June 5, 1885.] 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



477 



ANIMALS OF THE PRESENT AND 

 THE PAST. 



By RlCHARl) A. PUOCTOR. 



MR. GRANT ALLEX (for to his facile pen the 

 article on " Big Animals," in a recent number of 

 the Coni/iill Maijazine may safely lie attributed), has done 

 good service in showing how unfounded are two very 

 prevalent ideas re-^ijiecting the past of this earth on which 

 we live — viz., first, the idea that the various races of 

 animals which appear in the geologic record all existed at 

 some remote time ("in those days," meaning some imaginary 

 epoch specially belonging to geological science) ; and 

 secondly, the idea that in ]<ast ages the animals existing 

 on the earth were very much larger than those now known. 



As regards the first idea, relating to geological time, the 

 Pleistocene age is really as yesterday in the past history 

 of our earth, and the Pliocene as the day before yesterday. 

 The mammoth in the northern hemisphere, and the nioa 

 in the southern, are creatures of yesterday, while the 

 mastodon, on the same time scale, can be set no further 

 back than the last generation or so. On the other hand, 

 the " monstrous " marine saurians of the Jurassic era are 

 of remote antiquity. Mr. Allen expresses the relation, in 

 point of time, neatly, when he says that " to compare the 

 relative lapses of time with human chronology, the mas- 

 todon stands to our own fauna as Beau Brummel stands to 

 the modem masher, while the saurians stand to it as the 

 Egxptians and Assyrian warriors stand to Lord Wolseley 

 and the followers of the Mahdi." In fact, the mind, 

 as regards its power of dealing with time-intervals, is 

 lost in the presence of the vastness of the era to which our 

 own period belongs as compared with the minute span 

 over which history extends its survey — is lost, yet once 

 more, in comparing even with the vastness of the glacial 

 period the seemingly immeasurable duration of the Pliocene 

 and its still longer predecessor the Miocene, and, endeavour- 

 ing to look beyond these into still remoter depths of past 

 time, is simply appalled. The Eocene was so long-lasting, 

 that the sequent eras, which with it make up the Tertiary 

 period, seem by comparison as seconds compared with 

 hours. But the whole duration of the Tertiary period is 

 insignificant compared with the inconceivable length of the 

 Secondary period, while the Secondary period, in turn, is 

 short compared with the Primary period, and even this 

 tells us only of the close of a yet more tremendous time- 

 interval, during which no trace was left (if the earth's pro- 

 gress to the world form, any more than the sea leaves any 

 record of the progress of the storms which sweep over its 

 vast surface. 



Truly it is amazing to consider now, when these vast 

 periods of time have taken their place among the recog- 

 nised and assured teachings of the great earth-volume, that 

 but half a century or so ago a struggle was still main- 

 tained to reduce our estimate of the earth's past existence 

 to a few thousands of years, while multitudes of well- 

 meaning persons imagined that an eternity of future happi- 

 ness or misery depended on each man's rejection or ac- 

 ceptance of the doctrine which God's work, the earth, 

 assuredly teaches. Yet, strangely enough, the .school of 

 those who maintained that hopeless struggle is not ashamed 

 even now to denounce the followers of the scientific school 

 for accepting the obvious meaning of these new pages of 

 that great volume which have since been turned over. 



With regard to the dimensions of the modern inhabitants 

 of the earth, we must remember that to every era of the 

 earth's history a special kind of development has been 

 specially appropriate. It is certain that the great land 



monsters of the Jurassic age could not exist now. For 

 while their nuniln is must have always been limited, even 

 when surrounding conditions favoured their existence, the 

 powers of the human race at the present time would bo 

 fatal to the existence of these unwieldy monster.^. The 

 monstrous eft, which of old was lord and master of earth, 

 might maintain, at least for awhile, the position of lord 

 and monarch still, were it not for man. But with man in 

 the arena against the Atlantosaurus, one or other would 

 have to give way, and it would not be man. The 

 mammals of the Pliocene age were not so much greater 

 than their modern rciiresentatives that wo need consider 

 them specially. And assuredly when we turn to the sea- 

 monsters of our own time we need not fear comparison 

 with oven the mightiest monsters of past geologic:!! ages. 

 The Rorqual attains sometimes to a length of fully one 

 hundred feet, the razor-back whale sometimes measures 

 seventy feet, and there are other cetaceans not much 

 inferior in size. As to the dimensions of sharks, some 

 doubt appears to exist. Considering the nature of the 

 creature, and that men have never found it desirable to 

 hunt for sharks as they have for whales (possibly if they 

 h.id they would have made but unsatisfactory progress in 

 the art of shark-hunting), it would be absurd to suppose 

 that we have become acquainted even with the largest 

 existing varieties, far less with the largest individual 

 specimens. To give an idea of the state of things in re- 

 gard to sharks, I may record an experience of my own. 

 In the voyage from Auckland, N.Z., to Honolulu, the 

 City of Si/dmy was temporarily disabled by the breaking 

 of a criink'-pin. Up to the day when this accident occurred, 

 not one among the crew or passengers had seen a single 

 shark of any kind, though the passengers certainly passed 

 a good half of their time looking at the waters around 

 them. But scarcely had we been at rest a quarter of an 

 hour before the sea all around our disabled ship was 

 literally swarming with sharks. When I learn, therefore, 

 that the naturalists of the Challenger expedition have 

 dredged up in numbers from the ooze of the Pacific shark 

 teeth five inches long by four wide, which would indicate 

 that the sharks to which these teeth belonged were a 

 hundred feet long, I feel no doubt that sharks of these 

 dimensions are still in existence. Dr. Giinter, of the 

 British Museum, writes, it is true, that " as we have no 

 record of living individuals of that bulk, the gigantic 

 species to which the teeth belonged mu.st jirobably have 

 become extinct within a comparatively recent period." 

 And Mr. Grant Allen speaks of him as a very cautious 

 naturalist for thus avoiding the natural conclusion that the 

 species is not extinct at all. But to my mind it savours 

 of much greater daring to imagine the extinction than the 

 existence of these gigantic carcharodons. We know of 

 nothing which could probaby have led to the extinction of 

 monsters such as these, which would have all their own 

 way among the denizens of the great deep. IMan has not 

 sought their destruction as he has sought the destruction 

 of species of whales which nevertheless still exist ; they 

 cannot have been attacked and destroyed by other species 

 of fish, or even conceivably deprived of the means of living 

 by more active and predaceous creatures. That they 

 should die out, then, seems altogether unlikely ; whereas 

 it is altogether natural that they should remam unknown 

 amid the depths of the mighty ocean, for they would keep 

 to the great deep, avoiding even an approach to shallows, 

 nor would they be apt to show where the smaller and more 

 numerous orders of i-harks are seen. 



Albeit I may remark that Mr. Allen seems to me mis- 

 taken in assuming that the monstrous sharks to whom 

 these teeth belonged were as large as any sea creatures o£ 



