The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1921-05-31

the fishes, the newt tribe (amphibia)
the reptiles, the birds, the lower man.
mails (metaheria) and the higher mann
mails (eutheria) that have been the
masters of the earth from the begin
ming of the tertiary period down to
the present day. Man is the last
in the long procession through "the
corridors of time
The age of reptiles is a period in
the ancient history of the earth in
defiitely remote as compared with the
first apeparance Of man. 1t repre-
sents stage in the evolution of life
when reptile were the dominant IN
habitants of the earth and occupied
the place now held by the mammalla
in the economy of nature. They were
masters of the land, of the sea, and
even of the air.
Britain in the Reptilian Age
During the reptilian age Britain
was on the southern margin of great
continent, ranging from the high
lanus of Scotland to the north and
west into the Atlantic, and towards
Sweden and Norway and indefinitely
towards the pole. The hills of the
Lake district of Wales, Devon, and
Cornwall were islands, and probably
also the Pennines and the Mendlps.
Then continent and the islands were
covered with forests, mostly of conf
fers, cyads, and zamiae with an un-
dergrowth of ferns.
On this great continent and its
islands there were reptiles great and
small, some with naked scaly skins,
and others covered with an armor of
bony plates and pointed horns. Some
were existing reptilian types, such as
crocodiles and gavials, while others
are extinct. The latter, possessed OF
characters no longer found in the liv-
ing. reptiles, in size rivalled, If not
surpassed, the largest elephants and
giraffes. Like the mammalia, they
consisted of eaters of plarts and eat
ers of flesh. Among the former IN
Britain we may note the iguanodon
of the Weald of Kent, a giant reptile
living in the forests, measuring Ito
feet high with teeth specially adapted
for feeding on plants, and with
build and gait like kangaroo. There
is also the still larger cetiasaurus, III
1-2 feet high and so feet long, of the
oolitic strata of Oxford and Peter
borough, which probably haunted the
marshes, rivers and sea shore, feeding
mainly on aquatic plants, with It's
small, conical, singularly inefficient
teeth, and like the diplodocus of AM
erica, heavy footed and walking on all
fours. These creatures took the
place in their world long afterwards
occupied by the elephants, rhinocer-
oses, hoppotami, and other herolvores
in the world of mammals.
The most notable of fiesh-eating,
dinosaurs the megalosarus- was
specially provided with double edged
and serrated cutting teeth OF the
same design as those of the sharp
toothed tiger of the middle and later
tertiary strata, and it lived upon the
reptilian berbivores, just as the hons'
tigers and wolves find their prey IN
the antelopes, giraffes, deer, oxen and
the other living mammalia.
On the American Continent
We may take the above as example
of the large and varied land fauna
found not only on it's margin In Brit
ain, but also in Germany, Belgium
and France. In the United States
thew are represented by analogous but
more gigantic and more perfect forms
that delight and astonish the Euro
pean visitor to the museums of fale'
New York, Philadelphia and Wash
ington. Some are so large that dor
sal vertebra placed on the floor OF
DR.. Marsh's laboratory at Yale raised
it's sping above my head, and was not
less than 5 feet, s inches in helgnt.
The size of the reptile, with its back