THE GREAT THICK-SKINNED ANIMALS 
*57 
If you could look carefully at the foot of an elephant, you would 
see that it is encased in a kind of hoof, which protects it from injury 
upon the ground. But this hoof has other purposes as well, for it 
must serve to break the shock of the footfall, which must of course 
result from every step of so heavy a body. And consequently it is 
formed of a vast number of elastic horny plates and india-rubber-like 
pads, so that, when the enormous animal treads, its footsteps are nearly 
as noiseless as those of a cat. 
If you have ever ridden upon an elephant, you must have noticed 
two things. As the animal moves the legs of one side nearly together, 
the body sways from side to side at each double step. Also, though 
the elephant is so heavy, and the legs so apparently clumsy, the step 
is so soft, that the rider not only does not hear it, but actually feels 
no jar as the foot touches the ground. 
This gentle movement is partly due to the elastic plates, which 
act something like our own steel carriage-springs, but in a different 
direction, and partly to the pads, which act just like the india-rubber 
tires of a bicycle-wheel. 
Now, if we had never seen an elephant, or a picture of one, and 
had not even heard the animal described to us, we might very well 
wonder how so large and bulky an animal, with a neck so short that the 
mouth could not reach within several feet of the ground, could possibly 
supply itself with food and drink. If we had been asked to invent a 
way in which this could be done, we should certainly have failed, for, 
clever as man is, such a task would be quite beyond his powers. 
But nature found no difficulty in doing so, for she modified the 
snout and the upper lip into a long trunk, or proboscis, which is so 
wonderfully useful that it can be employed for a great variety of 
purposes. As one writer has very well said, with its trunk the elephant 
can uproot or shake trees, lift a cannon, or pick up a pin; by its aid 
it can carry both food and water to the mouth, while, upon a hot day, 
it can turn the same organ into a shower-bath, and sprinkle its body 
with cool and refreshing water. 
A wonderful organ, indeed, must be the trunk, which can fulfil 
so many purposes, and one gifted as much with a delicate sense of 
touch as with great and almost giant strength. And this is in very 
