The Washington times., 1919-05-04
Barely Lost
Their Tails

bone of giant Bl0th In the SANDS O
l the great beach ct Long Branch
New JERSEY, has called general attention
TO the fact that 90 immense deposit Of
skeletal fragments Of prehistoric monsters
lies there. Many Of these remains have 81
ready been BaivaRed, and now science de-
,.lares that there n probably no spot on
earth richer in eVidsnees Of q continued
panorama of varied animal forms than this
Atlantic aeab0afd area.
Long Branch, IN fact, seems to have been
a popular Summer resort for at least
4,Oe0, 900 yeafsl
It would Sc psrfsetly possible to begin
northern centre Of the workshop Of eyolu-
ton In North America, where assembled
from time 10 time groups Of the majority
ot all the myriad and strange forms OF
prehistoric life Of which there iB any
record on this continent
Il would Be readily possible TO begin
with fossil she'll Of q mOllu3k Of the Silur.
Ian age, twenty million years ago, aud run.
ming down the ages from II, catalogue most
of the types Of American anphibians, rep
tiles, mammals and birds now extinct as
having at one time or another enjoyed the
surf and salt breeEes Of Long Branch.
: But what b perhaps most interesting to
the layman is the fact that from the f0s-
sils recently found science is able TO recon
StTuct perfectly the life on the beach two
hundred thousand years ago-when man
WAS there to see It; the first real American
pIen who had only comparatively recently
lost their tails.
! Three million years before that the dOmi-
nant reptile of earth, dinophiS, one Of~the
most gigantic and terrible Of the snakes Of
the earth's youth, lived and hOuTished
there. But on the yesterday Of which we
are speaking dinophis had long gone the
way Of other monsters and was not there to
spoil the moonlight nights Of the Long
Branchers.
But there were enough interesting-and
what would be to us amazingly Odd-cTea-
lures to keep the primitive Long Branch
dweller thoughtful.
Safely hidden in some corner, while his
Wite-no doubt as safely hidden as he
was milking one of the giant slOths, the
discovery Of whose bones has called forth
this article, he would have seen tramplng
\ down to the surf great red-haired nam
moths, droves Of horses ranging In size
from our smallest burros to the largest
draught horses, fierce little peccaries with
long, twitching noses, very extraordinary
looking creatures with the necks of gi-
RATES. and heads of camels; bears as large
as oxeu, and wolves as small as pigs. He
WOulQ nave CT6pL ClOS6T 10 MS SuelL6I dh
q huge brown cat, big as a grizzly with q
long curved fang shining on each side Of
its mouth, skunk by. After having viewed
This panorama he would, if he could, slip
Stack to his wife to find the milking over,
the domesticated sloth-twenty-five feet
long from tip TO tip-safely tethered up for
the night and the equivalent of the milk
f,Om ten good Jersey COWS steaming in
That ages equivalent Of milk pals.
- All these things, so strange to us, would
have seemed perfectly natural to the
'iPleistocene American. II he could have
been touched with clairvoyance and in a
r'ream have beheld the same beach to-day,
hlled with men and women of varying
grades Of grace and beauty and in varying
costumes, a hydroplane or two buzzing
over the breakers, the great steel pier
stretching out into the ocean, launches
skipping hither and yon-or at night the
electric lights blazing-he would have
awakened as from a nightmare, screaming
Tor help.
The bones Of the sloth that have again
put Long Branch in world limelight are
now on exhibition at the American Museum
of Natural History, New York They were
presented to the institution by DR.. A. R.