Fig. 28.—1, 2. Plates of Stegosaurus. The middle figures show their thickness. (After Marsh.)
Fig. 29.-Head of Triceratops, seen from above. (After Marsh.)
The last, and in some ways the strangest of the Dinosaurs, was the Triceratops[27] that flourished in America at the end of the long Mesozoic era, during the Cretaceous period. The name refers to the three horn-cores found on the skull, which probably supported true horns like those of oxen. Whereas the Stegosaur was provided with quite a small skull, this monster had one of huge dimensions and remarkable shape (see Figs. [29] and [30]).[28] In the younger ones it was about six feet long, but in an old individual must have reached a length of seven or eight feet. Such a skull is only surpassed by some whales of the present day. Twenty different skulls of this kind have been found, and Professor Marsh places the horned Dinosaurs in a separate family, to which he has given the name Ceratopsidæ, or horn-faced. Their remains come from the Laramie beds, believed to be of Cretaceous age, but representing a remarkably mixed fauna and flora, so that some have considered them to be Tertiary. The strata containing these fossils are very rich in organic remains, and have yielded not only other Dinosaurs, but Plesiosaurs, crocodiles, turtles, many small reptiles, a few birds, fishes, and small mammals. The Ceratops beds are of fresh-water or brackish origin, and can now be traced for nearly eight hundred miles along the east flank of the Rocky Mountains.
[27] Greek—treis, three; ceras, horn; ops, face.
[28] This skeleton has not yet been set up in the Yale College Museum, but will be before long. Our artist has drawn it as if set up, with a man standing by for comparison. In an article in The Californian Illustrated Magazine for April, 1892 (quoted in the Review of Reviews for May), an American writer incorrectly describes this monster as “higher than Jumbo, and longer than two Jumbos placed in a row.” But the article is altogether untrustworthy, and the two “restorations” are absurd.