The Strange Adventures of a PebbleHawksworth, Hallam
Science
The Strange Adventures of a Pebble
Hawksworth, Hallam
Geology -- Juvenile literature; Physical geography -- Juvenile literature
These Dinosaurs came in sizes and differed considerably as to looks and
eating and getting about. Some were as small as cats, some walked on
four legs, some--like the gentleman at lunch--walked on two. Some were
strict vegetarians, while others would have nothing but meat. The Big
Boys of the whole tribe were called the Sauropoda or reptile-footed
Dinosaurs. One of these, whose bones were found in Colorado, was
sixty-five feet long when complete, and he must have weighed around
twenty tons. His family nickname was Diplodocus or "Double Beam,"
because of his long, beam-like neck and his long, beam-like tail.
GENTLE MR. DIPLODOCUS AND HIS WAYS
Considering the reputation some of the other Dinosaurs had as bad
citizens, it is only fair to the Diplodocus to say that he was really a
gentle creature, and never disturbed anybody--unless somebody disturbed
him first. Then he would give them a switch with that tail of his,
and it was a switching they were not likely to forget. But his great
delight--indeed, his main occupation in life--was to sit deep in the
water, prop himself up with his great long tail, like a kangaroo, with
just his head out, like a turtle in a pond. Then he would strain little
water bugs and similar things through his teeth. He got his meals in
this way, very much as the whales do now.
And elephants! You ought to have seen some of the members of the
elephant family that arrived after the reptile age, the mammoths, for
instance. These huge creatures and many other strange animals were all
over the place. It was just like a circus day everywhere all the time.
Such elephants don't travel with circuses now, of course, because they
were all killed during that dreadful winter, but you can see them in
museums, all dressed in their skeletons and neatly held together with
wires.
[Illustration:
_From the mural painting by Charles R. Knight in the American
Museum of Natural History_
WHEN ELEPHANTS WORE UNDERCLOTHES
This painting on the walls of the American Museum of Natural
History in New York City shows herds of reindeer and mammoths in
the Ice Age. They didn't mind the cold as elephants do to-day,
because of their woolly underclothes. They fed on the shoots and
cones of those firs and pines. The reindeer, then as now, ate the
lichens we call "reindeer moss," first scraping away the snow with
their feet.
]
HOW THE MAMMOTHS PASSED AWAY
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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