THE ICE AGE 



" There are many instances," says Sir Edward Ray 

 Lankester in his book on Extinct Animals, "in which 

 small living animals were represented in the past by 

 gigantic forms very close in structure to the little living 

 beasts, but of much greater size. Hence it is concluded 

 that these particular living animals are the reduced and 

 dwindled representatives of a race of primeval monsters. 

 There is some truth in this, as may be seen from the 

 history of the living sloths and armadillos of South 

 America, as compared with the extinct gigantic sloths 

 and armadillos dug up in that country. But it is a 

 great mistake to conclude from this that it is a law of 

 nature that recent animals are all small and insignificant 

 as compared with their representatives in the past. That 

 is simply not true. Recent horses are bigger than extinct 

 ones ; recent elephants are much bigger than their earlier 

 elephantine ancestors. There never has been any creature 

 of any kind mammal, reptile, bird, or fish in any 

 geological period we know of, so big as some of the exist- 

 ing whales, the Sperm Whale, the great Rorqual, and the 

 whalebone whales. 



"It is true that there were enormous reptiles in the 

 past, far larger than any living crocodiles, standing four- 

 teen feet at the loins, and measuring eighty feet from the 

 tip of the snout to the end of the tail ; but their bodies 

 did not weigh much more than a big African elephant, 

 and were small compared with whales. So let us be 

 under no illusions as to extinct monsters, and proceed 

 to look at those of South America with simple courage 

 and confidence in our own day." 



274 



