WIELAND: THE OSTEOLOGY OF PROTOSTEGA 281 
Wieland* to show the carpal organization of Archelon ; but, as will be shown below, 
both these efforts are almost entirely in error. From the foregoing review of the 
slow progress of our knowledge of the Protostegine it is seen that the third of a 
century which has elapsed since Cope’s discovery of Protostega gigas has not sufficed 
to bring forth an entirely complete restoration of any single individual of these great 
sea-turtles. How welcome then has been the discovery during the past two years 
by Mr. Charles Sternberg in the Niobrara Cretaceous of Western Kansas of the 
nearly complete specimens of Protostega gigas which permit the present descrip- 
tion of the organization of the limbs, the most important of the parts yet unde- 
scribed, as well as the least likely to be recovered in complete form. For happily 
the elements of the first-secured and completer of these exceptional specimens, 
though somewhat crushed, were found altogether, or nearly, in their naturally 
articulated position, a condition imperatively necessary to a satisfactory description 
of the flippers. 
This rare fossil turtle was first briefly mentioned in Science by Professor Osborn ® 
* a complete skeleton of Protostega which lay on its dorsal surface with the 
fore limbs stretched out at right angles to the median line of the carapace, measur- 
ing six feet between the ungual phalanges.” Afterwards it was secured for the 
Carnegie Museum by Mr. J. B. Hatcher, who, though he crowded the brilliant 
work, which might well have crowned the efforts of a long life, into a short one, 
leaves this ripe fruition mixed with a sorrow surely not lessened by the fact that 
the hardships of the plains of the Northwest and the Patagonian deserts had all too 
plainly left their mark upon him. 
Having expressed in conversation with Mr. Hatcher much interest in these more 
recent discoveries of Protostega, I was invited to make a study of the newly acquired 
material, this arrangement being concurred in by Dr. W. J. Holland, Director of the 
Carnegie Museum. But early in July, 1904, when I visited the Carnegie Museum for 
the purpose of doing this work, to my extreme sorrow I found, that, although I had a 
brief word from Mr. Hatcher shortly before, he was so seriously ill that there could 
be but little or no hope of his recovery. And indeed, as everyone feared, it was 
but a few days before he passed away. However, it was under such circumstances 
a relief to be busied, and Dr. Holland very kindly arranged for and furthered the 
initial study of the material on hand. 
Furthermore, during the past summer Dr. Holland has added to the collections 
first obtained much additional material, also collected by Mr. Sternberg, including 
8** Notes on the Cretaceous Turtles Toxochelys and Archelon, with a Classification of the Marine Testudinates,”’ 
Tbid., Vol. XIV., August, 1902. 
®N.S., Vol. XIX., No. 470, p. 35, January, 1904. 
