If I were, at about age twenty as a budding paleozoologist and paleoartist, handed a copy of this book by a mysterious time traveler, I would have been shocked as well as delighted. The pages would reveal a world of new dinosaurs and ideas that I barely had a hint of or had no idea existed at all. My head would spin at the revelation of the therizinosaurs such as the wacky feathered Beipiaosaurus and at the biplane flying dromaeosaurids, not to mention the little halszkaraptors with their duck-like beaks, or the oversized shoulder spines of Gigantspinosaurus, the neck spines of Amargasaurus, the brow horns and atrophied arms of bulldog-faced Carnotaurus,

The remains of ancient sea reptiles have been found by humans for millennia and may have helped form the basis for belief in mythical beasts, including dragons and sea serpents. In the prescientific West the claim in the Genesis creation story that the planet and all life were formed just two or three thousand years before the great Egyptian pyramids were built hindered the scientific study of fossils.

Pterosaur remains have been found by humans for millennia and may have helped form the basis for belief in mythical beasts, including winged dragons. In the prescientific West, the claim in the Genesis creation story that the planet and all life were formed just two or three thousand years before the great Egyptian pyramids were built hindered the scientific study of fossils. The discovery and subsequent detailed illustration of the virtually complete and articulated skull and skeleton of the small Pterodactylus found in fine-grained Lagerstätte sediments of Bavaria in the late 1700s began modern pterosaur paleozoology decades before the discovery of teeth and a few bones led to the recognition of land-bound dinosaurs in the 1820s. The strange pterodactyl skeleton posed a major problem for early science because it was still thought that major extinctions had not occurred. The creature had a hyperelongated single finger, which was radically different from the feathery airfoils of birds and also uite distinctive from the multifingered wings of bats. Nor did the very long, spike-toothed jaws belong to either group. <...>

Since the first edition of the "Principles of Economic Geology" appeared in 1918, great progress has been made in the subject. In the preparation of this, the second edition, it was desired to bring the general treatment and the descriptions of mining districts up to date and at the same time not to increase greatly the size of the book. To do this the descriptions have been cut down where possible and the number of maps and other illustrations has been increased considerably. It is believed that this is desirable because most geologists find maps and sections easier to read and often more illuminating than long descriptions. The number of footnote references has been greatly increased.

The text has been completely reset and rewritten. A few illustrations appearing in the first edition have been retained, but nearly all those appearing in the second edition are new. The number of illustrations is increased from 210 to 329.