26 THE COLLECTION OF FOSSIL VERTEBRATES 
which these have been selected. The pillar cards and general 
labels in the cases give detailed information about each group 
of fossils. One of the cases in the center of the middle aisle 
illustrates the method by which the fossils are collected and con- 
veyed to the Museum. The charts at each side of the entrance 
show the order in which the rock-strata lie, one over another, 
and the kinds of fossils found in each stratum. 
EAST WING. HALL NO. 407. FOSSIL REPTILES, ETC. 
This hall forms an introduction to an earlier world, the Age 
of Reptiles. These fossils are of strange and unfamiliar out- 
lines, quite unlike ordinary quadrupeds; they represent an era, 
long since passed away, when reptiles were the “lords of crea- 
tion.”’ Chief among them were the Dinosaurs, great land and 
amphibious reptiles to which the greater part of this hall is 
devoted. They occupy the north, east and west sides and the 
center, 
The AmpuiBious DINOSAURS, on the west and north sides 
and in the center of the hall, were the largest of land animals, 
Amphibious Some of them sixty to seventy feet in length, and of 
Dinosaurs. enormous bulk. They were quadrupedal beasts, with 
long necks and long tails, and comparatively long and very 
massive limbs. The head was very small in proportion to 
the size of the animal, and the brain inferior to that of modern 
reptiles. They were cold-blooded, slow-moving, unintelligent 
creatures, vast storehouses of flesh which lived and grew to huge 
size with but little occasion for very active exertion amidst the 
rich vegetation of the moist and tropical climate of the reptilian 
era. Several incomplete skeletons of Amphibious Dinosaurs are 
exhibited, besides limbs and. other separate parts. The Bronto- 
saurus skeletons in Case 1 (on the right-hand or south side of the 
entrance) and in the center of the hall are among the largest. 
The thigh bone in this animal was nearly six feet long and 
weighs in its petrified state 500 to 600 pounds. The Dzplodocus 
(Case 2 on the left-hand or north side of the entrance) was less 
robust but almost as long. This specimen lacks the fore part of 
the skeleton and most of the limbs, but the tail is very perfectly 
