THE AGE OF MAMMALS 



Dr. Andrews was travelling in Egypt some years ago, 

 and joined a party of officers of the great survey of 

 Egypt in a visit to the Great Western Desert, the 

 rainless, sandy waste west of the Nile, not very far from 

 what is now called the Fayoum, and where in Roman 

 days was the great Lake Mceris, now dried up to a mere 

 brine pool, in the salt water of which the fresh-water 

 fishes of the Nile still live. The surveying party in- 

 tended to determine the geological age of these sands, 

 which stretch for hundreds of miles, often rising into 

 cliffs which are cut sharp by the wind and show hori- 

 zontal stratification. The geologists determined that the 

 sands of this region were of Eocene and Miocene Age, 

 and from them Dr. Andrews brought home some very 

 interesting bones. These included the remains of a more 

 primitive Mastodon than any as yet known, and of an 

 animal which he called Meritherium, which is a connect- 

 ing link between elephants and other mammals. The 

 collection included also remains of great flesh-eating 

 beasts, and of sea cows, of tortoises, and of a snake 

 sixty feet long! 



However, in regard to the history of elephants, the 

 upshot of Dr. Andrews' most important discoveries is 

 that we find living here in the Upper Eocene period 

 (which is older than the age in which the Tetrabelodon 

 Mastodon was found) an elephant ancestor of the kind 

 to which Dr. Andrews gave the name of Palceomastodon 

 or " ancient mastodon." We thus arrive at an ancestral 

 elephant-like creature which serves to join the elephant 

 stock on to more ordinary mammals. This beast was not 



261 



