THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



the dragon body hanging down like a snout, 

 might be compared to the illuminated berry on 

 the feeler of the deep sea fish. 



Slowly this giant moves on. To be sure that 

 problem is solved! He can move. But how 

 deep his thick, rhinoceros hoof sinks into the 

 soft strand at every step. Woe to him if the 

 face of the ground betrays him. His sixty thou- 

 sand pounds must sink down hopeless like a 

 leaky ship of thirty tons into the yawning abyss 

 of the ocean. But even aside from this another 

 obstacle gradually appears. The sun has risen 

 to the zenith and sinks with its burning glow. 

 It lies like a hot breath over this whole period, 

 hot even in the lands where it is today much 

 cooler.* Here we touch once more upon the 

 secrets of the heavens and the earth, which our 

 knowledge is not yet ripe enough to solve. In 

 this glow it Is as though the oil in the wheels of 

 this giant living machine were evaporated. In 

 such reptiles the temperature Is not ordinarily 

 regulated by the blood, which possesses no con- 

 stant Inherent warmth, as with us. The temper- 

 ature of its blood rises and falls exactly to corre- 

 spond to the outside temperature. This grow- 

 ing heat raises the blood to a glow, but this glow 

 sinks gradually into the mechanism of the 

 whole. Lazy, benumbed, the giant lies In a heat 

 rigor like a motionless land tortoise in the dust 



*Corals once grew in Greenland. — Trans. 



119 



