276 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



is that the great creature died in the water. The 

 gases forming in the body floated the carcass, which 

 was then carried by currents to the final burial place. 

 When the gases escaped, the skin collapsed and oc- 

 cupied their place; the carcass sank head first and 

 feet upward, the former dragging under the shoul- 

 der as the body came to rest on the mud of the 

 bottom. 



Quite different indeed is this grand example of 

 extinct life from the one restored and of which an 

 ideal picture is given in this book (Fig. 46). In the 

 first place, in the specimen we discovered the ribs 

 are expanded, the great chest cavity measuring 18 

 inches deep, 24 inches long, and 30 inches wide. I 

 have no doubt but that with lungs expanded to their 

 full capacity, he often swam across streams of water 

 in the tropical jungle in which he lived and died. 

 Further, the front limbs are not mere arms, that 

 never touched the ground, but were used in locomo- 

 tion, as there are toes with hoof-bones, not so large 

 as those of the hind feet but with the same pattern, 

 and a divergent thumb, that had a round bone for 

 its ungual. Consequently the animal could use the 

 front feet as clumsy hands to hold down the limb 

 of a tree from which he was cropping the tender 

 foliage, or banners of moss. There were three pow- 

 erful hoofs on each hind foot. 



I do not question, in the presence of this in- 



