Omaha daily bee., 1897-05-16

has since existed on the globe-no less than
100 feet in length, and perhaps twenty in
height. The thigh bone of one OF them was
about eight feet in length, and perhaps TWO
feet in diameter while the corresponding
bone OF the largest reptile of today, the
crocodile, Is about eight inches long. or
course, the creature that carried such a
bone must have been a very mountain Of
flesh. But what about his brain? There
was the rub OF brains he had, so to speak,
a mere thimbleful. The modern reptile has
none too full a supply; but as compared
with these ancient reptiles he is an intellect
ual giant. The ancient reptile depended
largely upon his spinal cord-that part or
the nervous mechanism which enables a
frog to crawl after its brain has been re-
moved, and a snake to wriggle when its
head has been cut off. Indeed, one of the
strange reptiles which Prof. Marsh discov-
cred recently has a cavity at the posterior
end of the spinal canal very much larger
than that in it's skull. II this cavity was
eally filled with nervous matter, the crea-
ture had its brain utterly misplaced, and
seemingly was destined to go through the
world wrong end foremost. What it did do,
of course. was to go out of the world
speedily when some better-brained COM
petitors came into competition with 1t.
REPTILES DOOMED.
And indeed that fate befell the entire race
of gigantic reptiles. Their spinal cords
served them a very good purpose so long
other; but presently mammals appeared and
spinal cords were at a discount. Some rep
tiles still persist to this day II Is true but
they are vastly more Intelligent creatures
than their ancestors, and. even so, are but
a mere handful as compared with the former
legions of their tribe. AS race, the rep
tiles were doomed from the day when ter
restrial creatures having better brains than
theirs came to compete with them. And
then. as we have seen, the early mammals
whose brains were better than those of rep
tiles were In turn displaced by later nam
mails having still better supply Of cranial
ganglia. And at last nun came. with the
best brain of all, and then 1t was only
matter OF time until all the creatures that
remained on the globe should be subor-
dinated to this new conuueror. The tooth
of the lion, the tusk OF the elephant the
fiuke of the whale were all equally unavail-
ing against weapons that the big brain OF
man enabled him to fashion. The age of
giant reptiles was succeeded by an age OF
giant mammals; and THAI In turn by the age
Of single smallish mammal called man,
whose sole natural advantage was that he
had a bigger brain than any of his pre-
decessors. A
But man himself did not come into his
realm at bound any more than one phalanx
after another OF his forbears had routed their
competitors at a single blow The geologist
tells Us OF human fossils that carry the his
tory OF our race back some hundreds of thou
sands of years and the men OF that early
day had no such brains as those which We,
their descendants, boast. The earliest fossil
that can lay claim to recognition as that of
our own clan Is that OF the ape-man which
DR.. Bubois discovered IN the rocks of Java
not long ago, and named Plthecanthropus.
This creature lived back in the tertiary time
his contemporaries being some OF the great
beasts we have already referred TO. But Il
had larger brain than any other creature