The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1899-03-01
LlEE,s aeRIEF SPAN.
a Tortoise In london Geological GArdcns
the Old~st Thing Alive.

-
The statement by southern Kansas
paper that negro resides in Bourbon
county who he's attained the age OF 127
years recalls recent statement by the
London Spectator that the oldest living
.reature I'm the world occupies place In
the London Geological garden. 1t is a
giant tortoise weighing more than ton
and has record going back $50 years.
How much longer II has lived no one
knowa Commenting on tho long life
lived by this tortoise and by others, The
Spectator gives us tho following interest
Ing dissertation:
1.-THE structure Of the tortoises contrib
utes large share TO their pre-cminence in
length of life. Their bodies are spared the
whole Of that exhausting process OF col
lapse and expansion which we call breath
ing. The cruel wear and tear OF this in
cessant motion, involving work Of lungs,
muscles, ribs and air passages, unnoticed
In health, but one OF the most distressing
facts revealed by illness, does not fall on
the happy tortoise. His shell, backplato
and breastplate alike, Is as rigid as piece
OF concrete. He sucks in air by making
vacuum with his tongue and swallows it
like water the reservoir instead of a stom-
ach being his capacious lungs. In addi-
ton to this enormous saving of energy,
the tortoise enjoys two other structural
advantages He has no teeth to decay,
break, get out OF order and ultimately
starvc him to death, like those of an old
horse or broken toothed rabbit. Instead
he has sharp horny edges to his mouth,
which do not break or get out of order.
And, lastly, there is his impenetrable she'll.
In reference to this, sizo is OF a real advan-
tage,s for, though the small tortoise may
live for centuries w bishops gardens, they
have their enemies in the outer world.
Adjotant storks swallow them whole and
digest them, shelf and all, and in Cahfor-
MIA che golden eaeR carries them up to a
height and lets them fall on the rocks,
thereby smashing their shells, as the Sicil-
ian eagle was trying to do when he drop
ped the tortoise on the skull of 4Eschylus,
but when q tortoise grows to the weight OF
200 pounds there Is no living creature
which could injure 1t in any way As it
can swim il cannot drown. Its limbs are
so constructed as TO be little liable to frac-
ture, and its interior is so arranged that it
can fast for long periods, and has an in
ternal reservoir Of water, though 1t is nat
urally rather thirsty animal. Charles
Darwin, when among the giant tortoises of
the Galapagos islands, saw the newly
Matched young carried off by buzzarts,
but the full grown animals seemed beyond
the chance Of any danger. He surmised
that their deaths, when such took place,
where only due to accidents, such as fall
ing over precipices, and the inhabitants of
the islands oorroborated this conclusion p"
While this description of the tortoise is
entertaining the chief interest will revert
back 10 the apparently well founded claim
that $50 years Is the age OF the oldest liys
ing thing on earth, What brief span the
Almighty has allotted to his creatures in
q world that rolls on forever kansas
City Journal.