The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1897-06-12
SLOTH AND SCIENCE.
BONES OF THIS ANIMAL AID IN AN
IMPORTANT DISCOVERY.

Emigrated to South America-Ancient
Isthmus of Panama.
One of the greatest mysteries Of science,
perplexity that has harassed the minds
of the foremost scientists, stands explained
by discovery recently made by DIR. S. L.
Workman of the department of paleontol-
ogy in the American Museum of Natural
History. BY it geographers must change
theories that have prevailed as unchange-
able and alter their reckonings in one in
stance by 100000 years. In another do
main of science that which deals with the
monster animals of prehistoric times and
their life, some interesting conjectures, ac-
copied almost as fixed belief, must be
dismissed when confronted by the clear
facts set forth with indisputable evidence
by DR. Workman.
1t proves, so DIR. Workman reasons, that
there was an isthmus of Panama half
million years ago-not the neck of tho
present day, but predecessor, which in
tho lapse of time came and disappeared.
| GcographCrs have contcnded that the thin
strip of land which connects North and
South America is about 80, 600 years old,
and that before that time there flowed u
| sheet of water 20 miles wide between the
two continents.
1t shows that those huge sluggards, the
gigantic sloths as large as an elephant,
came from what are now the southwestern
portions of the United States, and not
| from South America. But all traces of
these animals were confined almost ex-
| clusively to South America. Now and
then skeleton has been found elsewhere
IA few remains in this country and some
e. 4
| Prussia.
How those great beasts were bred has
been unknown. That lack of knowledge
was a serious defect in the chain of evil
dence proving the doctrine of evolution.
As biologists resolutely held that during
the whole of the cocene period, which end
ed several hundred thousand years ago,
there was absolutely no land connection
between North and South America, how
could animals emigrate from one continent
to the othery Some biologists have enter
| tanned the belief that they originated in
North America, which then was tropical,
| and marched to Alaska, then over the an
| cient land bridge which connected that
country with ASIA then strobe into Eu-
rope, later visiting Africa, and finally
marched across a sunken antarctic CONT
nent to South America.
The true solution of this profound prob
lem was discovered in the San Juan basin,
in the northwestern part of New Mexico,
by DIR. Workman. He gave u brief technical
account in memoir and it has excited
much interest among scientists all over the
world, upsetting, as it does, many theories
and throwing u strong flashlight upon the
| origin of things. In another memoir, en-
titled 1.-The Ganodonta and Their Rela-
1t,
describes his find moro fully.
In canyon 1000 feet high in the San
Juan basin, which is part of the Bad
Lands of New Mexico, he hit upon skulls
and fragmentary remains which in an in
stant as it were, revealed the tale of the
sloth and armadillo tribe, how they grad
| ually evoluted from smallness to mon
strous proportions and how they emigrat-
ed. This discovery clears tho long obscured
point of the origin and descent of the en-
tire sloth group and brings it back into
the closest relationship with other orders
of mammals
Deep down in that canyon he disinterred
one skull and foot lying in the lowest
eocene stratum in North America. Now, as
this particular layer of sediment which
later turned into stone, was deposited not
less than 500, 600 years ago, DR. Workman
reckons the original sloth to whom that
skull belonged lived that many years in
the past All the region thereabout was
covered by IA great lake, which gradually,
through the lapse of countless ages, be-
came filled ty mud, stone and other matter
washed into it. The lowest eocene stratum
is "A mile and half below the present
surface of the earth.
This skull is not that of the gigantic
r1p httt ~ h 10 al ,,1x,
defined ancestor, whose girth was about
that of IA bulldog-certainly not larger.
Here, then, was the sloth's original home,
and here it first flourished. When this
moderate sized fellow died, its corpse be-
came imbedded in the muddy bottom of
the lake. Tens Of thousands of years after
this another sloth passed away, and its
body tumbled into the lake and sank. This
one was larger than the other, and as the
lake kept rising all tho time, its bones are
found hundreds OF feet higher up In the
canyon. But there came u time when the
lake had risen so high that 1t overlooked
and disappeared. The mud that had ac-
cumulated in its bottom gradually turned
into sandstone. In this, water through an
almost endless procession of years cut its
way, and so formed the canyon in the
depths of which DR.. Workman was enabled
to grasp the evidence scientists so long
have sought.
Thus the first known ancestor of the
sloth has been placed and indisputably had
his origin here and nowhere else. Through
the whole of the vast eocene period, which
ended 500, 900 years ago, the sloth tlourished
and eyoluted until it became as other re-
mains found by DIR. Workman In higher
eocene deposits show, as large as yearling
steer.
Then came u sudden and most startling
change. At the close of the eoceno period
deposits all traces Of the sloth in North
America disappear abruptly and reappear
in South America. This fact is full of the
deepest significance.
1t MEANS says DIR. Workman, that, not
outstanding the theories of geographers,
there was an isthmus between North and
South America 100000 years ago. Vol
canic disturbances all of q sudden closed
the watery gap between the continents, and
over this land bridge the animals from the
| United States and Mexico made gradually