One of my news

tions is apparently lost to the world. stories put out through the New York Herald, comprised Cope's chain of nine prehistoric ancestors of man which he considered that his evidence proved, as against the chain of Haeckel and other contemporaries. One of Cope's links, exploited in the story was in the carnivorous line of reptiles, or saurians, the species of which he did not live to determine, but was more ambitious to decipher than any other mystery. Professor Osborn, as scientific executor of Cope, decided to sidetrack this speculation of Cope and it was permitted to receive scant attention in my Century article. Professor Osborn has since, and quite recently, entirely eliminated the saurian, or reptile link in the chain of extinct ancestors of man and mammal, and in a recent address, said there had been as yet no evidence discovered whatever to include them. I have, however, Cope's original, approved chain in which from his point of view the carnivorous line of saurians formed a most important link. As this article solely concerns the life of Cope and his work, and as the view mentioned was made by Cope in full health and vigor, supported by diagrams which he drew and a glossary of terms.

The largest reptile skull ever found, that of a Triceratops from Montana. Measurements, 71⁄2 feet long by 5% feet wide. Now in the American Museum, New York.

which he prepared, all of which I have before me, I propose to state his exact position, whether later evidence supports it or not. I do so the more readily because it carries with it the very pith of Cope's life work. The approved statement in brief is as follows:

"The mystery of some of the evolution of the saurians has been cleared away. As to the order of ascent, we can now speak in general terms. With the discovery and study of more and completer skeletons, the missing data can be supplied. The geological sequence of saurians has become known. Their duration extended from the Carboniferous era of the Paleozoic through the entire Mesozoic realm. The original saurian was a Cotylosaur, discovered in the coal measures of Ohio. This ancestor, Isodectes punctulatus of Cope, was eight inches in length and differed not so much from the lizards found about the farm fences of to

day. It is astonishing how great and mighty a race of saurians sprang from this diminutive and insignificant ancestor! The Carboniferous era closed and punctulatus was blotted out. Then succeeded the Permian era, the last of the Paleozoic Age. Herein other Cotylosaurs appeared in numbers, first of moderate size. As the Permian grew older, lizard-like saurians continued to increase in species and in size. There appeared the larger Thermora, such as the Dimetrodons, some with forty-inch spines on their backs and the Otocoelidæ, the ancestors of the marine turtles, ranging from three to ten feet in length. Then the Paleozoic Age died out, and with it these types of saurians became extinct.

"The next age, the most extraordinary so far as animal life is concerned, the Mesozoic, was ushered in like a new world. In its first section, the Triassic, the saurians that had appeared with it assumed wide orders, functions, and greater proportions. These were Palaeoctonus, Aetosaurus, Testudinata, Dystrophaecus, Thecodontosaurus and Palaeohatteria, of which the Utah Triassic elephantine saurian, Dystrophaecus Viaemale was conspicuous. The Jurassic and Cretaceous formation of the Mesozoic were the most remarkable periods for types of animal life. In them saurians reached their time of glory. An examination of the Jurassic of Colorado shows that it was a lake bed which abounded in dinosaurs, magalosaurs and cetiosaurs of diverse species, which swarmed in vast numbers and grew to gigantic proportions. Some went in herds, finding food most plentiful, and conditions and climate most propitious. The forests and jungles abounded in saurians which walked on four legs. The Cretaceous Agathaumas of Marsh resembling somewhat in form the rhinocerous; and the Jurassic Stegosaur of Marsh partaking of the bulk of the elephant. Of the genus Agthaumas, with its powerful skull armature, the silvestris of Cope had a nose horn pointing forward and his spherocerus a nose horn pointing

straight upward. Of the genus Stegosaurus, the ungulatus of Marsh had a single dermal armor and the latus of Cope had a double dermal armor. The plains and fields swarmed with Saurians which ran or leaped on two hind legs and tail and whose fore limbs were not ambulatory. Those of the kangaroo type represented by the Laramie cretaceous Laelaps incrassatus (Cope) which preyed on the western Hadrosaurus mirabilis (Leidy); and the Fox Hills cretaceous Laelaps acquilunguis (Cope) of New Jersey which preyed on the Eastern Hadrosaurus Foulkii. The lakes were infested by saurians which waded but could not swim and other species which waded or swam indifferently. These types are represented only in the Jurassic. Amphicoelias altus (Cope), one of the tallest dinosaurs, waded but never swam. He walked on the bottom, sometimes browsing on overhanging tree tops; at other times seizing live prey beneath the surface; and again feeding on aquatic plants on the lake bed. Amphibious and omniverous, he ate anything edible within reach, a saurian in structure, and everything in habits. The great weight of his femurs and tail vertebræ, prevented him from swimming or attempting to walk on land and his extinction came when the water, which had held his bones together, disappeared and caused the collapse of his mighty structure, solid at the base and hollow as to neck and back. Of coexistence was the giant or giraffe-like amphibian, the Carmarasaurus supremis of Cope and the Brontosaurus excelsus of Marsh. Because of a longer femur the camarasaur had the advantage of the amphicoelias and could either swim or wade or progress on land. Standing like a tripod on hind legs and tail, this herbiverous monster could distend his bird-like beak to a height of from sixty to eighty feet and browse on the tops of the then existing palm trees. Because of hollow vertebrae anterior to the tail, and two large separated chambers, communicating with the cavity of the body by a foramin on either side, he could materially lighten his superstructure