68 University of Kansas Geological Survey. 



adapted for swimming. In some there are extraordinary de- 

 velopments of horns, plates and spines upon the body and head. 

 A skull of one immense kind, now represented in the Univer- 

 sity museum, had a pair of horns over three feet in length on 

 the top of the head, and another a foot long over the nose. 

 This skull is seven feet in length, about five feet in width, and 

 as many in height. The thigh bone of the largest species of 

 Dinosaurs, from Wyoming, was over six feet in length, and 

 weighed, as petrified, over 1100 pounds. The bipedal forms 

 were usually of lighter structure, and must have been quicker 

 and more fleet in their movements, probably progressing by 

 long strides and leaps, and it is not at all improbable that some 

 of the smallest, hollow-boned kinds were arboreal in their 

 habits, living among the branches of trees, or perhaps about 

 cliffs and promontories. Many of the bipedal forms, both large 

 and small, were carnivorous in habit, having long, sharp and 

 cutting teeth, which must have been exceedingly formidable 

 weapons. The very largest were herbivorous, as were also 

 many of the smaller ones. 



The Dinosaurs ranged in time from the Triassic to the close 

 of the Cretaceous, some of the most remarkable and extraor- 

 dinary types occurring in the Laramie Cretaceous. In geo- 

 graphical distribution they seem to have occurred over the 

 entire earth, with the possible exception of Australia, where 

 none have yet been found. 



Being land animals, their remains must of course occur with 

 great rarity in marine formations, and, inasmuch as nearly all 

 of the Kansas Cretaceous deposits are marine, they can never 

 be expected to be found here in numbers. In fact, but one 

 single specimen has ever been found in the state, so far as I am 

 aware, though the animals must have lived here about the 

 shores of the Cretaceous seas in great abundance. 



In their classification there is not a unanimity of opinion 

 among paleontologists. Many hold the opinion that they con- 

 stitute a distinct subclass of reptiles, equivalent in the impor- 

 tance of their characters to all the other reptiles combined. 

 Be this as it may, they are by general consent classed in three 



