CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



The front teeth were reduced in number, those which 

 remained becoming tusks, found in the lower as well as the 

 upper jaw and first used for digging. Ultimately the lower 

 tusks were suppressed, the lower jaw was shortened, and the 

 upper tusks became enormously developed, to serve as 

 weapons and to present a firm surface across which the trunk 

 could break torn-off branches into pieces. The grinding teeth 

 also became fewer and at the same time larger and more 

 complex, to constitute an effective milling apparatus for 

 crushing tough vegetable food. In an adult Indian or Afri- 

 can elephant only four of these enormous teeth are in place 

 at the same time, and each of them consists of three sub- 

 stances of different degrees of hardness, which wear 

 unequally, so that the crown is always kept rough, for if 

 smooth it would not be an efficient grinding surface. The 

 densest of the three substances, the enamel, projects in a series 

 of transverse ridges, narrower and more numerous in the 

 Indian species than in its African cousin. 



The head has necessarily become large and heavy, having 

 to support the massive trunk and huge teeth (tusks and 

 grinders) and to give attachment to the complicated muscles 

 of the trunk and the large muscles by which the lower jaw 

 is moved up and down in chewing. A long neck is obvi- 

 ously incompatible with so large a head, though the weight 

 of this is less than might have been expected, for the unusu- 

 ally thick wall of the skull is not solid but is traversed by 

 complicated air spaces. 



The story of the Elephant, thus briefly outlined, is suffi- 

 cient in itself to prove the evolution of that particular order 

 of mammals, and a similar story could be told of other orders 

 of that class and of many other groups, both high and low. 



Since the time of Darwin and Wallace, the doctrine of 

 evolution has permeated and revolutionized every depart- 



[240] 



