THE LEVIATHAN AND HIS PROTOTYPES. 337 



Exploration gives us a past history of the plains 

 which is interesting in the extreme. Our party spent 

 some weeks in exploring for fossils beyond Sheridan, 

 and were richly rewarded. In the great ocean which 

 once covered the land, the wonderful reptiles of the 

 cretaceous age swarmed in prodigious numbers, and 

 their fierce struggles upon and under its surface made 

 "the deep to boil like a pot." The mysterious Le- 

 viathan, described in the forty-first chapter of Job, had 

 its prototype in more than one of the monsters of 



that period : 



"Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth 



are terrible round about. 



» Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks 



of fire leap out. 



" Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seeth- 

 ing pot or caldron. 



« His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out 



of his mouth. 



"The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they 

 are firm in themselves ; they can not be moved. 



" He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten 



wood. 



" He maketh a path to shine after him ; one would 



think the deep to be hoary." 



The fossil remains of these reptiles are numerous, 

 constituting a rich mine of scientific wealth, which 

 has been but very lightly worked. Enough fossils 

 can be obtained by future exploration to fill to over- 

 flowing all the museums of the land. 



We have no means of computing how long the 

 cretaceous sea existed, but we know that it passed 



