The Irish standard., 1894-01-06
GIANTS IN y w AN rs.
n9astodons That Have Been On
earthed In Marshy hegions.
now Scientific Research Has Been Aided
~, the Discovery Of Extinct Birds
and Animals In Wet
Land0

It would perhaps be difficult to find
ANYBODY who would speak a good
word for swamps. The man who
drains one and turns it's marshy surface
tito productive soil is universally re-
garded as public benefactor. So the
projected draining Of the Dismal
S, amp in Virginia and the Okefenokee
s. amp of Georgia is regarded only
It'll favor, and few could be found to
n grot the disappearance of these re-
n:arkable features of our American
landscapes, says Youths Companion.
Yet, setting aside the strange
T Consequences of such marshyregion
End the curiosities of plant life which
they exhibit. it is easy to show that
evamps have been useful in a manner
that could hardly have been antici-
pated. They have very effectually
terved 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
Embedded 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 tho ancient SyNarnNS were
equally eficacious in preserving for us
the gigantic elks 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 a 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 largerand 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 a lemur If gigantic size,
but remarkable for thu small quantity
of brains which it possessed. 1t is said
that man was respon eible for the de-
str,1ction and disappearance Of this
creature. If SO it was probably a sim
pie case Of brains against brute force.
There is reason fos thinking that
still other discoveries remain to be
made in Madagascar discoveries that
will possibly bring IT, light even more
Interesting facts concerning the former
hnha bitants of that p;>rt of the world.
Suppose one of Or swamps, which
VIC regard as utterly useless, should
preserve to a remote future age the
emily remains of some animal like the
bison or the tiger, now rapidly becom-
Ding extinct. The M IN of science then
living would have tt same reason for
rejoicing that that swamp had existed
that we have for Icing thankful for
the revelations contained in the
swamps of ancient days.