The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
Religion
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
While Kirkdale Cave was evidently the haunt of Hyenas chiefly, other
caverns in Germany and France were tenanted in a similar manner by a
gigantic species of Bear. Their remains, mingled with those of the
animals on which they fed, have been found in great numbers in the
Cavern of Gailenreuth, in Franconia. The subjoined wood-cut shows the
head of this formidable beast, which must have exceeded in size any Bear
now living. Indeed, although there were many smaller kinds, and the
other types of the Animal Kingdom in the Tertiaries seem to approach
very nearly both in size and general character their modern
representatives, yet, on the whole, the earlier Mammalia were giants in
comparison with those now living. The Mastodon and Mammoth, as compared
with the modern Elephant, the Megatherium, as compared with the Sloths
of present times, the Hyenas and Bears of the European caverns, and the
fossil Elk of Ireland, by the side of which even the Moose of our
Northern woods is belittled, are remarkable instances in proof of this.
One cannot but be struck with the fact that this first representation of
Mammalia, the very impersonation of brute force in power, size, and
ferocity, immediately preceded the introduction of man, with whose
creation intelligence and moral strength became the dominant influences
on earth.
[Illustration]
Among these huge Tertiary Mammalia, one of those most common on the
North-American continent seems to have been the Mastodon. The
magnificent specimens preserved in this country are too well known to
require description. The remains of the Rhinoceros occur also in the
recent Tertiary deposits of North America, though as yet no perfect
skeletons have been found. The Edentata, now confined to South America
and the western coast of Africa, were also numerous in the Southern
States during that time; their remains have been found as far north as
the Salt Lick in Kentucky. But we must not judge of the Tertiary
Edentata by any now known to us. The Sloths, the Armadillos, the
Ant-Eaters, the Pangolins, are all animals of rather small size; but
formerly they were represented by the gigantic Megatherium, the
Megalonyx, and the Mylodon, some of which were larger than the Elephant,
and others about the same size of the Rhinoceros or Hippopotamus. The
subjoined wood-cut represents a Mylodon in the act of lifting himself
against the trunk of a tree.
[Illustration]
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