i 
ARCH 31, ifoOij 
FORfeST AND STHISAM. 
^48 
he carries across his mouth. A third pole shows where 
a bear has c imbed the pole, gone into a hole in the tree 
and IS now looking out. The bears tracks are seen on 
either side of the middle line of the pole as it faces the 
observer. - ^ n v. 
In the olden times these houses, while of the same shalie 
ll.f, F'^'T' T^""^ ''i"^^ °^ split or hewn from 
great tree trunks, and were roofed with similar slabs. 
Wow however, many of the houses are made of sawed 
boards and rooled with split shingles. Many of them 
midH?. The fire burns on the ground in the 
middle oi the floor, and the smoke ascending passes 
through the crevices of the roof left for that purpose along 
Interesting, too, among the inhabitants of this sea were 
the mosasaurs, found now in the yellow chalk which 
ZIVa^I^^ """^ '^^"oni' and which have Seen 
studied by n-iany paleontologists, of whom Prof. H. F. 
Osborn and S W. Williston are the principal Americans 
who are ahve to-day. 
. A remarkably fine skeleton of the mosasaurs, compris- 
ing not only the bones but many of the cartilages as well, 
has recently been studied and mounted at the Americai^ 
Museum of Natural History, and Prof. Henry F Osborn 
in 'fiT^'^ri' '^r interesting paper, which appear.s 
m the Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural 
History. 
SKELETON OF TYLOSAUR IN FRANCE AT MUSEUM. 
the ridgepole or through square holes sometimes cut in 
the roof above the fireplace. Around the walls, raised 
above the ground, are the bed places, and seats made of 
hewn planks which show every stroke of the adze. At 
the back of the house, opposite the door, lives the chief 
and here are gathered the sacred possessions of people 
of the dwelling. G B G 
ORNAMENTED HOUSE, 
by E. S. Curtis. Copyright, 1899, by E. H. Harriman. 
:een or sixteen others. Mother right prevails, the 
oJlowing the mother, and the father not being anv 
to the child. 
the vessel had turned its prow homeward and had 
reached the southern boundary of Alaska a stop 
,ade at a deserted Indian village near Cape Fox, 
were seen dwellings and the totem poles figured in 
iper. 
village bore the appearance of having been long 
med. There was no evidence that people had 
lere for years. Before the houses stood a dense 
Big Lizards of Early Days. 
Two or three millions of years ago, in what the geolo- 
gists term Cretacious time, the geography of North 
America was very different from what it is now. Then 
a considerable portion of what is now our Atlantic sea- 
board from New York south, together with the whole of 
hlonda and the northern and western shores of the Gulf 
of Mexico, were covered with the salt sea. A great bay or 
estuary occupied what is now the Mississippi valley as 
far north as the Ohio River. Where Texas now is, and 
The specimen in question, which belongs to the genus 
yyWnw includes practically all the bones of the ani- 
mal, and besides these parts of the cartilages of the 
throat and chest; the larynx, windpipe, portions of the 
shoulder girdle and the cartilages of the breast bone and 
those ribs attached to it. When found, these parts were 
preserved entire, but unfortunately in digging out the 
specimen these fragile portions were more or less in- 
jured. Nevertheless, Mr. Bourne, of Scott City, Kan 
dug out the skeleton with great skill and care. It was 
taken up in a series of large slabs of the cream-colored 
Kansas chalk m such manner that the various slabs fitted 
together at their edges, as in the original bedding, so 
that the great lizard now lies in the museum exactly as 
1 lay in the chalk The animal lies stretched out upon 
Its belly, so that the back or upper surfaces of most of 
the bones are thus seen. Those of the left arm however 
are overturned. The skull is crushed, and so ai^e some of 
the vertebrae. 
Although these great lizards are known chiefly from 
their bones, yet it now and then occurs, as in the case 
of the specimen under consideration, that some portions 
of the softer and more perishable parts of the animal 
are preserved. And as the remains of these reptiles are 
of weeds and brush, and it was a difficult matter 
e one s way to the doorway. Within, the scene 
; same. Weeds grew up through the crevices of 
. places, thick branches of elders had made their 
;Ough holes in the walls, and were now flourishing 
over. - 
n the margin of the curving beach, iusf above the 
>ssed up at high water, stood the fourteen houses, 
front of them a number of curious totem poles.' 
ese appeared can be learned from an examination 
ictures far better than from any description. Each 
id Its own peculiar character. The great one 
tands before the house with the ornamented front 
of several bears, one sitting on the nead of an- 
RECONSTRUCTION OF SKELETON OF TYLOSAUR. 
over all the plains east of the Rocky Mountains, stretched 
a great arm of the sea, which perhaps reached northwest- 
ward .to the Arctic Ocean, where the mouth of the Mc- 
Kenzie River is now. The western borders of this great 
Mediterranean Sea lapped the feet of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. To- the \yest of the Sierra Nevada's, along the 
coast of California, the sea also encroached, so that here 
between these two oceans there was a long and narrow 
continent, bordered by bays and islets; and some of these 
.islets are now the summits of the Continental Divide. 
In this Cretacious Mediterranean Sea, over whose bot- 
tom, a few years ago, we used to chase the buffalo, where 
now- the white man cultivates his corn, or pastures his 
herds and flocks, strange creatures lived in those days. 
extremely abundant, and have been studied by many 
naturalists, it is possible by combining the discoveries of 
all of them to give a very fair notion of the appearance in 
life of reptiles of this type. 
What this appearance was is shown in the restoration 
of Prof Osborn's specimen by Mr. Chas. Knight The 
animal had a small head, a thick, short neck, a stout body 
and a very powerful tail, which was its principal swim- 
ming organ. The four flippers or paddles were perhaps 
used to some extent to gwide it as it swam, but no doubt 
were chiefly useful for progression on the ground The 
mouth was armed with long curved teeth. There was a 
fin running along the back, and the tail above and below 
IS margined with a broad fin, which gave it great pow^r 
THE TYLOSAtJft AS HE LOOKED IN LIFE. 
It . was a time when the reptiles and their relatives, the 
birds, were wonderfully abundant, and had developed in 
niany strange directions. 
Sonie of the strangest of the birds have often been de- 
scribed. They were peculiar in many- ways, but in none 
so remarkable as in possessing teeth.-.- These teeth were 
not at all like the so-called roughness on the margins ofthe 
bills of some modern birds, but were actual teeth, com- 
posed of dentine covered with enamel, whose root's were 
implanted in the bone of the jaw. One of these birds in 
some outward respects resembled the loon of to-day, 
thouB-h haviner wirlelv rlifl-Vrpnf rp^^t■in■ncUir^o■ :J 
against the waters. The length of the animal in question 
IS about 30 feet. ' 
The general aspect of this mosasaur is not unHke that 
ot the well-known European ichthyosaurus, pictures of 
which are so familiar. 
Mr. Osborn says that the mosasaurs are very ancient 
marine offshoots of the lizard family, which retain certain 
primitive and generalized characters of that family 
throughout they are very highly specialized for actively 
preying on the inhabitants of the sea, and constitute 
a distinct subdivision of the order of the lizards 
