ZOOLOGICAL DISCOVERY IN COLORADO.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11399, 17 April 1899, Page 7

ZOOLOGICAL DISCOVERY IN COLORADO.

A MONSTROUS DINOSAUR,

A correspondent of the " Zoologist " writes that Assistant-professor AY. H. Reed, of the Geological University of Wyoming, has mado a great discovery by unearthing the petrified bones of tho most colossal animal ever taken from the earth's crust. This fossil monster was a dweller in the Jurassic age, n Dinosaur, measuring nearly 130 ft in length, and being perhaps 35ft m height at the hips, and 25ft at the shoulders—an animal so terrible in su'.o thai Its petrified skeleton alone is behoved to weigh more than 40,0001b. Professor Reed made Iho great find last August, while prospecting for fossils 90 miles north-west of Laramie, and during tho time which, has elapsed since then Iho members of the university havo been secretly at work in its restoration. Tho skeleton of the animal is so vast that its smallest bone yet found is more than a man can lift, nnd, with two men constantly at work, it is believed that many months will bo required before the monster can bo placed on the campus at Laramie. .Although its restoration is as yet incomplete, still enough of its bones have been disinterred to. establish its zoological position, and to placo it in geological history as the king of all animals restored from fossil fields. In comparison to a mammoth, this animal was m 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 Broiitosaiir at the Yale Museum, at New Haven, is its only animal criterion of measurement. This was an animal of its own kind, a fellow-creature in AVyoming, where for millions of years thoy have laid together in the same deposit. The skeleton at Yale was restored in 1879 by Pro-ee-sor Reed, under the direction of Professor Marsh. Besides this monster the largest Dinosaurs of Europe, and indeed of the world, have remained since its discovery as only pigmies. For years the geological students have made pilgrimages to New Haven to stutlyand to marvel at its immense skeleton. This monster is bclicvedrto have been 70ft m length, atid to havo weighed perhaps 80:0001b'in-life.

Professor Reed says that, although it is practically tint of the question to give an accurate idea of a living Dinosaur, ho should think that tho animal now being restored would weigh in lifo 60 tons, thai 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 mako a hall 3.fl long and 16ft wide; tho head ol tho animal is very fmiill for the size of tho body. There is no building in Laramie largo enough to hold it, and when taken there it will probably bo placed temporarily on llio campus. The work of restoring has been greatly interrupted by snow, but it is being carried on ns rapidly as possible. For a groat number of years Wyoming has been known to contain some of tho world's most wonderful fossil fields, tho firat discovery dating back to 1858, and since 1877 AVyoming -has been known to havo tho petrified remains of tho largest land animals that have over l>vcd- ______-__«____