This discovery proved to be a graveyard of prehistoric monsters dating back probably several millions of years ago. Entombed in the rocks of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, many lizard-like animals of gigantic size called saurians were found. Several fossil skeletons of these animals have been chiselled out of the solid rocks and mounted in museums, the work entailing a vast amount of labor and expense. The discovery was made by Mr. Walter Granger, who had been sent out by the American Museum of Natural History, of New York, to hunt for fossils. In the desert section near Medicine Bow River, Wyoming, he found what seemed to be a number of dark-brown bowlders. On a critical examination they proved to be ponderous fossils that had been washed out of a great bed of reptilian remains. The fossil graveyard in question was found to be two hundred and seventy-five feet in thickness. Near by was a Mexican sheep-herder's cabin, the foundations of which were constructed of huge fossils. The vicinity was christened Bone Cabin Quarry. Ten miles south of the Bone Cabin Quarry, in the Como Bluffs, another bed containing the remains of huge dinosaurs was discovered. From these remarkable cemeteries many fossils have been obtained. The term saurian means "lizard," and it has many prefixes to indicate the different genera and species. The prefixes generally express to a certain extent the characteristic appearance or habits of the different kinds of saurians. Some were flesh-eaters; others were herbivorous. Some lived on land; others, in the shallow waters and lagoons, fed on succulent aquatic plants; still others frequented the deeper waters and lived on fish. [Illustration: _Property of the American Museum of Natural History_ The Brontosaurus (herbivorous dinosaur)] The name dinosaur, meaning terrible lizard, represents an order of fossil reptiles. They are allied to the crocodile, but, like the kangaroo, their hind legs were much longer than their front ones. The neck and tail were very long and the body short but of immense size. These monsters were from twenty to eighty feet in length and weighed from thirty to one hundred tons. The long, slender neck supported a small head that contained a correspondingly small brain, from which it is thought that the creature possessed a low order of intelligence. The tail was much thicker than the neck and in some species was flattened. When rising on its hind legs and resting on its tail it could look into the window of a four-story building. Some of these strange animals had bills like those of a duck; some possessed teeth for grinding and others sharp teeth for tearing. These were by far the largest land animals that ever lived. The different species often waged titanic battles with one another for the supremacy of the earth. It is conjectured that their disappearance was due to violent upheavals of the earth, to the draining of the water, to changes of climate, and to deprivation of suitable food.