On the gigafitic Fossil Tortoise, Colossochelys Adas. 537 



Persian monsters are composed of fanciful and wild combinations of 

 different portions of known animals into impossible forms, and, as 

 Cuvier fitly remarks, they are merely the progeny of uncurbed imagi- 

 nation ; but in the Indian cosmogonic forms we may trace an ip age of 

 congruity through the cloud of exaggeration with which * ey are 

 invested. We have the elephant, then as at present, thr rgest of 

 land animals, a fit supporter of the infant world ; in ne serpent 

 Asokee, used at the churning of the ocean, we may trace a represen- 

 tative of the gigantic Indian python ; and in the bird-god Garfxda, 

 with all his attributes, we may detect the gigantic crane of India 

 (Ciconia gigantea) as supplying the origin. In like manner, the 

 Colossochelys would supply a consistent representative of the tortoise 

 that sustained the elephant and the world together. But if we are 

 to suppose that the mythological notion of the tortoise was derived, 

 as a symbol of strength, from some one of those small species which 

 are now known to exist in India, this congruity of ideas, this har- 

 mony of representation would be at once violated ; it would be as legi- 

 timate to talk of a rat or a mouse contending with an elephant, as of 

 any known Indian tortoise to do the same in the case of the fable of 

 Garuda. The fancy would scout the image as incongruous, and the 

 weight even of mythology would not be strong enough to enforce it 

 on the faith of the most superstitious epoch of the human race. 



" But the indications of mythological tradition are in every case 

 vague and uncertain, and in the present instance we would not lay 

 undue weight on the tendencies of such as concern the tortoise. We 

 have entered so much at length on them on this occasion, from the 

 important bearing which the point has on a very remarkable matter 

 of early belief entertained by a large portion of the human race. The 

 result at which we have arrived is, that there are fair grounds for 

 entertaining the belief as probable that the Colossochelys Atlas may 

 have lived down to an early period of the human epoch and become 

 extinct since: — 1st, from the fact that other Chelonian species and 

 crocodiles, contemporaries of the Colossochelys in the Sewalik fauna, 

 have survived ; 2nd, from the indications of mythology in regard to 

 a gigantic species of tortoise in India. 



" Some of the bones were analysed with great care by Mr. Mid- 

 dleton, and yielded a large proportion of fluorine, the constituents 

 being, — 



Phosphate of lime 64-95 



Carbonate of lime . . . . 22'36 



Fluoride of calcium . . , 11*68 



Oxide of iron TOO 



A trace of chloride of soda. 



99-99 

 " Other Sewalik fossil bones were at the same time subjected to 

 analysis, such as the Mastodon elephantoides , Camelus sivalensis. Horse, 

 Ruminants, &c., and the whole of them yielded similar results, with 

 a proportion of fluoride of calcium varying from 9 to 1 1 per cent. 

 This is much above the usual quantity found in fossil bones ; the 

 utmost that has been met with having been in bones of the Anoplo- 

 therium from the Paris basin, 14 per cent." 



Phil, Mag. S. 3. No. 169. Suppl. Vol. 25. 2 N 



