NEW YORK, March 14.—(By NEA Service.)—Somewhere in the dismal swamps of Patagonia, South America, a lonesome plesiosaurus is suffering the bitter tragedy of living 20,000,000 years late.
    The proud, 15-foot neck of the gigantic marine reptile must be bowed in shame, for American experts have denied it admission to the best scientific circles.
    In other words, the American Museum of Natural History has been informed that a plesiosaurus of the Mesozoic order is now living in Patagonia and the officials have refused to extend the cheery welcome until better credentials are presented.
    Professor Clementi O'Neilli of the Buenos Ayres Zoological Garden is setting out with a large expedition to capture the animal alive or dead. Its presence in Large Esgue was reported by Martin Sheffield, an Englishman, prospecting in the Andes.
    Scientists of Northwestern and Chicago universities also are planning expeditions.     Dr. Frederic A. Lucas, director of the American Museum of Natural History, points out that the plesiosaurus lived about 20,000,000 years ago and ceased to exist when changing environment made such marine life impossible.
    H. G. Wells places the period in which the marine monster thrived between 260 and 26 millions of years ago, and says that “the abrupt ending of the marine reptile is beyond all question the must striking revolution in the whole history of the earth before the coming of man. If it is probably connected with the close of a vast period of equable warm conditions and the onset of a new austere age in which the winters were bitterer and the summers brief but hot.”     “Reported presence of these monsters, which lived millions of years ago, is always to be doubted,” says Dr. Lucas. “Only a short time ago there was the report of live mammoths in Alaska. This was proved false. Two years ago it was widely circulated that a brontosaurus, a monster 70 feet long and weighing 76,000 pounds, was living in the Belgian Congo. Investigators could not find it. The possible explanation for this report from Patagonia is that if—with a big IF—there are soft-shelled turtles in that vicinity, one was mistaken for a plesiosaurus. These turtles with their long, slim necks, swimming on the surface with the tops of their round backs exposed, would present such an appearance. Conditions which made life possible for the plesiosaurus do not continue. Fossil remains show they were plentiful in England and Germany; remains also have been found in Kansas.

From— East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR), 15 March 1922. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.