Fig. 8.—The Track of a Three-toed Dinosaur.
IV
RULERS OF THE ANCIENT SEAS
"A time there was when the universe was darkness and water, wherein certain animals of frightful and compound mien were generated. There were serpents, and other creatures with the mixed shapes of one another...."—The Archaic Genesis.
History shows us how in the past nation after nation has arisen, increased in size and strength, extended its bounds and dominion until it became the ruling power of the world, and then passed out of existence, often so completely that nothing has remained save a few mounds of dirt marking the graves of former cities. And so has it been with the kingdoms of nature. Just as Greece, Carthage, and Rome were successively the rulers of the sea in the days that we call old, so, long before the advent of man, the seas were ruled by successive races of creatures whose bones now lie scattered over the beds of the ancient seas, even as the wrecks of galleys lie strewn over the bed of the Mediterranean. For a time the armor-clad fishes held undisputed sway; then their reign was ended by the coming of the sharks, who in their turn gave way to the fish-lizards, the Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs. These, however, were rather local in their rule; but the next group of reptiles to appear on the scene, the great marine reptiles called Mosasaurs, practically extended their empire around the world, from New Zealand to North America.
We properly call these reptiles great, for so they were; but there are degrees of greatness, and there is a universal tendency to think of the animals that have become extinct as much greater than those of the present day, to magnify the reptile that we never saw as well as the fish that "got away," and it may be safely said that the greatest of animals will shrink before a two-foot rule. As a matter of fact, no animals are known to have existed that were larger than the whales; and, while there are now no reptiles that can compare in bulk with the Dinosaurs, there were few Mosasaurs that exceeded in size a first-class Crocodile. An occasional Mosasaur reaches a length of forty feet, but such are rare indeed, and one even twenty-five feet long is a large specimen,[4] while the great Mugger, or Man-eating Crocodile, grows, if permitted, to a length of twenty-five or even thirty feet, and need not be ashamed to match his bulk and jaws against those of most Mosasaurs.
[4] It is surprising to find Professor Cope placing the length of the Mosasaurs at 70, 80, or 100 feet, as there is not the slightest basis for even the lowest of these figures. Professor Williston, the best authority on the subject, states, in his volume on the "Cretaceous Reptiles of Kansas," that there is not in existence any specimen of a Mosasaur indicating a greater length than 45 feet.