74 
EXTINCT MONSTERS 
been taken by a higher type — the mammal. As reptiles, they 
were eminently a success ; but, then, they were only reptiles, and i 
therefore were at last left behind in the struggle for existence, i 
until finally they died out, at the end of the Cretaceous period, | 
when certain important geographical and other changes took | 
place, helping to cause the extinction of many other strange forms I 
of life, as we shall see later on. | ;! 
They had a wide geographical range; for their remains have |; 
been discovered in Arctic regions, in Europe, India, Ceram, | j 
North America, the east coast of Africa, Australia, New Zealand, |\j 
and Chili. I 
In American deposits they are represented by certain toothless '| 
forms, to which the names Sauranodon (‘‘toothless lizard”) and | I! 
Baptanodon have been given. These have been discovered by |.| 
Professor Marsh, in the Jurassic strata of the Eocky Mountains. | j 
They were eight or nine feet long, and in every other respect |^\ 
resembled Ichthyosaurs. As we have endeavoured to indicate |j’ 
in our illustration, the fish-lizards fiourished in seas wherein I; 
animal, and doubtless vegetable life was very abundant. Any |, 
one who has collected fossils from the Lias of England will |: 
have found how full it is of beautiful organic remains, such | j 
as corals, mollusca, encrinites, sea-urchins, and other echinoids, I; 
fishes, etc. I 
f 
The climate of this period in Europe was mild and genial, or | 
even semi-tropical. Coral reefs and coral islands varied the I j 
landscape. There is just one more point of interest that ought I 
1 1 
not to be omitted ; it refers to the manner in which these reptiles |* 
of the Lias age met their deaths, and were thus buried up in I 
their rocky tombs. Sir Charles Lyell and other writers point out | 
that the individuals found in those strata must have met with a I 
sudden death and quick burial ; for if their uncovered bodies I 
