The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-07-19

The whale is as mysterious an ami
NAL as the ichthyosaurus. Once it
was believed that all the link-forms
that led to the whale and creatures
like it were in plain sight. All mann
mails that had adapted themselves to
oceanic life were simply thrown into
one great group of sea mammals"
Thus the whales went into the same
pot with the common, well-known
seals, and with a third-most peculiar
form of animal-the ungainly sea-cows,
famous as the creatures that give rise
TO the first stories of mermaids. Since
seals and sea-cows were so similar to
land animals, the seal especially re-
sembling certain beasts of prey, like
the sea otter and others, the bridge
seemed plain one.
But 1t was only a dream Of the old
''systems' of natural science.
To-day the sea animals" have
been separated into vastly different
species. The seals have actually
turned out to be true descendants of
beasts of prey which have nothing at
all to do with whales.
The sea-cows must be considered
now as being closely related to the
DOOd6u dDl1laiS Oh the ldnO. 1UelT
existence is to be explained on the
theory that genuine hoofed land ami
mails went into the water after the
manner of the living hippopotamus
and gradually accustomed themselves
to a complete life in the water by a
process of adaptation carried to an
extreme point.
The whales-dolphins and true whales
remain unexplained. And to this hour
w nf
mammals they can have descended.
Haeckel thinks that this group itself
must be separated into two branches
and must have descended from two
different sources. But where these
sources may be. he does not know
either. The whales appear all at once
AS did the ichthyosaurians, with the
one great difference that the whales
appeared just at the ichthyosaurians
disappeared.
The ichthyosaurians enlivened the
seas throughout the entire Jurassic Pc
Tiod. The Jurassic period was fol-
lowed by the Cretaceous or chalk pc
Rod. In It's remnants we find rem
nants of ichthyosaurians in all parts
of the world where the oceans rolled
their foods Then with the dawning
of the Tertiary period, the "spoor"
disappears totally.
The IchthyOsaur's Last Hour.
Animal bones in enormous masses
remain on the earth from that Ter
fiary period. But the ichthyosaurus
is missing totally. His hour must have
struck.
Instead of him, there appear, in the
first chapter of Tertiary times, great
mammals belonging to the whales.
What is it that drove the monster
eaurian. a model of perfect adaptation,
80 completely from the scene?
Such a question is as important for
true investigation as the puZZling ques-
ton. Whence came these wonderful
fcrms?" Why did splendidly fitted ami
NAL forms, that had spread themselves
over the whole globe, and that abso-
lutely ruled for long periods of time,
disappear as suddenly as If they had
been swallowed?
The most convenient solution would
be to say, of course, the time was full
filled, room had to be made in the
world seas for new creatures for the
time of the mammals had begun; so
the ichthyosaurians suddenly became
lame and decrepit-as elsewhere over
the single animal, so old age crept
over a whole animal world, and soon
the entire, once so powerful, race was
destroyed to the last one.
But young as our natural science
are, we have actually seen how species
die An in every such case there
were distinct, tangible reasons.
We know how the bird Dodo or Maui
ritus died Never again will he, whom
old Dutch menagerie owners fed and
showed in Holland fairs, ornament one
of our geological gardens. Dodo lived
on a lonely island in the Pacific ocean
He had no enemies there. No larger
land animal threatened him. That
must have been so for thousands of