The Museum 
Vol. I. PHILADELPHIA, JULY, 1885. No. 3. 
A SIX-HORNED GIANT. 
BY PROF. EDWARD D. COPE. 
One day the writer climbed the sandstone bluffs that rise above the flats of Bitter 
Creek, in Wyoming Territory, nearly opposite the Black Butte, in search of some 
bones that his predecessor, Mr. Meek, was said to have discovered in searching for 
shells. Reaching to near the line of the highest beds of coal, fragments of huge 
bones were found projecting from the rocks. Picks and shovels were called into 
requisition. In course of time the wreck of one of the princes among giants lay 
piled around his desecrated grave. His single vertebra was two feet four inches 
from spine to body, and one hip bone measured four feet from front to rear, along 
the edge. 
Another day, and we discovered the gray range of the Mammoth Buttes. We 
traversed a few terraces of soft tertiary sandstone before we stood on the plateau 
from which arose this mighty pile of sediment of the old eocene lake. It appeared 
to form a curved ridge, with a great face of bad lands, which stretched away from 
its foot on both sides. Its pinnacles rose to a height ,of from 1000 to 1200 feet 
above the level of the sage-brush, giving an elevation of about 9000 feet above 
the sea. We camped at the only spring the region afforded, in view of its bas¬ 
tions and walls. 
On close examination I found the bad-lands formed a horse-shoe, which 
narrowed into s a serrate ridge to the eastward. As this ridge appeared to be 
nameless, I called it the Mammoth Buttes. To the south the summit extended out 
so as to be covered with level fields of grass and hardy plants, and was inhabited by 
herds of the big-horn (Ovis montana). Within the horse-shoe were ruined peaks, 
ridges, bluffs, and all the marvels and horrors of the wreck of an ancient cemetery, 
without shade or water, with nothing but the owl and the dragon to relieve its utter 
desolation. To the southeast two strange land-marks towered above the rest, known 
as the Hay Stack and Bishop’s Mountain, from their resemblance to the farmer’s 
rick and the conventional mitre. 
