466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



as many " passes " as it pleases, provided they are not used,* But 

 no railway company is to be allowed to escape an interstate char- 

 acter from any such pretext as that it operates entirely within a 

 single State — the commission affirmatively holding that if any par- 

 cel, the ultimate destination of which is outside of the State in 

 which it is shipped, is carried by a local road, that local road at 

 once, and by the act of carrying that parcel, becomes an interstate 

 railway, t This is Lord Coke's celebrated maxim, that it is the part 

 of a good judge to enlarge his jurisdiction — with a vengeance ! 



GIANT REPTILES OF A PAST AGE. 



By otto MEYER, Pii. D. 



INDIANS of to-day, who are well acquainted with the history 

 of their race, may often think with melancholy of the olden 

 times, when their forefathers were the only masters of the coun- 

 try. Numerous and powerful tribes occupied the vast territory 

 between two oceans, some hunting the deer in the forests of the 

 East, others ruling supreme in the plains and mountains of the 

 West. The white man was fighting hard for his existence in small 

 settlements along the coast. But, whatever perfection in warfare 

 and in the use of their weapons the Indians had acquired by the 

 experience and practice of many generations, it was useless 

 against the rising foe, who possessed and introduced entirely new 

 arms and methods. And what is the result to-day ? The majority 

 of the tribes, and among them the most powerful ones, have been 

 extinguished entirely ; while others, sadly diminished in numbers, 

 linger here and there, and the pale-face is met everywhere. 



The same feelings of melancholy must enter the mind of an 

 alligator of geological education, when, during a siesta in the sun, 

 he thinks of the good old Mesozoic times and compares them with 

 the pitiable present. " How beautiful were the Triassic and 

 Jurassic periods, when numerous and powerful orders of reptiles 

 were masters of the earth, when mosasaurus and other kings of 

 the water were hunting the animals of the ocean, when gigantic 

 dinosaurs reigned on the land, and pterodactyls populated the air ! 

 That parvenu, the mammal, was existing only in small species 

 and struggling for an existence. But, alas ! how is it now ? Of 



* Matter of Burlington and ^Fissouri River Railway Company. It is remarkable that, 

 of the millions of passes which four hundred railway companies find it necessary to issue 

 in the course of their operations, the only case in which a pass has attracted the attention 

 of the commission is one where the pass was never lifted. 



■j- Bragg, J. Matter of Johnstown and Gloversville Railway Company, " First Annual 

 Report of Interstate Commerce Commission," p. 126. 



