70 MIGHTY ANIMALS 



into him, things must have looked bad for the 

 Plesiosaur. Great was the commotion when the 

 two met, nor would either give up the combat 

 until one was dead. For they were both mighty 

 creatures, and each was determined to be king of 

 all the animals then living in the water. 



There came a time, however, when both the 

 Ichthyosaurs and the Plesiosaurs began to dis- 

 appear. Then the sea serpents became the rulers 

 of the waters throughout the world. Nowadays no 

 one believes in sea serpents, and a sailor who claims 

 he has seen one is laughed at. But millions of 

 years ago, if there had been any sailors living, they 

 might have seen large numbers of such serpents 

 from six to forty feet in length, wherever they 

 happened to sail. They would have seen more of 

 them in America than in any other country, and 

 especially in the seas that then covered Kansas 

 and Nebraska. And the waters that filled the 

 space now occupied by New Jersey, Alabama, 

 North Carolina, and Mississippi were also inhabited 

 by these serpents, but not in such large numbers 

 as were the western waters. 



