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CHAPTER VI 



THE BIGGEST BEAST 



HERE is a prevalent notion, encouraged by the 



I fanciful exaggerations of newspaper gossips, that 



the animals of past ages, whose bones are from time 



to time dug out of rocks and sand quarries, were many of 



them much bigger than any at present existing, and that 



we are living in an age of degeneracy. It is true that the 



mammoth and the mastodon were enormous creatures, 



but they were not bigger than their living representatives, 



the great elephants of Africa and India. The African 



elephant often stands ii ft. high at the shoulder, and 



occasionally attains 12 ft. 



Some eighty years ago Dr. Gideon Mantell became 



celebrated by his discovery of the bones of huge reptiles 



— far bigger than any existing crocodile or lizard — 



nearly as big as elephants, in the Wealden rocks of 



Tilgate Forest in Sussex. He and Sir Richard Owen 



distinguished several kinds — the Iguanodon, the Megalo- 



saurus, the Hylaeosaurus, and others. Models of these 



creatures as they appeared when clothed in flesh and hide 



were carefully made, and placed picturesquely among the 



ponds and islands of the gardens of the Crystal Palace 



at Sydenham when it was first opened to an enchanted 



public in the fifties. As a small boy I, at that time, 



fell under their spell. 



The passing years have brought to us more complete 



knowledge of these strange beasts — now classed as the 



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