A Monstrous Dinosaur.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXIV, Issue 7494, 18 April 1899, Page 4

A Monstrous Dinosaur.

A correspondent of the Zoologist writas that Assistant-Professor W. H. Re6d, of the Geological CJniverslfcy of Wyoming, has made a great discovery by unearthing the petrified bones of the most colossal animal ever taken from the earth's crust. This fossil monster was' a' dweller In the Jurassicage, a Dinosaur, measuring Dearly 130fb in length, and being perhaps 35ft in heightat the hipa and 25ft at the shoulders —an animal so terrible in slz9 that its petrified skeleton alone Is' believed to weigh 40,0001b. Professor Reed made the great find lasb August while prospecting for fossils 90 miles north-west of Laramie, and, during the time which has elapsed since then, the members of the University have been secretly at work in its restoration. The skeleton of the animal is so vast that its smallest bone yeb found is more than a man can lift, and, with two men constantly at work, it is believed that many months will be required before the monster can be placed on the campus at Laramie. In comparison to a Mammoth, this animal was in size as a horse to a dog. In the known fossil world there is but one creature that can be compared at all with it, and this would be only as a child beside it. The famous Brontosaur at the Yale Museum, at New Haven, ia its only animal criterion of measurement. This monster is believed to have been 70ft in length, and to have weighed 80,0001b in life. Professor Reed says that, although it is practically out of the question to give an accurate idea of a living Dinosaur, he should think that the animal now being restored would weigh in life 60 tons, that it had a neck 30ft in length, and a tail about 60ft in length, and the cavity of its body, with lungs and entrails out, would make a hall 34ft long and 16fb wide. The head of the animal is very small for the size of the body. There is no building in Laramie large enough to hold it.