54 ROZELLE PURNELL HANDY 



ocean. Out on the expanse of this ancient sea huge, snake 

 like forms rose above the surface, and stood erect, with taper- 

 ing neck and narrow shaped head, or swayed about describ- 

 ing a circle of twenty feet radius above the water. This ex- 

 traordinary neck was attached to a body of elephantine pro- 

 portions, the limbs were two pair of paddles, and a long ser- 

 pent like tail balanced the body behind. The total length of 

 the elasmosaurus platyurus, Cope, for such it has been named, 

 was fifty feet. In many places as many as eleven of these 

 leviathan monsters would be discovered curled up together 

 among the rocks. It was indeed an age of reptiles. Flying 

 saurians filled the air, and flesh eating lizards, from twenty 

 four to thirty five feet long, crawled over the earth, bearing 

 burdensome tons of flesh on two birdlike feet. A fljdng 

 saurian of the mesozoic period, discovered by Marsh, spread 

 eighteen feet between the tips of its wings, while the ptero- 

 dactyl umbrosus. Cope, covered nearly twenty five feet with 

 its expanse. 



The most important discovery made by Cope wag the 

 skeleton of the phenacodus primsevus, considered the ancestor 

 of all hoofed animals. In life it was four and a half feet long, 

 not quite as large as a yearling calf, and when it skipped along 

 it fluttered a pair of wings. This strange animal belonged to 

 the first period of the tertiary age, during which time^ the 

 American continent began to assume its present outlines. 

 Only the borders of the Atlantic, the gulf of Mexico, and the 

 Pacific were covered by the sea. The Rocky mountain region 

 was above the sea. The Ohio and Mississippi were independ- 

 ent streams emptying into the gulf, and the great lakes 

 began to assume their present form. Great forests extended 

 from one end of the continent to the other, and giant sloths, 

 mastodons, elephants, rhinoceroses, and camels roamed the 

 length and breadth of the land. Immediately after this age 

 of abnormal life came the glacial period, which was in turn 

 followed by the age of man. 



The progress of the science of geology in the United States 

 was greatly accelerated by the establishment of the office of 

 director of geological survey on March 3, 1879; the depart- 

 ment being placed under the direction of the secretary of the 



