The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-01-18
USE OF SWAMPS,
The Eervlce Which These Much Abused
Spots Have Done to Science.

The Service Which These Much Abused
Spots Have Done to Science.
1t would perhaps be difficult to fird
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-
ginia, 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-
esqueness of 'such marshy regions, and
the curiosities 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 etfectually served the
cause of science by preserving the re-
mains of some of the most remarka BILE
of the former inhabitants 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 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 many thousands of years ago.
In Ireland the ancient swamps were
equally efficacious 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 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 We're 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 swamps
| have yielded other remains of extinct
animals, hardly less interesting than
the huge bird, the .epiornis, itself
| These are the skeletons of creature
resembling a 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 a 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 ther
living would have the same reason fol
rejoicing that that swamp had existed
| that we have for being thankful fol
the revelations contained in the
swamps of ancient days.-Youth' Com
no Mi