4 
WARD’S NATURAL SCIENCE BULLETIN. 
We have received from our good and pleasant friend, Mr. Frank Cowan, of Greensburg, 
Pa., the author, poet and traveler, the subjoined poem on the Atlantosaurus, our great American 
Dinosaurian. Prof. Marsh writes of this fossil monster as follows: 
“Near the base of our Cretaceous formation, in beds which I regard as the equivalent of the 
European Wealden, the most gigantic forms of this order (Dinosauria) yet discovered have 
recently been brought to light. One of these monsters ( Atlantosaurus montanus), from Colorado, 
is by far the largest land animal yet discovered; its dimensions being greater than was supposed 
possible in an animal that lived and moved upon the land. It was some fifty or sixty feet in 
length, and, when erect, at least thirty feet in height. It doubtless fed upon the foliage of the 
mountain forests, portions of which are preserved with its remains.” — Prof. O. C. Marsh: Pop. 
Sci. Monthly , ml. xii, p. 524. 
[We much regret that we have not within reach a cut of Atlantosaurus, and thus we are 
obliged to give instead a cut (taken from Science) of Brontosaurus — another of our Dinosau- 
rians, itself of noble size. We look at the figure and imagine how we should feel in the presence 
of an animal of that form, and as long and high as a Pullman car!] 
THE ATLANTOSAURUS. 
BY PRANK COWAN. 
Indubitable dinosaur, Atlantosaurus, bail! 
Thou, gecko aggrandized into a quadrupedal whale; 
I marvel at thy magnitude, I wonder at thy weight, 
I bow me down before thee, thou organic ultimate! 
Big, bulky, Brobdingnaggian beast! exceeding in thy size 
All living things upon the land e’er seen by human eyes! — 
Illimitable lizard, incommensurable newt, 
Interminable tadpole, inexsuperable brute! 
Poetic symbol of the grand in heaven, earth and hell; 
Rhetoric type of the immense and unapproachable; 
And all the better, too, perhaps, for being vague as vast, 
An image of stupendous size that cannot be surpassed! 
There’s Samuel Johnson — to what beast, besides thyself on earth, 
Can he the better be compared for comprehensive girth? 
Among the English bards and scribes, in his productive time, 
As thou among the birds and beasts of every age and clime! 
So Koong-Foo-Tse, the Chinese sage — to what organic thing, 
Wise men wage wordy wars about, and gentle poets sing, 
Can he be likened better, in his philosophic bulk, 
Than to thy huge, enormous, indeterminable hulk? 
So Genghis Khan, the ruler of one-third of all mankind, 
Incomparable till the day Chance, Marsh and Cope combined 
To hale thy mighty carcase from the mesozoic mud, 
And put thee on thy monstrous legs as whilom thou hast stood. 
So Cuvier in science, and Napoleon in war; 
So Shakespeare as a dramatist, and Garrick as a star; 
And Washington, a patriot — each peerless and alone, 
Until thy mountain mass emerged from out the world of stone! 
Yea, hail! Atlantosaurus, hail! superlatively great, 
The measure of the mightiest in thee incorporate — 
The measure of the mightiest in worth and wickedness! — - 
May thy colossal shadow never grow a shade the less! 
MINERAL COLLECTIONS. 
The utility of object teaching is now no longer 
questioned. In all branches of Natural History 
the material for ocular demonstration is indispen- 
sable, and in no department has this come to be 
more fully recognized than in Mineralogy and 
Geology. But what is wanted is not merely a 
haphazard gathering of miscellaneous fragments, 
but typical characteristic series, systematically 
arranged, and varying in extent with the amount 
of time to be devoted to the subject and the thor- 
oughness with which it is to be pursued. Such 
collections are properly the work of a lifetime if 
each specimen is gathered singly, as is apt to be 
the case, unless unusual facilities are available, 
facilities generally possessed only by national 
museums, and not always even by them. 
In order to secure the right kind of material, 
many things are requisite. There must be a host 
of correspondents in all quarters of the globe, 
who must be more or less familiar with the ma- 
terial required, and these correspondents must be 
stimulated by the hope of pecuniary gain ; there 
must be leisure for personal collecting trips to 
distant regions not supplied with collectors; 
there must be experience to know what kind of 
specimens to get and what to reject; and there 
must be the necessary means to undertake all 
this. Furthermore, it must be followed system- 
atically — in other words — as a business. It is by 
a knowledge and observance of the foregoing, that 
we are enabled to offer to teachers and others a 
class of material not obtainable elsewhere, and 
we would call their attention to our three collec- 
tions in Mineralogy, each of different scope, 
which we call — indicating their range — the Col- 
lege Collection, the Academy Collection, 
and the Collection for Union Schools, re- 
spectively. Of these, the first is naturally the 
most complete, its 280 specimens covering the 
ground evenly and fully, and further supple- 
mented by a series of 50 crystal models and a set 
of 40 imitation precious stones, showing the 
principal miuerals employed in jewelry. The 
specimens are all numbered to correspond with 
a printed descriptive catalogue accompanying 
the collection, accurately labelled, and each 
specimen mounted on a black w’alnut block. In 
the case of single detached crystals, these are 
similiarly mounted, supported on special brass 
holders; the precious stones are in a neat case by 
themselves. This collection we supply packed, 
ready for delivery, at $250. 
In the Academy Collection the specimens 
number 180, distributed as follows: 
Elements 8 
Sulphides, etc 14 
Chlorides and flourides 6 
Oxides 45 
Silicates 64 
Phosphates, etc 8 
Sulphates 10 
Carbonates 18 
Hydrocarbons 10 
The classification adopted in this, as in all our 
•mineral collections, is that of Dana’s System of 
Mineralogy. This collection mounted same as 
the preceding, $100. 
Our Union School Collection contains 120 
good sized specimens of such minerals as every 
well informed person should be acquainted with, 
and is not to be confounded with the fragment 
gatherings so often passing as “School Cabinets.” 
It is mounted in the same style as the previous 
two, and supplied complete for $50. 
While these collections are primarily intended 
for use, the fact has not been overlooked that 
beauty is not necessarily incompatible with this 
object and hence, where it was possible to have 
the latter without sacrificing the former, we have 
sought to combine both, and can safely say that 
no more attractive ornaments for a school room 
could be chosen than these series make. 
Besides the above standard collections, we 
prepare others, larger and smaller, arranged ac- 
cording to any system or author preferred, and at 
any price. Send for our catalogue, price 20 cents. 
