Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1907 — Vanished Animals. [ARTICLE]

Vanished Animals.

In the latter part of the mesozolc age there was a great inland ocean, spreading over a large part of the present continent. The lands then above water were covered with a flora peculiar to the times and were Inhabited by some of the animals which later distinguished the cenozoic age. In the seas were reptiles, fishes and turtles of gigantic proportions, armed for offense or defense. There were also oysterlike bivalves, with enormous shells, three or four feet in diameter, the meat of which would have fed many people. In time this great ocean, swarming with vigorous life, disappeared. Mountain ranges and plains gradually arose, casting forth the waters and leaving the monsters to die and bleach in tertiary suns. As the waters remaining divided into smaller tracts they gradually' lost their saline stability. The stronger monsters gorged on the weaker tribes until they, too, stranded on rising sand bars, lost vitality and perished as the waters freshened. In imagination we can picture the strongest, bereft of their food supply, at last floundering in the shallow pools nntil all remaining mired or starved.