Page images
PDF
EPUB

The selection is good, though it has already been adopted by a Massachusetts statesman. It is now for you to supply two others."

Singular as it may appear, this sudden call to perform a trifling office which I had not anticipated, filled me with a conflict of emotions. In choosing another's words, I seemed to indorse or repudiate the strange matter with which they were to be associated. I thought of Vannelle's wondrous language, of Clifton's exhilaration, and of the vivid buoyancy with which my spirit had striven to rise. I even groped for some phrase which might hint what delicate aërial impressions had tended to condense the soul on the supreme point of spiritual ecstasy. But memory was a blank when I demanded words for this seeming-glorious fact in the experience of humanity. Success was made impossible by the very intensity of the effort to summon an appropriate message to be dropped over the abyss of Time. I was confident that there were many apt things which might be said, if I could come at them, as it were, sideways. In order that I might take them at this advantage, I snatched a letter from my pocket, and began to read. My eye was soon caught by the impression of a seal that I had once given my wife. It was a good [woman's] motto, I jestingly told her; and now it was returned to me at my sorest need. Six little words of the good Pascal,

-

"Le plus sûr est de croire." Something compelled me to write them, and a new freedom was with me when I had done so.

"Make haste, make haste, for the

[ocr errors]

prayer-bell is ringing!" cried the President. "See, here is a copy of Plato's Phædrus,' — a work which our vapory brethren are fond of quoting, generally at second-hand; perhaps you may pick out a sentence that will prophesy with sufficient ambiguity."

But it was not Plato or his "Phædrus" that then claimed my thoughts. There loomed a Rock graven with more august instruction than the sage of the Academy was privileged to communicate, — a Rock against which the heaving surface of human opinion had chafed and broken in vain. Tossed to and fro upon the tide of life, who has not sometimes listened to the wrangling voices which shouted, "Mystical Interpretation," "Absolute Fiction," "Huge Conglomerate of Myths"? Whose eye has never been caught by the sparkling tinsel of modern philosophies, with their Seers, Heroes, Missions, Developments, Insights, Principles of Nature, Clairvoyance, and Magnetic Currents? Happy those who are able to return to that one channel through which magnetic currents have indeed descended from an unseen sphere, and touched the noblest hearts! For there is a certain mediation between the necessitics and aspirations of man, an assured deliverance from the gross and sordid surroundings of his earthly life. There came before me one simple period from a familiar Book. Most direct and confident is the solemn statement. I wrote it as the final motto.

"Now THE SERPENT WAS MORE

SUBTILE THAN ANY BEAST OF THE FIELD WHICH THE LORD GOD HAD MADE."

THE TERTIARY AGE, AND ITS CHARACTERISTIC
ANIMALS.

sions, they have daguerreotyped themselves with the most wonderful accuracy, and the Oaks, Poplars, Willows, Maples, Walnuts, Gum- and Cinnamon-trees, etc., of the Tertiaries are as well known to us as are those of our own time.

IN entering upon the Tertiaries, we reach that geological age which, next to his own, has the deepest interest for man. The more striking scenes of animal life, hitherto confined chiefly to the ocean, are now on land; the extensive sheets of fresh water are filled with fishes of a comparatively modern character, - with Whitefish, Pickerel, Perch, Eels, etc., while the larger quadrupeds are introduced upon the continents so gradually prepared to receive them. The connection of events throughout the Tertiaries, considered as leading up to the coming of man, may be traced not only in the physical condition of the earth, and in the presence of the large terrestrial Mammalia, but also in the appearance of those groups of animals and plants which we naturally associate with the domestic and social existence of man. Cattle and Horses are first found in the middle Tertiaries; the grains, the Rosacea, with their variety of fruits, the tropical fruit-trees, Oranges, Bananas, etc., the shade- and cluster-trees, so important to the comfort and shelter of man, are added to the vegetable world during these epochs. The fossil vegetation of the Tertiaries is, indeed, most interesting from this point of view, showing the gradual maturing and completion of those conditions most intimately associated with human life. The earth had already its seasons, its spring and summer, its autumn and winter, its seed-time and harvest, though neither sower nor reaper was there; the forests then, as now, dropped their thick carpet of leaves upon the ground in the autumn, and in many localities they remain where they originally fell, with a layer of soil between the successive layers of leaves, a leafy chronology, as it were, by which we read the passage of the years which divided these deposits from each other. Where the leaves have fallen singly on a clayey soil favorable for receiving such impres- name of Mammoth, while naturalists call

It was an eventful day, not only for science, but for the world, when a Siberian fisherman chanced to observe a singular mound lying near the mouth of the River Lena, where it empties into the Arctic Ocean. During the warmer summer-weather, he noticed, that, as the snow gradually melted, this mound assumed a more distinct and prominent outline, and at length, on one side of it, where the heat of the sun was greatest, a dark body became exposed, which, when completely uncovered, proved to be that of an immense elephant, in so perfect a state of preservation that the dogs and wolves were attracted to it as by the smell of fresh meat, and came to feed upon it at night. The man knew little of the value of his discovery, but the story went abroad, and an Englishman travelling in Russia, being curious to verify it, visited the spot, and actually found the remains where they had been reported to lie, on the frozen shore of the Arctic Sea, strange burial-place enough for an animal never known to exist out of tropical climates. Little beside the skeleton was left, though parts of the skin remained covered with hair, showing how perfect must have been the condition of the body when first exposed. The tusks had been sold by the fisherman; but Mr. Adams succeeded in recovering them; and collecting all the bones, except those of one foot, which had been carried off by the wolves, he had them removed to St. Petersburg, where the skeleton now stands in the Imperial Museum. The inhabitants of Siberia seem to be familiar with this animal, which they designate by the

[merged small][merged small][graphic]

Had this been the only creature of the kind found so far from the countries to which elephants are now exclusively confined, it might have been believed that some strange accident had brought it to the spot where it was buried. But it was not long before similar remains were found in various parts of Europe,-in Russia, in Germany, in Spain, and in Italy. The latter were readily accounted for by the theory that they must be the remains of the Carthaginian elephants brought over by the armies of Hannibal, while it was suggested that the others might have been swept from India by some great flood, and stranded where they were found. It was Cuvier, entitled by his intimate acquaintance with the anatomy of living animals to an authoritative opinion in such matters, who first dared to assert that these remains belonged to no elephant of our period. He rested this belief upon structural evidence, and insisted that an Indian elephant, brought upon the waves of a flood to Siberia, would be an Indian elephant still, while all these remains differed in structure from any species existing at present. This statement aroused research in every direction, and the number of fossil Mammalia found within the next few years, and proved by comparison to be different from any living spe

cies, soon demonstrated the truth of his conclusion.

Shortly after the discovery of fossil elephants had opened this new path of investigation, some curious bones were found by some workmen in the quarries of Montmartre, near Paris, and brought to Cuvier for examination. Although few in number, and affording but very scanty data for such a decision, he at once pronounced them to be the remains of some extinct animal preceding the present geological age. Here, then, at his very door, as it were, was a settlement of that old creation in which he could pursue the inquiry, already become so important in its bearings. It was not long before other bones of the same kind were found, though nothing as yet approaching an entire skeleton. However, with such means as he had, Cuvier began a comparison with all the living Mammalia, with the human skeleton first, with Monkeys, with the larger Carnivora and Ruminants, then with all the smaller Mammalia, then with the Pachyderms; and here, for the first time, he began to find some resemblance. He satisfied himself that the animal must have belonged to the family of Pachyderms; and he then proceeded to analyze and compare all the living species, till he had collected ample

[merged small][merged small][graphic]

rium, (old animal,) a figure of which is given in the above wood-cut, and the other Anoplotherium, (animal without fangs). He presented these figures with an explanatory memoir at the Academy, and announced them as belonging to some creation preceding the present, since no such animals had ever existed in our own geological period. Such a statement was a revelation to the scientific world: some looked upon it with suspicion and distrust; others, who knew more of comparative anatomy, hailed it as introducing a new era in science; but it was not till complete specimens were actually found of animals corresponding perfectly to those figured and described by Cuvier, and proving beyond a doubt their actual existence in ancient times, that all united in wonder and admiration at the result obtained by him with such scanty means. It would seem that the family of Pachyderms was largely represented among the early Mammalia; for, since Cuvier named these species, a number of closely allied forms have been found in deposits belonging to the same epoch. Of course, the complete specimens are rare ; but the fragments of such skeletons occur in abundance, showing that these oldworld Pachyderms, resembling the Ta

pirs more than any other living representatives of the family, were very numerous in the lower Tertiaries.

There is, however, one animal now in existence, forming one of those singular links before alluded to between the present and the past, of which I will say a few words here, though its relation is rather with a later group of Tertiary Pachyderms than with those described by Cuvier. On the coast of Florida there is an animal of very massive, clumsy build, long considered to be a Cetacean, but now recognized, by some naturalists at least, as belonging to the order of Pachyderms. In form it resembles the Cetaceans, though it has a fanshaped tail, instead of the broad flapper of the Whales. It inhabits fresh waters or shoal waters, and is not so exclusively aquatic as the oceanic Cetaceans. Its most striking feature is the form of the

lower jaw, which is bent downward, with the front teeth hanging from it. This animal is called the Manatee, or SeaCow. There are three species known to naturalists,-one in Tampa Bay, one in

the Amazon, and one in Africa. In the Tertiary deposits of Germany there has been found an animal allied in some of its features to those described by Cuvier,

but it has the crown of its teeth folded like the Tapir, while the lower jaw is turned down with a long tusk growing from it. This animal has been called the Dinotherium. A part of the head, showing the heavy jaws and the formidable tusk, is represented in the subjoined wood-cut.

Its hanging lower jaw, with the protruding tusk, corresponds perfectly to the formation of the lower jaw and teeth in the Manatee. Some resemblance of the Dinotherium to the Mastodon suggested a comparison with that animal as the next step in the investigation, when it was found that at the edge of the lower jaw of the latter there was a pit with a small projecting tooth, also corresponding exactly in its position to the tusk in the Dinotherium. The Elephant was now examined; and in him also a rudimentary tooth appeared in the lower jaw, not cut through, but placed in the same relation to the jaw and the other teeth as that of the Mastodon. It would seem, then, that the Manatee makes one in this series of Dinotherium, Mastodon, and Elephant, and represents the aquatic Pachyderms, occupying the same relation to the terrestrial Pachyderms as the Seals bear to the terrestrial Carnivora, and, like them, lowest in structure among their kind.

The announcement of Cuvier's results stimulated research, and from this time forward Tertiary Mammalia became the subject of extensive and most important investigations among naturalists. The attention of collectors once drawn to these remains, they were found in such num

bers that the wonder was how they had been so long hidden from the observation of men. They remind us chiefly of tropical animals; indeed, Tigers, Hyenas, Rhinoceroses, Hippopotamuses, Mastodons, and Elephants had their home in countries which now belong to the Cold Temperate Zone, showing that the climate in these latitudes was much milder then than it is at present. Bones of many of these animals were found in caverns in Germany, France, Italy, and England. Perhaps the story of Kirkdale Cave, where the first important discovery of this kind was made on English soil, may not be so well known to American readers as to forbid its repetition here.

It was in the summer of 1821 that some workmen, employed in quarrying stone upon the slope of a limestone hill at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, came accidentally upon the mouth of a cavern. Overgrown with grass and bushes, the mouth of this cave in the hill-side had been effectually closed against all intruders, and it was not strange that its existence had never been suspected. The hole was small, but large enough to admit a man on his hands and knees; and the workmen, creeping in through the opening, found that it led into a cavern, broad in some parts, but low throughout. There were only a few spots where a man could stand upright; but it was quite extensive, with branches opening out from it, some of which have not yet been explored. The whole floor was strewn, from one end to the other, with hundreds of bones, like a huge dog-kennel. The workmen wondered a little at their discovery, but, remembering that there had been a murrain among the cattle in this region some years before, they came to the conclusion that these must be the bones of cattle that had died in great numbers at that time; and, having so settled the matter to their own satisfaction, they took little heed to the bones, but threw many of them out on the road with the common limestone. Fortunately, a gentleman, living in the neighborhood, whose attention had been

« PreviousContinue »