Evening star., 1937-10-09
STARS, MEN AND ATOMS
Notebook of Science Progress in Field.
Laboratory and Study.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

What may have been a last pasture OF
the giant dinosaurs. where the nightmare
like monsters Of 10000 900 years ago
found refuge for few million years from
extinction that was overtaking the race
was located this Summer by Dr. Charles
w. Gilmore Smithsonian Institution
paleOntologist.
Dr. Gilmore found fossil bones of
Sauropod at the bottom of some deposits
in Western Utah about 10000 900 years
old. They belong to the Upper Cretaceous
geological era, when true mammals were
beginning to appear on earth and long
after the supposed extinction Of the
largest of the great reptiles.
Immediately above these beds were
others belonging to the Psleocene geo.
logical era. about 10000 900 years ago,
when mammals had come into their own
and were evolving in the direction Of
types common today This fossil bed was
first located by biologists Of the United
States Geological Survey but was mis-
takenly attributed to much later period
when the ancestors of the present man,
mails had come into existence.
The finding of any sort of dinosaur
bones was sufficient to prove the beds
of the particular type dug out by Dr.
Gilmore was even more remarkable than
finding living mastodon or sabre-tooth
tiger.
The sauropods were the largest crea-
lures the earth has known. They were
herbage- eating dnosaurs-clumsy, almost
brainless animals which flourished during
the Jurassic geological period about 150.-
,f
climates and dense vegetation. The
monsters had nothing to do but eat.
For about 10000, 900 years they were
the dominant forms of life. There were
no creatures of anything like comparable
size to dispute their supremacy. Then,
for some reason which never has been
cleared up, they became extinct. There
may have been major climatic change
to which the highly specialized giants
could not adapt themselves.
Smaller and more alert dinosaurs
fingered on for another ten million years
reptiles like the terrible tricera tops
adapted to pursue and capture living prey
and provided with a modcum of brains
to meet the emergencies which attended
this kind of life They could not afford
any surplus weight.
Some of the sauropods probably
weighed from 20 to 30 tons Each of the
leg bones of the animal obtained<sy Dr.
Gilmore was seven feet long. Infadaition
he obtained some ribs and pelvic bones
and 40 feet of tail bone. These are not
enough with which to reconstruct the
creature but they give fair idea of what
1t was like in life.
The same quarry yielded skull and
parts of skeletons of two of the later
horned dinosaurs. The hesh-e -eaters and
the giant herbage eaters must have been
practically contemporaneous, probably
within million years or So
DR.. Gilmore also obtained there six
skeletons of a small lizard-a creature
about three feet long-which apparently
was abundant in the cretaceous but which
represents q type of ancient animal
hitherto unknown to science.
In the same quarry at q higher level
were picked up fossil bones of about Is
species of mammals-all tiny creatures
belonging to the groups which immedi-
ately preceded the direct ancestors of
most living mammal species 1t is very
seldom that mammal and dinosaur bones
are found in the same formation.
From Utah Mr.. Gilmore went to some
beds of the Triassic geological era near
the Petrifled Forest in Arizona. There
he obtained for the National Museum
collection fossil bones of reptiles known
as phytoSaurs which proceeded the true
dinosaur type. The Triassic dates back
approximately 170.O00.00e years. They
were much like crocodiles In appearance