96 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



centra. The dorsal spine with its processes attached are in one 

 piece. 



That same year (1896) I was so fortunate as to find a batrachian 

 with a carapace — one of those discoveries of a lifetime that connects 

 great orders. Professor Cope believed this to be the parent stem from 

 which the family of turtles sprang at a later stage in the history of 

 life. 



My son and myself discovered three bone-beds full of minute forms, 

 several of which are, I believe, new in science. I look forward with 

 great interest to their description by the Munich Museum. They 

 range in size from less than a quarter of an inch to over an inch in 

 length. I collected over twenty skulls, and many more or less per- 

 fect. Quite a number had vertebrae attached. I collected thousands 

 of bones from all parts of the the skeletons. In one case a complete 

 skull one-fourth of an inch in length had connected with it nearly the 

 complete column with ribs attached, coiled upon itself, and bedded 

 with many bones of other species in a red, siliceous matrix. So per- 

 fectly were they weathered out, that they lay in bas-relief as white as 

 snow, and as perfect as if it died a month ago. A single row of minute 

 teeth, like the points of cambric needles, filled the jaws. It seemed 

 to me that this little fellow, not over six inches in length, must have 

 made a snug bed in the mud and lay down to hibernate, but never 

 wakened; millions of years later I found him ready to do his share, 

 by adding one more fact to human knowledge — one more link to the 

 endless chain of life that nature has produced so abundantly on this 

 old world of ours. I dare not even guess at the family to which it 

 belongs. The bones of the skull are perfectly preserved, quite smooth, 

 and show the sutures distinctly ; there is no distortion. Some red 

 rock attached below seems absolutely necessary to convince the mind 

 it is not a thing of yesterday. 



Another, broad and flat, a little like Diplocaulus, with eyes well 

 forward. It is an inch in length, with delicate tracery upon the 

 bones, single rows of minute teeth in the jaws. Some were com- 

 pressed laterally, the delicate little quadrates connecting the mandi- 

 bles with the skull at an angle of forty-five degrees. In this form the 

 orbits are placed well back in the face. Another extremely beautiful 

 skull had the bones marked by small dentations and elevations ; was 

 much compressed vertically ; there were small teeth in the front part 

 of the mouth only. 



I should not neglect, in this connection, the enormous Dimetrodon 

 of Cope, a reptile of large proi^ortions and huge dorsal spines. Some 

 of these spines were over three feet long, with a pair of lateral spines 

 at the base, which then alternate to the apex, smooth and conical in 



