100 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP. 
germs or prevents their access, has greatly 
diminished the danger of operations, and the 
sufferings of recovery. 
SIZE OF ANIMALS 
In the size of animals we find every grada- 
tion from these atoms which even in the most 
powerful microscopes appear as mere points, 
up to the gigantic reptiles of past ages and 
the Whales of our present ocean. The horned 
Ray or Skate is 25 feet in length, by 30 in 
width. The Cuttle-fishes of our seas, though 
so hideous as to resemble a bad dream, are too 
small to be formidable ; but off the Newfound- 
land coast is a species with arms sometimes 
30 feet long, so as to be 60 feet from tip to 
tip. The body, however, is small in propor- 
tion. The Giraffe attains a height of over 
20 feet; the Elephant, though not so tall, is 
more bulky; the Crocodile reaches a length 
of over 20 feet, the Python of 60 feet, the 
extinct Titanosaurus of the American Jurassic 
beds, the largest land animal yet known to us, 
100 feet in length and 30 in height; the 
