monster of long ago and on its shores
lived the grotesque creatures of the Age of Ron.
tiles. Then the Rocky Mountains heaved them.
selves up and this great inland sea had to run Off
into the Arctic ocean and the Gulf Of Mexico ond
the Pacific. And then the rains washed down the
mountains and filled up the plains with the
scourings.
Some Of the creatures In this inland sea got
mired and their bones are now found petrifed in
a remarkably perfect state of preservation. And
it's no trick for a scientis. who knows his busi-
ness to reconstruct an animal from his bones.