Ancient Giants 135 



badland scenery, the rocks carved into the most 

 intricate patterns, entirely devoid of vegetation, 

 except, perhaps, along the northern slope of some 

 rounded bluff, where sponge-moss had secured a 

 precarious foothold; while running through it 

 were trailing junipers, and spruces, with flowers 

 of many a hue (to delist the eye) after search- 

 ing the steep and barren slopes for hours. These 

 slopes were covered with cherty fragments that 

 rolled under the feet ,threateing to hurl the a<l- 

 venturous Fossil Hunter into the gorge below. I 

 had found great quantities of the bones of the 

 huge dinosaurs, or "terrible lizards." Among 

 them the trachodonts or duck-billed dinosaurs, 

 were the most common. Great swimming lizards 

 they were, spanning thirty feet or more in length. 

 My party had already two skeletons. One of 

 them thirty-two feet long, we mounted after- 

 wards in the Victoria Memorial Museum at Ot- 

 tawa, Ontario. We found quarry after quarry 

 where the bones had been piled up as flotsam by 

 some ancient tide, that for ages had ceased to 

 beat on this land. Today the nearest ocean is 

 700 miles away, and the strata have attained an 

 altitude of twenty-flve hundred feet above sea- 

 level. The day had been hot and sultry; as I 

 came upon a coal miners tunnel (there are un- 

 limited beds of coal in these breaks), I found re- 

 lief by going in some distance. The floor was 

 deeply covered with fine dust, making a restful 

 place ; and it is little wonder I fell asleep ; I never 



