ANATOMY. 299 



overspread what is now Mexico, the Isthmus and 

 tropical lands ? Might not the elephant and the 

 horse retreat before the encroaching cold? In Siberia 

 the mammoth was so suddenly chilled that the 

 stomach exhibits partly digested food ; and its flesh, 

 preserved in ice, is gnawed by wolves. There must 

 have been a sudden overturning of mundane things ! 

 In places the blizzard may not have been so severe or 

 fatal. 



In a philosophical consideration of the largest ani- 

 mals now living, is it not probable that elephants, 

 rhinoceroses, camels and whales, are the direct 

 descendants of the earliest of their kind? Larger 

 sharks existed in Eocene seas than now can be seen ; 

 yet as large crocodiles and gavials are met in Africa 

 and South America as fossil remains of similar 

 creatures indicate. The African ostrich is much 

 smaller than the extinct moa and dinornis, yet there 

 is reason to believe it is the prolongation of an original 

 type. And there is testimony to prove that the gigan- 

 tic forms cited are on their way out of existence ; that 

 the remainder of their career is comparatively short. 

 The elephant will be slaughtered by ivory hunters, 

 the ostrich for its plumes, and the whale for its oil. 

 If it had not been for the discovery of petrok-unu 

 there would have been a hundred whale ships wlinv 

 one is now sent to the cetacean fishing grounds. No 

 longer is the great beast harpooned, but a shell fired 

 from a rifled cannon as surely hits and kills as a marks- 

 man scores a round at target practice. 



Speaking of whales brings to mind the fact that 

 the largest cetaceans are the biggest animals that ever 

 lived in recent or past times. A whale one hundred 

 feet lon^ and such are occasionally caught in Arctic 



