The Story of the Rocks 129 



arid plateaus which lie between the Mississippi River and the 

 Rocky Mountains, were swarms of giant lizard-like reptiles 

 known as mososaurs, whose remains have been unearthed by 

 thousands in the chalk bluffs of western Kansas. 



While the mososaur was playing the role of Neptune in 

 the Cretaceous sea, some of his relatives took to flying and 

 as pterodactyls or flying lizards competed with the first of 

 the birds for the mastery of the air. The old classification 

 of beasts that fly and beasts that swim and beasts that walk 

 was about as logical as that of the small boy who divided 

 people into men, women and college professors, for many 

 different animals have aspired to fly and most of them 



EHAMPHORHYNCHUS, A WINGED REPTILE 

 From Neumeyer after Zittel. 



have met with eminent success. The success of the reptile 

 at aviation was but short-lived however speaking in terms 

 of biological time, for the pterodactyls soon joined their 

 cousins the dinosaurs, the mososaurs and most of the other 

 antique saurians, and sank to a watery, which later became 

 a rocky, grave, to be resurrected after untold ages by the 

 prying eye and patient pick of the palaeontologist. The ptero- 

 dactyls had wings of a thin skin or membrane stretched 

 between fore and hind limbs somewhat like the wings of a 

 bat. In the pterodactyls however only one of the fingers was 

 lengthened as a support for the membrane. 



While the pterodactyls could not compete with the dino- 

 saurs or mososaurs in respect to size, nevertheless one at least 



