The St. Johns herald., 1894-03-08
GIANTS IN SWAMPS.
Mastodons That Have Been Un-
 earthed in Marshy Regions.
How Scientific Research Has Been Aided by the Discovery of Extinct Birds and Animals in Wet
 I-naz


 It would perhaps be difficult to find anybody who would speak a good word for swamps. The man who drains one and turns its marshy surface into productive soil is universally re- garded as public benefactor. So the projected draining of the Dismal swamp in Virginia and the Okefenokee swamp of Georgia is regarded only with favor, and few could be found to regret the disappearance of these re- markable features of our American landscapes, says Youths Companion.
 Yet, setting aside the strange picturesqueness of such marshy regions and the curiosities of plant life which they exhibit, it is easy to show that swanps have been useful in manner that could hardly have been antici- pated. They have very effectually served the cause of science by pre- serving the remains of some of the most remarkable of the former in habitants of the earth.
 Here in America the skeletons of several mastodons have been found irnbedded in ancient swamps, and so perfectly preserved that no difficulty whatever has been encountered in re- storing the bones to their normal po- sition, setting the skeletons on their feet and thus exhibiting to the eyes of modern man the monster animals which were probably familiar sights to our ancestors nobody knows how many thousands of years ago.
 In Ireland the ancient swamps were equally efficacious in preserving for us the gigantic ellzs which became mired in them.
 Swamps have proved no less useful agents of science in other parts of 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 Sindbad? Just such bones have been discovered 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 fourished in the southern hemisphere.
 Lately these Madagascar swamps 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. It is said that man was responsible for the de- struction and disappearance of this creature. If so it was probably a sim pie case of brains against brute force.
 There is reason for thinking that still other discoveries remain to be made in dagascar-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 a remote future age the only remains of some animal like the bison or the tiger, now rapidly becom- ing extinct. The men of science then 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.