28o 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



the various kinds of tattooing and carving, and his 

 skill with the knife and graver is both wonderful and 

 profitable. However, I have got away from my start- 

 ing-point, which was to draw attention to the beauties 

 of the beautiful C. indivisa ; and hope, if it has not 

 already, it will soon find a place in the grounds and 

 gardens about English homes ; its appearance is 

 tropical, its form beautiful, with the curious fact of 

 its leaves being quite elastic. — /. W. B,, IVangatiui. 



Braunton Burrows. — I was very much inte- 

 rested in reading Mr. Collins' account of his trip to 

 Braunton Burrows, described in Science-Gossip for 

 October. I have paid several visits to this " Sandy 

 Paradise of botanists," and can strongly recommend 

 it to the notice of collectors. Braunton is only a few 

 miles by rail from either Barnstaple or Ilfracombe, 

 and the Burrows begin about a mile from the station, 

 but are best approached through Mellilot Lane, so 

 called from the abundance of Melilotus officinalis 

 growing there. I have, at one time or another, found 

 all the plants mentioned by Mr. Collins on the 

 Burrows, excepting Iris fcetidissima, which I have 

 overlooked. Last August Scirptis holoscluvns was 

 growing in great abundance near the lighthouse, and 

 was quite easily to be distinguished from its relative, 

 Junais aaitus, also growing freely in that locality. 

 Among other rare plants not mentioned by Mr. 

 Collins, I have found growing on Braunton Burrows 

 the following : — CEnothera bietinis, Silybum mari- 

 aimm, Teucritun scordiiivi (this grows freely in 

 many of the little boggy valleys which are bounded 

 by sand-hills ; Ilypocharis glabra, growing scantily 

 near the lighthouse. This by no means exhausts 

 the rarities of tlie Burrows, as many other plants, 

 more or less uncommon, grow there, e.g. Artemisia 

 maritima, Scirpus fltiitans, Asperiigo procumbetis, 

 and Erigeron acris. On a fine summer day, a botanist 

 must indeed be in sore straits, if he fail to be happy 

 on Braunton Burrows. — F. H. IVeekes, York. 



GEOLOGY. 



Remarkable Fossils.— There will soon start for 

 Washington a procession of monsters more marvellous 

 than even the mind of a Barnum could have con- 

 ceived. In this wonderful parade will be gigantic 

 reptiles as big as good-sized houses, some of them 

 one hundred feet in length, flying dragons with 

 twenty-five feet spread of wing, huge birds with teeth, 

 mammals three times the size of elephants, sharks as 

 large as the hugest whales, and countless specimens 

 more of equal strangeness. For nine years past the 

 United States Government has been quarrying for the 

 skeletons of these strange creatures, and now the vast 

 collection, stored at New Haven, is being prepared 

 for delivery to the National Museum at Washington, 

 which building, however, is not large enough to hold 



more than half of it, so that the rest will follow when 

 Congress has decided upon its accommodation. The 

 business of digging for these enormous fossils is very 

 much like other mining operations. In various parts 

 of the west there are great deposits of them, into which 

 scientific enthusiasts delve as eagerly as in other parts 

 other enthusiasts delve for gold. One of the chosen 

 hunting-grounds is the region between the Rockies 

 and the Wasatch mountains. Ages ago the upheaval 

 of these hills by geologic action cut off the portion of 

 what had been sea between these ranges from the 

 ocean, and the water thus shut away formed large 

 lakes. One of these existed at Wyoming, and the 

 mighty antediluvian mammals gathered in herds 

 around it, to feed on the succulent vegetation of what 

 was then a tropical land. They lived there and died 

 natural deaths, or got mired in the mud when they 

 went to drink, and the sediment deposited in the 

 water covered up their bones and preserved them from 

 decay. By and by the sediment reached a mile in 

 thickness, holding between its layers these ancient 

 skeletons, distributed like currants in a cake. Then 

 the water, draining off, left the land dry, and then 

 subsequent floods washed away parts of the sediment, 

 leaving picturesque cliffs, peaks, and columns, among 

 which the scientific explorer wanders with a keen 

 eye for a bit of bone projecting from the face of a 

 cliff, exposed by the action of water trickling down 

 the hill-side ; and when he has found it, a party of 

 men is at once set to work with drill, blast, and 

 pickaxe. Sometimes the find may result in a great 

 deposit of prehistoric monsters being struck. When 

 this is the case it is kept dark, for fear of the piracies 

 of rival men of science. Professor O. C. Marsh, who 

 directs the gathering of the Government collection, 

 has such monster mines of his own all over the West, 

 from which he can draw to order complete skeletons 

 of gigantic creatures which would put the dragons 

 and griffins of medieval story to the blush. They have 

 quarried out of the solid rock in Wyoming the 

 complete skeleton of a reptile, the Brontosaur. It 

 was sixty feet long, stood fifteen high when alive, 

 and weighed twenty tons. Cast in the rock from 

 which it was taken was a mould of one of its eye- 

 balls. The Triceratops was [also discovered in the 

 same neighbourhood. The animal had an enormous 

 bony fiill six feet across round its neck, which curious 

 development was evidently intended for the attach- 

 ment of the muscles necessary to hold up the huge 

 head ; for the beast, although only thirty feet long, 

 was as massive as an armour-plate, and had a sharp 

 and horny beak, not to mention a horn on his nose 

 and another on his forehead, the latter two and a 

 half feet in length. The Titanosaur abounds in 

 Colorado ; so does the Iguanodon, which had a 

 nipping beak like a turtle's, and walked erect, tower- 

 ing to the height of forty to fifty feet, and using its 

 huge tail for a support. Most of these monsters were 

 harmless creatures, with very little brain power. 



