The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-01-23
USE OF SWAMPS.
The Service Which These Much Abused
Spots Have Done to Science.

The Service which These Much Abused
Spots Have Done to Science.
It would perhaps be difficult to find
anybody who would speak good word
for swamps The man who drains one
and turns its marshy surface into pro-
ductive soil is universally regarded as
a public benefactor. So the projected
draining Of the Dismal swamp, Of Vir-
GINA, and The Okefenokee swamp, OF
Georgia, is regarded only with favor,
and few could be found to regret the
disappearance of those remarka BILE
features of our American landscapes.
Yet, setting aside the strange pictur-
sequences Of such marshy regions, and
tne cnriosities of plant life which they
exhibit, it is easy to show that swamps
have been useful in manner that
could hardly have been anticipated.
They have very effectually served the
cause of science by preserving the re-
mains of some of the most remarkable
Of the former inhabitants of the earth.
Here in America the skeletons OF
several lnastodons have been found
embedded in ancient swamps, and sc
perfectly preserved that no difficulty
whatever has been encountered in re-
storing the bones to their normal posi-
ton, setting the skeletons on their
feet, and thus exhibiting to the eyes
of modern men the monster animals
which were probably familiar sights
to our ancestors nobody knows just
how E;aay thousands of years ago.
In Tra1 OVID LA
equally ef.icacious in preserving for US
the gigantic elks which became mired
in them.
Swamps have proved no less useful
agents OF science in other parts or the
world. and particularly in Australia,
New Zealand and Madagascar. What
could be more interesting than the
bones of giant bird which was in all
probability the roc described by Sind.
bad? Just such bones have been dis
covered in the marshes of Madagascar
and New Zealand, and there is plenty
of evidence that the great birds which
owned them were the contemporaries
of men in the past history of those
islands. But for the swamps we might
have remained ignorant of the fact that
birds with legs larger and heavier than
those Of the largest horse once flour.
ished in the southern hemisphere.
Lately these Madagascar swamp:
have yielded other remains of extinct
animals, hardly less interesting than
the huge bird, the epiornis, itself.
These are the skeletons of a creature
resembling lemur of gigantic size.
but remarkable for the small quantity
of brains which it possessed. 1t is said
that there is evidence that man was
responsible for the destruction and dis.
appearance of this creature. If so il
was probably simple case of brains
against brute force.
There is reason for thinking that
still other discoveries remain to be
made in Madagascar, discoveries that
will possibly bring to light even more
interesting facts concerning the former
inhabitants of that part of the world
Suppose one Of our swamps, which
we regard as utterly useless, should
preserve to remote future age the
only remains of some animal like the
bison or the tiger, now rapidly becom.
ing extinct The men of science Their
living would have the same reason for
rejoicing that that swamp had existed,
that we have for being thankful for
the revelations contained in the
swamps OF ancient days.-Iouth's Com,
Danion