178 The Cretaceous Seas 



in the Kansas chalk. The ram ends, you notice, 

 in a sharp point eight or ten inches long. Then 

 at the end of the mouth are four lance like teeth 

 projecting forward, and outward. The object 

 was for these to cut the breach his ram had made 

 in the quivering flesh of a mosasaur wider, so he 

 could force his head into the bleeding flesh to 

 the eye rims. But his most terrible weapons 

 are his pectoral fins. See, they are four feet long. 

 Serrated on the cutting or outer edge, enameled 

 and sharp as a knife. They can be locked, and 

 stand out straight from the body. A sudden 

 swing would, if he was close to a mosasaur cut 

 a gash several feet long in its vitals. See these 

 fins span over eight feet. I pity the fish or rep- 

 tile that comes his way." "Watch, papa !" cried 

 Maud. "There conies a huge shark. He certain- 

 ly doesn't mean to attack such a well-armed 

 fighter, does he?" "I should not be surprised," 

 I answered. "I believe a shark of this size, at 

 least twenty-five feet long, will attack anything 

 that has life." The shark made a sudden dive 

 under the snout fish, but before he could turn 

 the fish set his right sword-like fin and swinging 

 suddenly to the left made an awful gash into 

 the side of the shark laying open and slashing 

 his vital organs. Relaxing his efforts he sank 

 into the ooze of the ocean bed, followed by the 

 snout fish to feast off his carcase. And so we 

 idly drifted with the currents and study the 

 wondrous fauna of this strange sea and land. 



