126 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



up entire, resembling a hub and spokes with the felloes taken off. 

 Only, in this case, the hub would be represented by the string of 

 anchycolosed vertebrae. 



I have a much older individual that I described in Popular Science^ 

 June, 1899. The specimen was so badly broken that I did some 

 guessing myself, and figured an oval carapace with only sixteen ribs. 

 In this specimen the neurals are beautifully sculptured, rising in the 

 center in rounded prominences like inverted wedges, with blunt 

 apexes, divided by narrow valleys. The carapace is, in this specimen 

 exhibited, about four and a half feet long and forty- five inches wide. 

 Compared to the enormous pectoral and pelvic arches and powerful 

 limbs, the body cavity was remarkably small. I suppose these huge 

 limbs were developed more as a means of defense, offense, and rapid 

 swimming, than to enable him to appease his appetite. The sharp 

 elongated claws and horn-armed jaws would likely meet with the re- 

 spect they were entitled to by his neighbors, the mosasaurs and large 

 predaceous fishes. After a few more months of labor I hope to be 

 able to restore the remaining parts of this specimen. When a correct 

 description is made, iDaleontologists will be able to get a true idea of 

 one more of the ancient inhabitants of Kansas. 



Mr. Branson, of Doctor Williston's party, collecting for the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago, was so fortunate as to find a complete skeleton of 

 a new form of Plaiecarpus. The skeleton is twenty feet long. Thi& 

 was found in Mr. Switzer's pasture, on Hell creek, about twenty miles 

 northeast of Scott City, in Logan county. I made a camp in the same 

 pasture three miles north, at the spring on Hay creek. Science as 

 well as myself are under obligations to Mr. Switzer, for, though his 

 fields were full of wild cattle, he allowed me to remain at this camp 

 from the 20th of June, until the 27th of August, 1903. I made some 

 rich discoveries here. Among other things, were five more or less- 

 complete skeletons of Plaiecarpus which I think are of the same 

 species discovered by Mr. Branson. All had complete heads. One 

 very interesting specimen lies on the top of the head with a palatine 

 exposure, with sixty-six continuous vertebrae, ribs, and other bones, 

 twelve feet long. Another has a frontal exposure, with lower jaws 

 lying horizontal, near their natural position, the quadrates also flat. 

 So in these two heads their complete anatomy can be made out with- 

 out removing them from their native bed. I secured fourteen fine 

 skulls of mosasaurs, with much of their skeletons, including the great 

 ram-nosed Tylosaurus, with skull three feet nine inches long. Also a 

 very fine head of Clidastes, exposing the right side of the face, every 

 bone and tooth in position, even to the complete ring of sclerotic 

 plates. The coronoid does not overlap the presphenial, as Williston 



