140 EXTINCT MONSTERS. 



Professor Cope thinks that the throat must consequently have 

 been loose and baggy. 



Professor Cope, however, in giving the name Pythonomorpha 

 to this ancient group, has pressed his views too far, and dwelt 

 unduly on their supposed relationship with serpents. Other 

 authorities regard them as essentially swimming lizards, with four I 

 well-developed paddles ; and this is probably the right view to 

 take of them. 



The following graphic account of the region where Professor 

 Cope has discovered the skeletons of many sea-serpents, and of 

 their habits and aspect when alive, is taken from his well-known 

 work on the Cretaceous Vertebrata of the West. 1 After describing 

 this region as a vast level tract between the Missouri and the 

 Rocky Mountains, he says, " If the explorer searches the 

 bottoms of the rain-washes and ravines, he will doubtless come 

 upon the fragment of a tooth or jaw, and will generally find a 

 line of such pieces leading to an elevated position on the bank or 

 bluff, where lies the skeleton of some monster of the ancient sea. 

 He may find the vertebral column running far into the limestone 

 that locks him in his last prison ; or a paddle extended on the 

 slope, as though entreating aid ; or a pair of jaws lined with 

 horrid teeth, which grin despair on enemies they are helpless to 

 resist ; or he may find a conic mound, on whose apex glisten in 

 the sun the bleached bones of one whose last office has been to 

 preserve from destruction the friendly soil on which he reposed. 

 Sometimes a pile of huge remains will be discovered, which the 

 dissolution of the rock has deposited on the lower level; the 

 force of rain and wash having been insufficient to carry them 

 away." 



But the reader inquires, "What is the nature of these 

 creatures thus left stranded a thousand miles from either ocean ? 

 How came they in the limestone of Kansas, and were they 



1 Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the 

 Territories, vol. ii., 1875 (Cretaceous Vertebrata}. 



