Dragons Teeth Crichton 2017 (WWT)

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“Of these rocks?” Johnson asked, astonished. “Rocks? You think these are rocks? They are nothing of the sort.” “Then what are they?” “They are teeth!” Cope exclaimed. Cope touched one, and traced with his finger the gentle hills and indentations of the cusp pattern. He placed the two he held next to each other, then found a third at Johnson’s feet and set it in a row with the other two; it was clear from their similarity in size and form that they went together. “<strong>Teeth</strong>,” he repeated. “Dinosaur teeth.” “But they are enormous! This dinosaur must be of fantastic size.” For a moment the two men silently contemplated just how large such a dinosaur must have been— the jaw needed to hold rows of such large teeth, the thick skull needed to match such a massive jaw, the enormous neck the width of a stout oak to lift and move such a skull and jaw, the gigantic backbone commensurate to the neck, with each vertebra as big around as a wagon wheel, with four staggeringly huge and thick legs to support such a beast. Each tooth implied an enormity of every bone and every joint. An animal that large might even need a long tail to counterweight its neck, in fact. Cope stared across the rocky expanse and beyond, into his own imagination and knowledge. For a moment his usual ferocious confidence gave way to quiet wonder. “The full creature must be at least twice the dimensions of any previously known,” he said, almost to himself. They had already made several discoveries of large dinosaurs, including three examples of the genus Monoclonius, a horned dinosaur that resembled a gigantic rhinoceros. Monoclonius sphenocerus, one of the specimens, was estimated by Cope to stand seven feet tall at the hip joint, and to be twenty-five feet long, including the tail. Yet this new dinosaur was far larger than that. Cope measured the teeth with his steel calipers, scratched some calculations on his sketch pad, and shook his head. “It doesn’t seem possible,” he said, and measured again. And then he stood looking across the expanses of rock, as if expecting to see the giant dinosaur appear before him, shaking the ground with each step. “If we are making discoveries such as this one,” he said to Johnson, “it means that we have barely scratched what is possible to learn. You and I are the first men in recorded history to glimpse these teeth. They will change everything we think we know about these animals, and much as I hesitate to say such a thing, man becomes smaller when we realize what remarkable beasts went before us.” Johnson saw then that all that was done in Cope’s mission—all that even he, Johnson, did now— would have meaning to scientists in the future. “Now, your camera,” Cope reminded him. “We must record this moment and place.” Johnson went off to collect his equipment, from the flat plains above. When he returned, careful not to fall, Cope was still shaking his head. “Of course you can’t be sure from teeth alone,” he said. “Allometric factors may be misleading.” “How big do you make it?” Johnson asked. He glanced at the sketch pad, now covered with calculations, some scratched out and done again. “Seventy-five, possibly one hundred feet long, with a head perhaps thirty feet above the ground.” And right there he gave it the name, Brontosaurus, “thundering lizard,” because it must have thundered when it walked. “But perhaps,” he said, “I should call it Apatosaurus, or ‘unreal lizard.’ Because it is hard to believe such a thing ever existed . . .” Johnson took several plates, up close and from farther away, with Cope in all of them. They hurried back to camp, told the others of their discovery, and then in the fading twilight paced out the dimensions of Brontosaurus—a creature as long as three horse-drawn wagons, and as tall as a four-
story building. It made the imagination run wild. It was altogether astonishing, and Cope announced that “this discovery alone justifies our entire time in the West,” and that they had made “a momentous discovery, in these teeth. These are,” Cope said, “the teeth of dragons.” The trouble the teeth would soon cause them, they could not have imagined.
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Contents Cover Endpaper Title Page
Page 6 and 7:
Introduction As he appears in an ea
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Young Johnson Joins the Field Trip
Page 10 and 11:
Marsh Professor Marsh kept offices
Page 12 and 13:
The name had an extraordinary effec
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Learning Photography Johnson wanted
Page 16 and 17:
Philadelphia Philadelphia was the b
Page 18 and 19:
puffed-up, brave, and determined to
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“Really? Most families wish to me
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wealthy Quaker merchant, left him m
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“I have made inquiries about that
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informed of this by Red Cloud himse
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Going West The Chicago and North We
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The West Beyond Omaha the real West
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town, it was, noted Johnson, “a c
Page 34 and 35: The Pride De Paree Theater was a tw
Page 36 and 37: “I’ll be back, though.” “Wh
Page 38 and 39: “Oh yes, Mr. Johnson,” said the
Page 40 and 41: Cope’s Expedition It was immediat
Page 42 and 43: Established thirty years before, Sa
Page 44 and 45: e rejoining her husband; indeed, sh
Page 46 and 47: His personal style—his long curly
Page 48 and 49: Part II The Lost World
Page 50 and 51: He was awake for each changing of t
Page 52 and 53: Incidents on the Plains In the midd
Page 54 and 55: Sternberg went out and shot an ante
Page 56 and 57: Badlands The Judith River, a tribut
Page 58 and 59: “I said, ‘I bid you welcome and
Page 60 and 61: that the nomadic Indian lives a fre
Page 62 and 63: Bone Country With these preliminary
Page 64 and 65: potential discoveries lying in wait
Page 66 and 67: cooks it,” Isaac grumbled). Rathe
Page 68 and 69: In 1871, Lord Kelvin, the most emin
Page 70 and 71: Bad Water Cope chose his campsites
Page 72 and 73: They rode on. The sun dropped behin
Page 74 and 75: Dinner with Cope and Marsh The sear
Page 76 and 77: “Very true.” “Though you neve
Page 78 and 79: “Sleep with Your Guns Tonight, Bo
Page 80 and 81: Moving Camp In early August, they w
Page 82 and 83: “Just wait and see,” Cookie sai
Page 86 and 87: Around the Campfire Any discovery l
Page 88 and 89: Leaving the Badlands The morning of
Page 90 and 91: I am dreadfully ashamed of what occ
Page 92 and 93: Part III Dragon Teeth
Page 94 and 95: they reach us.” “You boys go ri
Page 96 and 97: Badlands Silence, under a waning mo
Page 98 and 99: Little Wind said nothing. “What a
Page 100 and 101: Deadwood Deadwood presented a bleak
Page 102 and 103: he thought. Then he finished fillin
Page 104 and 105: Laramie and Cheyenne?” “That’
Page 106 and 107: “He moved old Jake when the carri
Page 108 and 109: “So I expect you’ll have to get
Page 110 and 111: The Black Hills Art Gallery “How
Page 112 and 113: But it was also the beginning of tr
Page 114 and 115: His whole manner changed. “Then y
Page 116 and 117: For his part, Black Dick claimed to
Page 118 and 119: “I got to pack,” Johnson said,
Page 120 and 121: No one in town who knew Dick would
Page 122 and 123: already been to Montana City and Cr
Page 124 and 125: “Fossil bones are rock.” “The
Page 126 and 127: Emily’s News “It’s no good,
Page 128 and 129: All around him, the hotel was silen
Page 130 and 131: “I am sure of it,” the judge sa
Page 132 and 133: “Yes. Ling Chow has tool shed, ve
Page 134 and 135:
A Shootout Black Dick showed up in
Page 136 and 137:
Keep your eyes on him. Never take y
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had hired Kang to help him again, s
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Deadwood for the winter, but said t
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“Only a damn fool would think so,
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Johnson and Miss Emily ducked down.
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Red Canyon They reached the town of
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Fort Laramie Fort Laramie was an ar
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“Well, you’ve just come from De
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“How can you say that? Look at hi
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other pursuits of no substance.”
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“Of course.” “Really?” “D
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“I don’t see why not. She says
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At eight the next morning, feeling
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His father embraced him warmly. “
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Postscript Cope Edward Drinker Cope
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Author’s Note “Biography,” ob
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Afterword Michael’s dedication to
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Taft, Robert. Photography and the A
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Also by Michael Crichton Fiction Th
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Copyright This book is a work of fi
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* Editor’s note: Charles H. Stern
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Dragons Teeth Crichton 2017 (WWT)

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