The photographs of American Museum specimens are by Mr. A.E. Anderson;
the field photographs by various Museum expeditions; the restorations
by Mr. Charles R. Knight. Most of these illustrations have been
published elsewhere by Professor Osborn, Mr. Brown and others. The
diagrams, figs. 1-9, 24, 25, 37 and 40, are my own.
W. D. M.
CHAPTER I.
THE AGE OF REPTILES.
ITS ANTIQUITY, DURATION AND SIGNIFICANCE IN GEOLOGIC HISTORY.
Palaeontology deals with the History of Life. Its time is measured in
geologic epochs and periods, in millions of years instead of
centuries. Man, by this measure, is but a creature of yesterday--his
"forty centuries of civilization"[1] but a passing episode. It is by
no means easy for us to adjust our perspective to the immensely long
spaces of time involved in geological evolution. We are apt to think
of all these extinct animals merely as prehistoric--to imagine them
all living at the same time and contending with our cave-dwelling
ancestors for the mastery of the earth.
In order to understand the place of the Dinosaurs in world-history, we
must first get some idea of the length of geologic periods and the
immense space of time separating one extinct fauna from another.
_The Age of Man._ Prehistoric time, as it is commonly understood, is
the time when barbaric and savage tribes of men inhabited the world
but before civilization began, and earlier than the written records on
which history is based.
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