o?i the gigantic Fossil Tortoiset Colossochelys Atlas. 535 



applies to the existing Emys tectum, now a common species found 

 in all parts of India. A very perfect fossil specimen, presenting 

 the greater part of the evidence of the dermal scutes, is undistin- 

 guishable from the living forms, not varying more from these than 

 they do among each other. Prof. Thomas Bell, the highest living 

 authority on the family, after a rigid examination, confirms the result 

 at which we had arrived, that there are no characters shown by the 

 fossil to justify its separation from the living Emys tectum. There 

 are other cases which appear to yield similar results, but the evidence 

 has not yet been sufficiently examined to justify a confident affir- 

 mation of the identity at present. 



" The remains of the Colossochelys were collected during a period 

 of eight or nine years along a range of eighty miles of hilly country : 

 they belong in consequence to a great number of different animals, 

 varying in size and age. From the circumstances under which they 

 are met with, in crushed fragments, contained in elevated strata 

 which have undergone great disturbance, there is little room for hope 

 that a perfect shell, or anything approaching a complete skeleton, will 

 ever be found in the Sewalik Hills. It is to be mentioned, however, 

 that remains of many of the animals associated with the Colossochelys 

 in the Sewalik Hills have been discovered along the banks of the 

 Irrawaddi in Ava, and in Perim Island in the Gulf of Cambay, show- 

 ing that the same extinct fauna was formerly spread over the whole 

 continent of India. 



" This is not the place to enter upon the geological question of 

 the age of the Sewalik strata ; suffice it to say, that the general bear- 

 ing of the evidence is that they belong to the newer tertiary period. 

 But another question arises : ' Are there any indications as to when 

 this gigantic tortoise became extinct? or are there grounds for 

 entertaining the opinion that it may have descended to the human 

 period r ' Any d,-priori improbability, that an animal so hugely 

 disproportionate to existing species should have lived down to be a 

 contemporary with man, is destroyed by the fact that other species 

 of Chelonians which were coeval with the Colossochelys in the same 

 fauna, have reached to the present time ; and what is true in this 

 respect of one species in a tribe, may be equally true of every 

 other placed under the same circumstances. We have as yet no di- 

 rect evidence to the point, from remains dug out of recent alluvial 

 deposits ; nor is there any historical testimony confirming it ; but 

 there are traditions connected with the cosmogonic speculations of 

 almost all Eastern nations having reference to a tortoise of such gi- 

 gantic size, as to be associated in their fabulous accounts with the 

 elephant. Was this tortoise a mere creature of the imagination, or 

 was the idea of it drawn from a reality, like the Colossochelys ? 



" Without attempting to follow the tortoise tradition through all 

 its ramifications, we may allude to the interesting fact of its exist- 

 ence even among the natives of America. The Iroquois Indians 

 believed that there were originally, before the creation of the globe, 

 six male beings in the air, but subject to mortality. There was no 

 female among them to perpetuate their race ; but learning that there 



