THE DINOSAURS OR TERRIBLE LIZARDS. 647 



They had diminutive heads, small fore legs, long (ails armed on either 

 side near the tip with two pairs of large spines, while from these 

 spines to the neck ran series of large but thin and sharp-edged plates 

 standing on edge, so that their backs looked like the bottom of a boat 

 provided with a number of little centerboards. dust how these plates 

 were arranged is not decided beyond a peradventure, but while orig- 

 inally figured as having them in a single series down the back, it seems 

 much more probable that they formed parallel rows. 



The largest of these plates were 2 feet in height and length, and 

 not more than an inch thick, except at the base., where they were 

 enlarged and roughened to give a firm hold to the thick skin in which 

 the}' were imbedded. Be it remembered, too, that these plates and 

 spines were doubtless covered with horn, so that they were even 

 longer in life than as we now see them. The tail spines varied in 

 length, according to the species, from 8 or !> inches to nearly :'. feet. 

 and some of them have a diameter of <> inches at the base. They were 

 swung by a tail 8 to 10 feet long, and, as a visitor was heard to 

 remark, one wouldn't like to be about such an animal in fly time. 



Such were some of the strange and mighty animals that once roamed 

 this continent from the valley of the Connecticut, where they literally 

 left their footprints on the sands of time, to the Rocky Mountains, 

 where the ancient lakes and rivers became cemeteries for the entomb- 

 ment of their bones. 



The labor of the collector has gathered their fossil remains from 

 many a Western canyon; the skill of the preparator has removed them 

 from their stony sepulchres, and the study of the anatomist has restored 

 them as thev were in life. 



