160 WALKS AND TALKS. 



was attempted by Waterhouse Hawkins, and cuts of this are 

 now found in most of the text-books. 



This was one of the most anomalous creatures of the strange 

 past. It was one of the last of the great " comprehensive types " 

 which appeared in the progress of the history of life, and of 

 which you will hear much, as we trace this history backward. 

 It was studied by the great Cuvier, among many others, and 

 he first revealed its true affinities. Some regarded it as tree- 

 inhabiting; some thought it subterranean; Owen decided that 

 it must have lived upon the ground. As represented by 

 Hawkins, it stands semi-erect, resting on its massive hinder- 

 extremities, with auxiliary support from a vast pillar-like tail, 

 with anterior extremities clasping the trunk of a tree and 

 relatively diminutive head and tapir-like snout turned up- 

 ward toward the foliage which probably served as its food. 



The length of the skull is thirty-one inches ; its breadth, 

 eighteen. The brain-box is very small for the bulk of the 

 animal. The molar teeth have hollow fangs for continuous 

 growth, as in the sloth and many modern rodents. The 

 spinal column is 15J feet long. The circumference of the 

 skeleton at the eighth rib is ten feet. The scapula is a vast 

 expanse of bone two and a half feet long. The distal (farther) 

 end of the humerus is 13 inches wide, while that of the ele- 

 phant is only one-fourth as great. The pelvis is a mountain 

 of bone. It is far more massive than that of the elephant or 

 any known animal, living or extinct. Its extreme breadth is 

 upward of five feet that of the Asiatic elephant being six- 

 teen inches less. The socket for the head of the femur pre- 

 sents a surface of 44 square inches, which is 200 times the 

 same surface in the pigmy shrew-mouse. The thigh bone, in 

 the Mastodon and Elephant, appears weak and slender com- 

 pared with that of the Megatherium. It is two feet two inches 

 in circumference at the largest part. The hind legs look 

 more like columns for the support of a bridge than like or- 

 gans for locomotion. The circumference of the tail at its 

 largest part was six feet. 



We have to imagine this gigantic framework clothed with 



