DEVELOPING—ONE OF THE FIRST FAMILIES.
In connection with the subject of the old lakes and their fertile shores, where human beings, it might reasonably be expected, once lived so comfortably, the editor of this volume begs to lay before the reader (in a sort of parenthesis, for which Professor Cope is in no way responsible) an effort of Sachem's. He dedicated it to Darwin, and was pleased to call it, notwithstanding it smells more of the fossil-bone caves than the fields,
THE PRIMEVAL MAN'S PASTORAL.
My grandfather Jock was an ape,
His grandfather Twist was a worm;
Each age has developed in shape,
And ours has got rid of the squirm;
If the law of selection will work in our case,
We'll develop, in time, to a wonderful race.
My sweetheart has claws, and her face
Is covered with bristles and hair;
She's feline in nature and grace,
She's apt to get out on a tear,
She's cursed with a passion to sing after night;
But these she'll evolve, and develop all right.
One race has evolved in the sea,
And partly got rid of their scales;
Though cousin by faces to me,
They're cousin to fishes by tails;
But they'll ever remain simply mer-men and women,
For selection won't work, in the world that they swim in.
'T is said that Gorilla the Great,
Who rules as the chief of our clan,
Has found in the annals of fate,
We're soon to evolve into man;
Furthermore, that our children will doubt whence they came,
Till a fellow named Darwin shall put them to shame.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CONTINUED BY COPE—THE GIANTS OF THE SEAS—TAKING OUT FOSSILS IN A GALE—INTERESTING DISCOVERIES—THE GEOLOGY OF THE PLAINS.
The giants of the Pythonomorphs of Kansas have been called Liodon proriger (Cope) and Liodon dyspelor (Cope). The first must have been abundant, and its length could not have been far from sixty feet, certainly not less. Its physiognomy was rendered peculiar by a long projecting muzzle, reminding one of that of the blunt-nosed sturgeon of our coast, but the resemblance was destroyed by the correspondingly massive end of the branches of the lower jaw. Though clumsy in appearance, such an arrangement must have been effective as a ram, and dangerous to his enemies in case of collision. The writer once found the wreck of an individual of this species strewn around a sunny knoll beside a bluff, and his conic snout, pointing to the heavens, formed a fitting monument, as at once his favorite weapon, and the mark distinguishing all his race.