282 



NA TURE 



[January i8, 1906 



useful to see what common practices can be gathered from 

 Semitic and British traditions. We have common to 

 both :— 



(1) Worship in high places. 



(2) Setting up of stones. 



(3) Sacrifices with blood poured on the altar. 



(4) Fire worship of Baal or Bel. 



(5) Human beings passing through the fire. 



The question arises, then, were not the circle builders 

 Semites antedating the Aryans? 



The Dolmen Builders. 

 Another matter of great interest is connected with the 

 erection of dolmens in imitation of the caves first used 

 for Semitic worship. The most philosophical study of this 

 question 1 have seen ' certainly suggests that much light 

 may be expected from this soup e. 



Norman Lockyer. 



THE SKELETON OF BRONTOSAURUS AND 



SKULL OF MOROSAURUS. 

 '"THE exploration of the American Jurassic by Cope and 

 Marsh for remains of the Sauropoda practically 

 began on an extended scale in 1877. It has been continued 

 by these pioneers and their successors with some interrup- 

 tions to the present time. 



During this period a number of more or less com- 

 plete skeletons have been found. The first was that 

 of Camarasaurus supremus, a sauropod closely related 

 to the Morosaurus of Marsh, found in the Jurassic of 

 Colorado in 1877, anc * partially described by Cope. It 

 was restored life-size by Ryder on large sheets of linen 

 and exhibited, but never published. The skeleton is 

 now- being prepared for mounting in the American 



the great ornaments of the Yale University Museum, in 

 which it is preserved. In 1S97 the American Museum 

 party found the entire hind portion of the skeleton of a 

 Diplodocus also in the rich region of the Como Bluffs. 

 Two years later another skeleton of a Diplodocus, the best 

 yet discovered, was secured by the Carnegie Museum ex- 

 pedition, and forms the chief basis of the great cast recently 

 presented to the British Museum. In 1901 the Field 

 Columbian Museum, of Chicago, secured another fine 

 sauropod skeleton, the basis of the restoration by Dr. E. S. 

 Riggs. It is termed Apatosaurus, a name which Dr. Riggs 

 thinks preoccupies Brontosaurus. 



In 1S97 the x\merican Museum expedition discovered the 

 skeleton of the Brontosaurus or Apatosaurus represented 

 in the accompanying photograph. It enjoys the distinction 

 of being the first of the Sauropoda to be mounted from the 

 original materials. 



The field and museum work on this skeleton occupied 

 the American Museum staff more or less continuously from 

 1897 to the spring of 1905. In 1S98 and 1899 the excava- 

 tion was carried on, and a little more than two-thirds of 

 the entire skeleton was recovered. In the following year 

 a few more vertebrae were found. The special features 

 are the very large size of the animal, the absence of crush- 

 ing of the bones, and the completeness of the ribs. The 

 original parts are supplemented by bones and casts or 

 models from other individuals. The chief parts entirely 

 missing are the skull, which was restored partly from 

 an imperfect skull of Brontosaurus, partly from that 

 of the Morosaurus described below, the three anterior 

 cervical vertebrae, the forearms of both sides from the 

 shoulder down, which were restored from the Vale Uni- 

 versity specimen, the upper portions of the sacrum, the 

 hind-limb of one side, and the terminal portion of the 

 tail. The hind-limb and the tail were completed from 



Fig. :.— Skeleton of the litviittis,x,ims cxcelsus in th 



Museum of Natural History. The most complete skeleton 

 known of Brontosaurus is the type of B. excelsus, Marsh, 

 which was found in the Como Bluffs of Wyoming in 1879, 

 anu made the basis oi Marsh's restoration of 1.SS3, the 

 first published. I his beautiful specimen was unfortunately 

 taken out before the method of removal from the matrix 

 was as effective as it is now. It is, however, capable oi 

 being mounted, and will undoubtedly some day be one of 

 1 "The Builders and the Anliquity of our Cornish Dolmens," by Rev. D. 

 Gath Whitley (./tmrixal R.l Cornwall, No. 1.). 



no. 1890, VOL. y2>] 



1 of Na 



al History, New York-, 

 the American Museum of Natural 



other individuals 

 History. 



The mounting represents the prolonged work of very 

 difficult restoration and the solution of a number of quite 

 new mechanical problems for the support of the immense 

 weight of the fossil skeleton without making the iron 

 and steel work ti obtrusive. For this the head pre- 

 parator, Mr. Adam Hermann, deserves chief credit. A 

 number of new anatomical problems arose, especially as 

 to the position and angulation of the fore-limbs. In this 



