THE AGE OF MAMMALS 



so very big, perhaps about the same size as an ordinary 

 cart-horse. 



Dr. Andrews' further triumph was the additional 

 discovery of the rather smaller animal which he called 

 the Mcritherium, and which was undoubtedly an elephant 

 of sorts, though at first sight it has no resemblance 

 to one, and probably had no trunk at all. It certainly 

 had no big tusks ; but its teeth make us certain that 

 it belonged to the elephant family. "Here, then," 

 says Sir E. Ray Lankester, " we have arrived at a form 

 which undoubtedly was closely related to the ancestors 

 of all the elephants, if not actually itself that ancestor, 

 and in it we see the origin of the elephant's peculiar 

 structure. From this comparatively normal pig-like 

 Meritherium, the wonderful elephant, with his upright 

 face, his dependent trunk, and his huge spreading tusks 

 has been gradually, step by step, produced. And we 

 have seen some, at least, of the intermediate steps the 

 lengthening of the jaws and the increase in the size of 

 the teeth in the Palceomastodon carried still further on 

 by the Tetrabelodon, and then followed by a shrinkage of 

 the lower jaw and final evolution of the middle part 

 of the face and upper jaw into the drooping, wonderful, 

 prehensile trunk." 



The long-chinned elephant requires, however, a few 

 moments' consideration from an altogether different point 

 of view. This species appears to have had the widest 

 geographical distribution of any member of the family, 

 of which it may be regarded as the great colonising 

 or emigrant representative. First developed in North 



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