f that
remarkable land. Of personal adventures he said little, but laid
stress upon the rich harvest reaped by Science in the observations of
the wonderful beast, bird, insect, and plant life of the plateau.
Peculiarly rich in the coleoptera and in the lepidoptera, forty-six new
species of the one and ninety-four of the other had been secured in the
course of a few weeks. It was, however, in the larger animals, and
especially in the larger animals supposed to have been long extinct,
that the interest of the public was naturally centered. Of these he
was able to give a goodly list, but had little doubt that it would be
largely extended when the place had been more thoroughly investigated.
He and his companions had seen at least a dozen creatures, most of them
at a distance, which corresponded with nothing at present known to
Science. These would in time be duly classified and examined. He
instanced a snake, the cast skin of which, deep purple in color, was
fifty-one feet in length, and mentioned a white creature, supposed to
be mammalian, which gave forth well-marked phosphorescence in the
darkness; also a large black moth, the bite of which was supposed by
the Indians to be highly poisonous. Setting aside these entirely new
forms of life, the plateau was very rich in known prehistoric forms,
dating back in some cases to early Jurassic times. Among these he
mentioned the gigantic and grotesque stegosaurus, seen once by Mr.
Malone at a drinking-place by the lake, and drawn in the sketch-book of
that adventurous American who had first penetrated this unknown world.
He described also the iguanodon and the pterodactyl--two of the first
of the wonders which they had encountered. He then thrilled the
assembly by some account of the terrible carnivorous dinosaurs, which
had on more than one occasion pursued members of the party, and which
were the most formidable of all the creatures which they had
encountered. Thence he passed to the huge and ferocious bird, the
phororachus, and to the great elk which still roams upon this upland.
It was not, however, until he sketched the mysteries of the central
lake that the full interest and enthusiasm of the audience were
aroused. One had to pinch oneself to be sure that one was awake as one
heard this sane and practical Professor in cold measured tones
describing the monstrous three-eyed fish-lizards and the huge
water-snakes which inhabit this enchanted sheet of water. Next he