Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1897-05-15
SLOTH AND SCIENCE.
BONES OF THIS ANIMAL AID IN AN
IMPORTANT DISCOVERY.

tMFNln AN DlCIOVEhr.
A First Link In EvoIution-At First It
Emigrated TO South America-Ancient
Isthmus OF Panama.
One of the greatest mysteries of science
a 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 400, 900 years In another do
main of science, that which deals with the
monster animals of prehistoric times and
their life, some interesting conjectures, ac-
ceptea almost as a fixed belief, must be
dismissed when confronted by the clear
faets set forth with indisputable evidence
by Dr.. Workman.
1t proves, so DR.. Workman reasons, that
there was an isthmus of Panama half a
million years ago-not the neck of the
present day, but a predecessor, which in
the lapse of time came and disappeared.
strip of land which connects North and
South America is about $4,000 years old,
and that before that time there flowed
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
fragments of sloth teeth at Egerkingen,
Prussia.
How those great beasts were bred has
been unknown. That lack of knowledge
was serious defect in the chain of evil
dence proving the doctrine of evolution.
AS geologists resolutely held that during
the whole of the eocene period, which end
cd 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 other? 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
Gent 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 DR.. Workman. He gave brief technical
account in q memoir, and it has excited
world, upsetting, as it does, many theories
and throwing strong flashlight upon the
origin Of things. In another memoir, en-
titled "Ihe Ganodonta and Their Rela-
tionship to the Edentata,' Dr. Workman
describes his find more fully.
In q canyon / 600 feet high in the San
Juan basin, which is part of tho Bad
Lands Of New Mexico, he hit upon skulls
and fragmentary remains which in an in
slant, 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. Fhis discovery clears the 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 q 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, coo years ago, DIR. Workman
reckons the original sloth to whom that
skull belonged lived that many years in
The past. All the region thereabout was
covered by n great lake, which gradually
through the lapse of countless ages, be-
came filled by mud, stone and other matter
washed into it. The lowest cocene stratum
is mile and q half below the present
surface of the earth.
This skull is not that of the gigantic
sloth, but of his most primitive, clearly
defined ancestor, whose girth was about
that of bulldog-certainly not larger.
Here, then, was the sloths original home,
and here it first fourished. When this
moderate sized fellow died, its corpse be-
came Embedded 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 the time, its bones are
found hundreds of feet higher up in the
canyon. But there came a time when the
lake had risen so high that it overfowed
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 fiourished
and eyoluted until it became as other re-
mains found by DIR. Workman in higher
eocene deposits show, as large as a yearling
steer.
Then came sudden and most startling
change. At the close of the eocene period
deposits all traces of the sloth in North
America disappear abruptly and rcappear
in South America. This fact is full of the
deepest significance
1t means says DR.. Workman, that, not
withstanding the theories of geographers.
there was an isthmus between North and
South America 100000 years ago. Vol
canio 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
q grand emigration. The sloths went into
South America in great hordes. They
found things more congenial there, as the
climate in this country was changing rap
Idly from the tropical to the temperate
This isthmus, Dr. Workman reasons,
was temporary and doubtless existed for a
few hundred years. Then, due to volcanic
disturbances again, it disappeared and an
oceanic stretch interviewed until about 3d.
o00 years ago. when the isthmus Of the
present uprose from the water.-New York
Herald.
Shady.
81 hear You were mixed up in a rather
shady transaction last week.