Brontosaurus

“ The tail was large, and nearly all the bones solid.
The diminutive head will first attract attention, as it is smaller in proportion to the body than in any vertebrate hitherto known. The entire skull is less in diameter or actual weight than the fourth or fifth cervical vertebra.
A careful estimate of the size of Brontosaurus, as here restored, shows that when living the animal must have weighed more than twenty tons. The very small head and brain, and slender neural cord, indicate a stupid, slow moving reptile. ”

“ It is evident that Cetiosaurus was closely allied to the American Brontosaurus (p. 69) ; and so these earlier English discoveries have gained much in interest from the light thrown upon them by Professor Marsh’s huge Saurian.
Another English Saurian of this group was the Ornithopsis, from Wealden strata in the Isle of Wight, which has been the subject of careful study by Mr. Hulke and Professor Seeley. Their conclusions, based on the examination of separate portions of the skeleton (such as vertebræ) , have been singularly confirmed by the discovery of Brontosaurus. ”

“ Brontosaurus excelsus of the Upper Jurassic of Wyoming was a giant at least 60 feet long and about 10 feet high. The head is extremely small in proportion, not so broad as the fourth of the thirteen vertebrae of the long and flexible neck. The trunk is comparatively short, the tail longer than the neck, and provided with numerous chevron-bones. Most of the vertebrae are hollow, especially the five co-ossified sacrals. The spinal canal of the sacral region is very wide, indicating a strong sacral swelling in conformity with the huge posterior limbs. The pubic bones are stronger than the ischia. ”

“ On the last two or three cervical vertebræ of Brontosaurus, there is a convoluted ridge of bone over the posterior zyga-pophyses. In the anterior dorsals, this ridge becomes stronger and more elongated, forming a distinct protuberance. These processes have not hitherto been described. As they are analogous to the processes in mammals known as meta-pophyses, they may bear the same general name, being distinguished as the post-metapophyses. The term pre-metapophyses should then be applied to the processes in mammals. ”

“ This remarkable structure can be best seen in the unmounted skeleton of Camarasaurus, another Amphibious Dinosaur." (The scientific name Camarasaurus=chambered lizard, has reference to this peculiarity of construction.)
"The teeth of the Brontosaurus indicate that it was an herbivorous animal, feeding on soft vegetable food. Three opinions as to the habitat of Amphibious Dinosaurs have been held by scientific authorities. ”

“ The height of the head in the standing position reaches from 18 to 20 feet above the ground; the knee joint alone reaches 6 feet above the ground. All the bones are massive; the pelvis, femur and skull are extremely heavy. Experience with Brontosaurus and with other large dinosaurs proves that it is impossible to design a metallic frame in the right pose in advance of assembling the parts. Even a scale restoration model of the animal as a whole does not obviate the difficulty. ”

“ Much larger than the brain proper was the spinal cord, especially in the region of the sacrum, controlling most of the reflex and involuntary actions of the huge organism. Hence we can best regard the Brontosaurus as a great, slow-moving animal automaton, a vast storehouse of organized matter directed chiefly or solely by instinct, and to a very limited degree, if at all, by conscious intelligence. ”

“ How the Skeletons Lie in the Bluffs and Quarry. At the bluffs single animals lie from twenty to one hundred feet apart; one rarely finds a whole skeleton, such as that of Marsh's Brontosaurus excelsus, the finest specimen ever secured here, which is now one of the treasures of the Yale museum. More frequently a half or a third of a skeleton lies together. ”

“ A diminutive insect required many legs, not to support its weight, but to preserve balance. Brontosaurus, with legs many times as sturdy as those of an insect, even in proportion to its size, had to seek the swamp to ease the overbearing weight. A larger animal, in order to walk at all, would have to have disproportionately larger legs and feet. Mass cubed with increasing size while the cross section of the legs squared; to maintain a feasible ratio, most of the mass above a certain point would have to go to the feet. ”

“ Top view. (After Marsh.)
The teeth of this horned Dinosaur resemble those of the Megalosaur. Its eyes were protected by protuberances of the skull just above the cavity in which the eye was placed (see Figs. 17 and 18) . The brain was a good deal larger in proportion to the size of the animal than in Brontosaurus and its allies; so perhaps we may infer that it was endowed with greater intelligence, as it certainly was more active in its habits. The fore limbs, as in Megalosaurus, [85] were small, and some of the fingers ended in powerful claws, which no doubt it used to good purpose. ”

“ If the full weight of the animal came on these imperfect joints the cartilage would yield and the ends [69] of the bones would grind against each other, thus preventing the limb from moving without tearing the joint to pieces. The massive, solid limb and foot bones weighted the limbs while immersed in water, and served the same purpose as the lead in a diver's shoes, enabling the Brontosaurus to walk about firmly and securely under water. On the other hand, the joints of the neck and back are exceptionally broad, well fitting and covered with a much thinner surface of cartilage. ”

“ A year or so after, the Carnegie Museum and the Field Columbian Museum of Chicago instituted a series of annual expeditions, chiefly for the great amphibious dinosaurs found in Wyoming and Colorado. Under Dr. E. S. Riggs some remarkable discoveries have been made, most notable of which is a nearly complete skeleton of Brontosaurus in a fine state of preservation. In central Colorado were found the arm bone, or humerus, and thigh bone, or femur, of another reptile of the same group of still more gigantic size. In most of these dinosaurs the femur is decidedly longer than the humerus ”

“ When the thigh bone is set in its normal position, as indicated by the position of the scars and processes for attachment of the principal muscles (see under Brontosaurus for the method used to determine this) , the knee bends forward as in mammals and birds, not outward as in most modern reptiles. The articulations of the foot bones show that the animal rested upon the ends of the metapodials, as birds and many mammals do, not upon the sole of the foot like crocodiles or lizards. ”

“ There followed a maddening moment of unutterable pain for the remaining ones of the tribe of Esau, then the herd trampled them underfoot and rumbled towards the half circle of rocks where the two earth people were crouched.
The leader of the Brontosaurus herd trumpeted madly and barged for the higher ground of safety. Too late did instinct warn it of the widening fissure underfoot. Before it could stop the pressure of the herd drove it into the crevice.
arruthers drew back to the extreme inside edge of the boulders trying to still his ears against their insane bellowings. ”

“ JIM’S BEAST [B] Two arched passageways are in back, and between them, on the wall, is a large dark plaster cast which may be a replica of the famous Dinosaur footprints in Brownstone. Beneath this is a low bench. At the extreme right, as one enters from back, there are two cases, just visible, in which are fossil bones and casts. There is a bench near them and an aisle between which leads off to the windows beyond, suggested by the soft streams of sunlight which shoot over the tops of the cases to the Brontosaurus opposite. ”

“ Their teeth are adapted for feeding on succulent water weeds, perhaps with an admixture of small animals 1iving among these; and their vertebrae are of very light construction, while the ribs are raised high on the neural arches to increase the size of the body cavity, perhaps for unusually large lungs or air sacs. Their massive limbs have five toes, of which the three inner alone bear outwardly curved claws. Diplodocus and Brontosaurus, from the Jurassic of Wyoming and Colorado, U.S.A., are the best-known genera. ”

“ Trilobite. “We’re the best and last, so there’s an end of it. The world was made for us.” She had the final word, very properly, and the trilobite shrugged his shoulders and waddled off to his family. Still he doubted.
[224]
II
Some millions of millions of years having passed by, we find ourselves, upon a bright afternoon of Mesozoic times, in the company of that genial and gigantic Deinosaur, Brontosaurus Excelsus. The monster, despite pleasant climatic conditions, was ill at ease. ”

“ The main characters of the order Sauropoda, and of the two families now known to belong to it, are as follows:
Order Sauropoda. Herbivorous.
Feet plantigrade, ungulate; five digits in manus and pes; second row of carpal and tarsal bones unossified. Pubes projecting in front, and united distally by cartilage; no post-pubis. Fore and hind limbs nearly equal; limb bones solid. Sternal bones parial. Premaxillary bones with teeth. Precaudal vertebræ hollow. Each sacral vertebra supports its own transverse processes. ”

“ Length nearly 60 feet.
[69]
The body of the Brontosaur was comparatively short, with a fairly large paunch (see restoration, Plate IV.) . The legs and feet were strong and massive, and the limb-bones solid. As if partly in order to balance the neck, we find a long and powerful tail, in which the vertebræ are nearly all solid. In most Dinosaurs the fore limbs are small compared to the hind limbs—e.g. Megalosaurus, Iguanodon, and Scelidosaurus,—but here we find them unusually large. ”

“ All the tribe were alike in one way, for they had four legs; but in some the structure of the bones shows that the Dinosaur could, when it chose, stand upright, while other varieties, such as the Brontosaur, must have been compelled, or at any rate must have preferred, to walk on all fours. This monstrous beast was about sixty feet long, its skeleton has always been found on the bank of a lake or river, and it probably fed on water plants. ”

“ HAT is believed by paleontologists to be an important find of hitherto undiscovered species and genera of prehistoric land reptiles has been made by a research party sent out by the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburg, Penn. Twelve fossils or skeletons of dinosaurs, among them two complete brontosauru—the largest animals that have ever lived—were unearthed from the side of a cliff nine miles north of Jansen, Utah, in what was, in distant ages, a river ”

“ In the country east of the Rocky Mountains, including the states of Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and part of Colorado, Professor Marsh has discovered the remains of yet another strange group of large quadrupeds. The best known of these is Brontops, of which the skeleton is seen in Fig. 45. These animals lived after the Dinocerata, namely, in the Miocene period, and were the largest American mammals of that period. They constitute a distinct family more nearly allied to the rhinoceros than to any other living form. ”

“ You are the first and best—Nature’s masterpiece, her joy, her unutterable delight.”
“There’s Atlantosaurus,” said Bronto dubiously.
His wife frowned, and her huge lizard eyes were clouded.
“There is Atlantosaurus,” she admitted, “the hulking, bloodthirsty, ignoble wretch! A thing that eats other live creatures—a debased, degraded, distant relation—a cannibal! Nature blushes when she thinks of him and his kind; but we, we are upon a plane apart; we eat the green grass, the juicy cane, the young fronds and ripe fruit of the palms ”

“ They had spread out in great numbers over what is now North America, the most habitable portion of earth during the Mesozoic age. They had built strange cities, had developed their knowledge and science in myriad ways, and had learned how to conquer and subjugate the great reptilian creatures who swarmed then on earth, to make servants of them. The great brontosaurs, more tractable than the rest, they used as mounts and beasts of burden; the fiercer tyrannosaurs and allosaurs were their beasts of war ”

“ Creatures so supported and so armed, and217 living where food was plentiful, might well dispense with any great degree of intelligence, and their development of brain is consequently little better than that of Coryphodon. These great and characteristic Eocene families have no known successors; and in the Miocene age their place is taken by a very different group, that of which Brontotherium is the type (Fig. 175) . They are creatures of huge size, with a pair of horn-cores on the nose, and feet with four toes in front and three behind, resembling in form those of the rhinoceros. ”

“ This group contains a number of genera. The First Genus, denominated Brontozoum, presents the tracks of a most extraordinary bird. These tracks appear less questionable since the discovery in Madagascar of the eggs of the Epyornis.
The tracks of the largest species, the Brontozoum Giganteum, are four times the magnitude of those made by the existing ostrich of Africa. They are very numerous, and congregated together. The foot of the Brontozoum Giganteum, including the inferior extremity of the tarso-metatarsal bone, which makes a part of the foot, measures in our specimen twenty inches ”

“ There are, however, many striking differences, which will be obvious to those who compare our cast with the figures of Brongniart. The shape of the ribs, and the tubercles upon them; the form of the middle lobe and of the interstices between the articulations, are all peculiar to - 54 - each. The elongation of the tail in our species is alone sufficient to distinguish it. We have always been doubtful whether the minute granulations on our species were not produced by the sandstone in which it is petrified. ”