140 
EXTINCT MONSTERS. 
Professor Cope thinks that the throat must consequently have 
been loose and baggy. 
Professor Cope, however, in giving the name Pythonomorpha 
to this ancient group, has pressed his views too far, and dwelt 
unduly on their supposed relationship with serpents. Other 
authorities regard them as essentially swimming lizards, with four 
well-developed paddles ; and this is probably the right view to 
take of them. 
The following graphic account of the region where Professor 
Cope has discovered the skeletons of many sea-serpents, and of 
their habits and aspect when alive, is taken from his well-known 
work on the Cretaceous Vertebrata of the West.^ After describing 
this region as a vast level tract between the Missouri and the 
Rocky Mountains, he says, “ If the explorer searches the 
bottoms of the rain-washes and ravines, he will doubtless come 
upon the fragment of a tooth or jaw, and will generally find a 
line of such pieces leading to an elevated position on the bank or 
bluff, where lies the skeleton of some monster of the ancient sea. 
He may find the vertebral column running far into the limestone 
that locks him in his last prison ; or a paddle extended on the 
slope, as though entreating aid ; or a pair of jaws lined with 
horrid teeth, which grin despair on enemies they are helpless to 
resist ; or he may find a conic mound, on whose apex glisten in 
the sun the bleached bones of one whose last office has been to 
preserve from destruction the friendly soil on which he reposed. 
Sometimes a pile of huge remains will be discovered, which the 
dissolution of the rock has deposited on the lower level; the 
force of rain and wash having been insufficient to carry them 
away.’’ 
But the reader inquires, “ What is the nature of these 
creatures thus left stranded a thousand miles from either ocean ? 
How came they in the limestone of Kansas, and were they 
^ Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the 
Territories^ vol. ii., 1875 {Cretaceous Vertebrata). 
