The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1893-12-29

2Iephaats Of the Tertiary Period Monsters
E beside Those of To-day.
compared with their nxtinct allies of
earlier periods of the earth's history, Il
may be laid down ss general rule that
the large animals of the present day nre
decidedly inferior In point of size. Dur
ing the later portion of tho tertiary period,
fforinftnnec; before The tncoi8ili8 Of tho
giaciaf epoch, when mammals appear 10
have attained their maximum develop
ment, there lived elephants alongside Of
which ordinary individuals OF the existing
species wpIld have looked almost dwarfs,
while the cave bear and the cave hyena
attained oonAiderably larger dimensions
than their living representatives, and some
Of the sabcr toothed tigers must have
been considerably larger than the biggest
African lion or Bengal tiger.
Agatn, the remains of red deer, bison
and wild oxen, disintcrred from the cavern
and other superficial deposits of this coun-
try, indicate animals far superior in size
70 their degenerate descendants Of the pres
ent dhy, whilc some OF tho extinct pigs
from the 6iwalik hills of northern India
might bs compared In stature TO a tapir
rather than to an ordinary wild boar The
same story Is told by reptiles, the giant
tortoise Of the Siwalik hills, in spite of its
dimensions having been considerably ex-
aggerated, greatly exceeding In size the
largest living giant tortoise of either the
Mascarene or the Galapagos islands. The
latter rocks have also yielded the remains
OF long shouted crocodile, allied to the
gavial of the Ganges, which probably
measured from 30 to co feet in length,
whereas 1t is doubtful il any existing
member Of the order exceeds half the
smaller of these dimensions. IL, moreover,
We took intoaccount totally extinct types,
such IA thcmegatheres and myIodons Of
South America, and contrasted them with
their nearest living allicsZfn this instance
the sloths and ant eaters--the discrepancy
In size would be still more marked, but
such q. comparison would scarcely be ana
logous to the above.
TO every rule there Is, however, an cx-
ception, and there are few groups Of liv-
ing large mammals whose existing mem
bers appear never to have been surpassed
In e,by their fossil relatives. Foremost
among these are the whales, which now
appear to include the largest members of
the order which have ever existed. The
so called white or square mouthed rhi-
noceros OF South Africa seems also to be
fully equal In size to any of it's extinct an
cestors, and the same is certainly true OF
the giraffe, which may even exceed ell it's
predecessors in this respect. Whether,
however, The fossil giraffes were or were
not the equals in height of the largest in
dividuals of the living species, there is no
question but that tho latter is by far the
tallest of all living mammals, and that it
was only rivaled in this respect among cx-
tinct forms by its aforesaid ancestors.
Moreover, IL we exclude creatures like some
OF the gigantic dinosaurian reptiles of the
secondary epoch. which, so TO speak, gain
ed an unfair advantage as regards height
by sittingup onstheir hind legs in kan
garoolikcpnanner. and limit our oompari-
son to such as walk on all four feet in the
good old fashioned way, we shall find that
girafies are not only the tallest mammals,
but likewise the tallest OF all animals that
have ever existed. knowledge.