OP CREATION. 365 



of progression would thus be in a corresponding de- 

 gree slow. The size of the leg when clothed with 

 flesh must have been large even in proportion to the 

 circumference of this bone, for it is much flattened 

 and expanded outwards. 



The character of strength indicated so clearly both 

 by the proportion, the position, and the peculiar 

 shape of the thigh bone, is fully preserved in the 

 other bones of the leg; for we find the two bones, the 

 tibia and fibula, united together both at the top and 

 bottom, forming an almost perfect column, nearly as 

 large as the femur, and set vertically beneath it. This 

 is a contrivance only characterising the armadilloes 

 among living animals, and in them it corresponds 

 with an apparatus of the fore extremity enabling, the 

 possessor to burrow beneath the surface of the earth. 

 Its object is to offer a powerful resistance to the 

 great pressure exerted when the hind extremities are 

 employed as the purchase, while the fore-legs are be- 

 ing made use of for digging. In the megathere the 

 similar contrivance was, no doubt, useful in very 

 nearly the same way. 



The base of the column we have just been con- 

 sidering was no less remarkable for massiveness and 

 extent than was the vast and massive shaft itself. 

 The bone of the instep is a cube of nearly nine 

 inches a side; it rests on a heel bone extending eigh- 

 teen inches backwards, and the other bones are of 

 similar proportions. The foot was terminated by 

 three toes, one of which appears to have been armed 

 with a tremendous claw. The claw, or rather its 

 sheath, for of the actual claw itself we have no re- 

 mains, measures upwards of ten inches in length and 



