1865.] PALCONEK — KILE AND GANGES. 385 



in this respect of one species in a tribe may be equally true of every 

 other placed under the same circumstances. We have as yet no di- 

 rect evidence to the point, from remains dug out of recent alluvial 

 deposits, nor is there any historical testimony confirming it ; but there 

 are traditions connected with the cosmogonic speculations of almost 

 all Eastern nations having reference to a Tortoise of such gigantic 

 size, as to be associated in their fabulous accounts with the Elephant. 

 "Was this Tortoise a mere creature of the imagination, or was the 

 idea of it drawn from a reality, like the Colossochehjs ? " 



Reference is then made to the most remarkable cases in which 

 the Tortoise figures in mythological conceptions that are traceable 

 to an oriental source : first to the Pythagorean cosmogony, where 

 the infant world is represented as having been placed on the back 

 of an Elephant which was sustained on a huge Tortoise ; next to the 

 second Avatar of Vishnu, in Hindoo mythology, where the god is 

 made to assume the form of a Tortoise, and to have sustained the 

 newly created world on his back to make it stable ; and, lastly, to the 

 exploits of the Bird-demigod Garuda, during one of which he was 

 du-ected by his father Kiishyupa to appease his hunger at a certain 

 lake where an Elej^liant and Tortoise were fighting. The dimensions 

 of both are expressed ia figui-es of extravagant magnitude. Oanida 

 with the one claw seized the Elephant, with the other the Tortoise, 

 and flew to a mountain, where he regaled himself with the viands 

 yielded by the two animals. The speculative remarks suggested 

 by these traditions, viewed in connexion with the discovery of the 

 Colossochelys, were expressed in the following terms : — 



" In these three instances taken from Pythagoras and the Hindoo 

 mythology, we have reference to a gigantic form of Tortoise, com- 

 parable in size with the Elephant. Hence the question arises, Are 

 we to consider the idea as a mere figment of the imagination, like 

 the Minotaur and the Chimaera, the Griffin, the Dragon, and the 

 Cartazonon, &c., or as founded on some justifying reality? The 

 Greek and Persian monsters are composed of fanciful and wild 

 combinations of different portions of known animals into impossible 

 forms, and, as Cuvier fitly remarks, they are merely the progeny of 

 uncurbed imagination; but in the Indian cosmogonic forms we may 

 trace an image of congruity through the cloud of exaggeration with 

 which they are invested. We have the Elephant, then, as at pre- 

 sent, the largest of land-animals, a fit supporter of the infant 

 world ; in the serpent Asokee, used at the churning of the ocean, 

 we may trace a representative of the gigantic Indian Python ; and 

 in the bird-god Oanida, with all his attributes, we may detect the 

 gigantic Crane of India (Ciconia gigantea) as supplying the origin. 

 In hke manner, the Colossochehjs would supply a consistent repre- 

 sentative of the Tortoise that sustained the Elephant and the world 

 together. But if we are to suppose that the mythological notion of 

 the Tortoise was derived, as a symbol of strength, from some one of 

 those small species which are now known to exist in India, this con- 

 gruity of ideas, this harmony of representation, would be at once 

 violated. It would be as legitimate to talk of a rat or a mouse con- 



