Science: Three-eyed Mariner

In Harbury, England, is a limestone quarry which has served as a tomb for at least two denizens of primeval seas. Last February the fossil remains of a mammoth reptile were found there. Last week many a paleontologist hastened to Harbury to see another monstrous skeleton which had just been unearthed at only 300 yards distance from the first discovery.

The skeleton was thin, undulating, crumbling. The shattered bones of the gangling creature stretched 26 feet; projecting from the body were four chipped, broken appendages. These, the paleontologists decided, had been paddles. They noted with delight that the creature had had three eyes, the third in the middle of its small, narrow head. They classified it as a plesiosaurus,* a marine reptile which perished in the waters covering the spot perhaps 100 or 200 million years ago.

Scientists believe that three-eyed reptiles are at present extinct. The stagnodon, a little lizard found on small New Zealand islands appears to be three-eyed, but the middle eye is in reality only vestigial.†

*Not to be confused with the ichthyosaurus, another, larger reptile with a tremendous head, practically no neck, four complex flippers; nor with the famed giant dinosaur which often attained a length of 70 feet, whose four appendages were limbs adapted for land travel. †The pineal (glandular) body in the human brain, which is subtly related to certain conditions of obesity and certain sexual phenomena, is generally considered to be the vestige of a third eye.