THE NATURALISTS' COMPANION. 
165 
my specimens, under the eye of a coni- 
j)etent teacher, I hope those of you 
who accompanied me to the woods to¬ 
day in search of your first specimens will 
not get discouraged if you fail once in 
a while, you must expect to; but try 
again and you will be successful in the 
end. 1 also hope you will really enjoy 
the making of your herbarium, and 
when at the close of the summer you 
look at your hard-earned .specimens I 
am assured you will feel well paid for 
your trouble. 
A Giant Sea Turtle. 
FROM ST. NICHOLAS. 
The discovery of a gigantic extinct 
sea turtle found near Fort Wallis, in 
Western Kansas, first observed the bony 
shields projecting from a bluff near 
Butte Creek. They were carefully taken 
out and brought to Philadelphia, where 
the restoration was made. The fore 
flippers alone were nearly five feet long, 
while its expanse from the tip of one 
extended flipper to another was about 
seventeen feet. The question may arise: 
How did the sea turtle become buried 
in a bluff in the State of Kansas? A 
natural supposition would be that Kan¬ 
sas is the bed of a former ocean, and so 
it is. 
Ages ago, in what is called by geolo¬ 
gists the Cretaceous period, that part of 
the world was the bed of a great sea, in 
which the great turtle swam, together 
with other monsters of curious shape 
and appearance. Gradually the crust of 
the earth was raised, the water fell back 
or became inclosed, and left the inhabi¬ 
tants of the Cretaceous sea high and dry, 
to be covered by the earth and preserved 
for us to study ages afterward. 
The shores of this ancient ocean are 
easily found and followed by geologists. 
Its extent has been traced on our western 
plains by the bleaching and disintergra¬ 
ting remains which have been found, 
upon and beneath the surface. 
There were Giants in those Days. 
In digging recently at Rockaway, L. 
I., a number of bones were found, mak¬ 
ing three almost complete human skele¬ 
tons. On measuring them it was found 
that they must have belonged to a race 
of giants. One was six feet eleven in¬ 
ches in height. The find was a most 
interesting one, as the other scattered 
remains were also evident of a race of 
very tall human beings. Some pottery 
was found near the skeletons, some ar¬ 
row heads, and neaiby were heaps of 
oyster and clam shells, showing that at 
the time the bodies were buried the 
surface was far below what it is now. 
The remains of the teeth and skull would 
seem to indicate a somewhat lower men¬ 
tality and different eating habits from 
the aboriginal race found in this country 
by the whites on their first landing. 
When this continent has been thorough¬ 
ly explored,M'io doubt much light will 
be thrown upon the early races with 
which it was inhabited. Nations and 
tribes differ in stature quite as much as 
in habits • and mental development. 
There is to-day a race of pigmy men in 
Central Africa, and there have undoubt¬ 
edly been tribes of very tall men among 
the savages who first peopled this as 
well as other continents. 
Peruse the contents of this issue care¬ 
fully and compare the price with any 
other natuial history paper. Which is 
the best for the money ? 
