Note 9 — Chapter IV

A few miles from the Pacific Ocean, and at the foot of a mountain called by the Shoshones the Dwelling of the Monster, were found the remains of an immense lizard belonging to an extinct family of the saurian species. Within a few inches of the surface, and buried in a bed of shells and petrified fish, our old missionary, Padre Antonio, digged up fifty-one vertebræ quite whole and well preserved. They were mostly from twelve to eighteen inches in length and from eight to fourteen inches in diameter, measuring in all more than fifteen feet in length. Of the tail and neck but few vertebræ were found, but there were many fragments of the ribs and of the leg-bones. All the vertebræ were discovered in a continuous line, nearly joined together. The head, to correspond with other parts of the animal, must have been twelve or fourteen feet long, which would have given to the monster the almost incredible length of eighty feet. The Prince Seravalle, while digging, in the fall of the year 1834, for an ammunition store on the western banks of the Buona Ventura, picked up a beautiful curved ivory tusk, three feet long, which, had it not been for its jet black colour, would have been amazingly alike to that of a large elephant. Some pieces of it (for unhappily it was sawn into several parts) are now in the possession of the governor of Monterey and Mr. Lagrange, a Canadian trader, who visited the territory in 1840.