No. 521] 



SAUROPOD DINOSAURS 



283 



New York Botanical Garden, and seems plausible. It 

 is thrown out as a hint worthy of consideration. If the 

 terminal end of a cycad could have been torn away this 

 also would have given access to the mass of food in the 

 stem. The feeble dentition hardly seems equal to the 

 task of tearing away this upper growth, but if it was, 

 we then might have a reason for the great elongation 

 of the neck. 



Before I conclude these remarks I desire to say that 

 I am not without hope that recent discoveries made by 

 the Carnegie Institute will tend to throw a flood of light 

 on the whole subject. We have found what paleontol- 

 ogists have been searching for for forty or fifty years, 

 three skeletons of sauropod dinosaurs lying articulated 

 where they died. They are imbedded in hard sandstone, 

 the work of removing which from the bones must involve 

 a vast expenditure of time and effort; but in one case 

 at least we know already that the vertebral column lies 

 in position, articulated from end to end. Apparently 

 hardly any disturbance has occurred and the bones even 

 to the minutest tuberosities and rugosities are as perfect 

 as when the animal died. The sternal ribs are present. 

 When we succeed in carefully working out these huge 

 skeletons from the surrounding matrix we shall probably 

 be able to clear up some of the disputed points in the 

 osteology of the sauropod dinosaurs. 



