"This fossil, gentlemen," said the Professor, "is that of a _Mosasaurus_, a huge reptile which existed in the cretaceous sea. This appears to be one of the largest members of the family yet discovered, its length, as you will perceive, being over fifty feet. The species to which it belonged swarmed in immense numbers, but were surrounded by monsters even more remarkable than they. The deep which they inhabited must have been constantly lashed and torn with their fierce conflicts; for it was an age of war, and the powers of offense and defense, which the monsters of that period possessed, were terrible. Winged reptiles filled the air, in appearance more hideous than any creation of the imagination. Following close upon the Reptilian came the Mammalian age, and I hold that with the largest of the mammals came man, rude in tastes and uncouth in form, but even then ruling as king of the animal creation. Wielded by a strength equal to that of a gorilla, his club would dash in the skull of any beast which dare dispute dominion with him." The text thus suggested him, the Professor then diverged into an argument on his pet theory of man's early existence. A trivial circumstance connected with our discovery arrested my attention, and, from a sportsman's stand-point, suggested a little theory of my own. The head of the saurian rested on the basin's edge, its jaws touching, with their stony tips, the prairie, while down into the valley below stretched the body and tail. This little fact dove-tailed itself into some incidents of the past, and gave rise to quite a train of speculation. Some years ago I hunted alligators in Mississippi. Sitting on the bank of a sluggish bayou, I would watch the surface of the water, close under which were visible the noses of countless buffalo fish, floating as one sees minnows do in glass jars. Under the hot sun all nature seemed asleep. Soon, however, a black knot, an ugly dark wart, not larger than one's two fists, would make its appearance, floating, like some charred fragment, slowly along. To a stranger, the only suspicious circumstance would have been, that where there was no current whatever, it still continued its motion, the same as before. The experienced eye recognized this object as the nose of an alligator, behind which, and just at the surface, as it got opposite, the ugly eyes would become visible, looking out for hogs or dogs, as they came to drink under the bank.