Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-05

and had all creation pretty much to them
selves. Of this era likewise the Govern
ment has gathered together a vast quantity
of fossil relics. The face of the earth did
not look then at all as it appears now. Most
of what are now called the continents had
not been upheaved above the ocean; nearly
everywhere was sea, with comparatively
small land-masses elevated out of it. The
atmosphere was hot, moist and loaded with
carbonic acid, so as to be unbreathable.
In the ocean swan enormous armored
fish, such as the "Dinichthys," which was
15 feet long and had such tremendous jaws
and teeth that it could have bitten man in
two as easily as you would q radish. Later
on came sharks of the tiercest type, which
must have been as much as 20 feet in
length at least. The biggest tooth of a
man-eater of to-day is about an inch long,
while the teeth of these ancient sharks,
which are found in enormous numbers,
measure more than six inches. That was
the Golden Age of the scaly tribe.
Small Brains of the Reptiles.
The giant reptiles that appeared on the
scene in the subsequent epoch were remark
able for the smallness of their brain-cavi-
ties. In some of them the brain was so
small that it could have been passed with
out injury through all the vertebrae of the
spinal column down as far as the beginning
of the tail. All of them were wiped out Of
existence by the great cataclysm which up
heaved the Rocky Mountains, the Alps and
the Himalayas, and brought TO close the
'EMesozoic Epoch" Then came the age of
mammals, at the end of which we are now,
man being the last arrival on the scene
The age of monsters has pretty nearly
passed away, only few remaining, like the
elephant and the whale. Small animals
with plenty of sense will always survive
stupid giants in the long run, because they
require less food and know better how to
avoid danger. Observe in illustration how
the doom of extinction has fallen upon the
gigantic animals which roamed over the
earth by myriads only so short a time ago,
comparatively speaking. as the beginning of
the present era, called the "Cenoxic."
There was the 'Dinoceras, which lived in
herds about the lakes, as the deposits show
big as an elephant, but in appearance some
where between the rhinoceros and the hip
popotamus, with three pairs of horns on its
head and huge saber-like tusks that fitted
into sheaths in the lower jaw.
Some of the Real Mammals.
More imposing yet was the "Tinocoras,
somewhat similar of aspect and 16 feet long.
Not less impressive was the "Megatherium,"
or giant sloth, as large as two elephants,
which attained a measurement of 1Steet and
procured the leaves on which it fed by seat
ing itself upon its launches and uprooting
great trees. Of the "Dinotherium' no
complete skeleton has been discovered, but
it was doubtless the biggest land mammal
that ever lived A full grown skull of this
earliest of proboscidians, which had long
tusks as well as a trunk, measures five feet
from the point of the lower teeth to the top
of the head
The "Brontops," of elephantine size, had
a head like rhinoceros, with huge horns.
Quite as remarkable was the ''Sivatherium"
"a beast like an antelope, but big as an
elephant, with two conical horns on the
front OF its head and two immense spread
ing ones behind. Among birds were waders
10 feet in height, such as the "Dinornis"
and ''Gastornis." Contemporary with them
were the mammoth and the mastodon, the
woolly rhinoceros, armadillos 8 feet in
length, and the saber-toothed tiger, larger
than the greatest lion of to-day.
All that is left of these wonders of ami
NAL life is found in deposits such as those
of the Western lake beds. For years the
Government has been engaged in excavat-
ing their bones, which are now to make part
of what is destined to be the greatest ZOO
logical show on earth. RENE BACHE.