THE AGE OF GREAT MAMMALS. 
17 
river regions of South America also abound in the 
fossils of the age—the camel, horse, rhinoceros. The 
question arises. Did these animals originate in the 
Western continent? 
The anoplothere was a link between the tapir and 
the ox. It had two toes like the cow, the graceful 
body of the dog, and the head of a tapir, without the 
snout. Of all the fossils of animals found, about 
four-fifths were tapirs. 
As large and terrible as these animals seemed to 
be, there were others of still greater size. Perhaps 
the greatest was the megathere (great beast). It 
walked like a hear on four broad fat feet. Its skull 
was rather small, and its brain not half so large as 
the elephant’s. The megathere ranged over South 
America and as far north as North Carolina. 
I must take space to mention one more, and that 
is the mastodon, the father of elephants. It is pos¬ 
sible that he made himsplf at home in all the conti¬ 
nents, as his remains have been found in the Americas, 
Europe, and Asia. In California a perfectly pre¬ 
served mastodon’s tooth was found; it is a foot and 
a third long, and four by eight inches on the top. 
A mastodon was discovered at Newburg, New York, 
thirteen feet high and twenty-five feet long. The 
position of the Newburg skeleton suggests that the 
great beast was mired in the mud, and perished with 
such food as leaves and twigs still in his mouth. 
In Alabama forty skeletons of a huge whale have 
been discovered. In the mammals generally we see 
a change from water animals to those that lived on 
