species of Mammoth; but Professor Owen, after an examination of the
vast number of specimens that modern researches have brought to
light, and which are deposited in the public and private collections
of Great Britain, concludes that the specimens here figured belong
to but one species. The differences observable in the surface of the
crowns, are due to abrasion, and to the latitude of variety to which
the highly complex molars of this extinct Elephant were subject.[73]
[Footnote 73: British Association, Report for 1843. Fossil Mammalia,
p. 213.]
For an account of the Mastodon and Mammoth, see Wonders of Geology,
vol. i. pp. 151-161.
[Illustration: Plate LXXII.]
PLATE LXXII.
Fossil Teeth of Mammalia.
Fig. 1. A right lower molar tooth of an extinct species of
Hippopotamus (_H. major_, of Cuvier), from France.
Fig. 2. Upper molar of an extinct species of Rhinoceros (_R.
leptorhinus_, of Cuvier), from the bone-cave near Torquay,
Devonshire.
Fig. 3. The crown of a molar tooth of the "gigantic Tapir" of
Baron Cuvier; the _Dinotherium_ of M. Kaup.[74]
[Footnote 74: Wonders of Geology, vol. i. p. 174.]
Fig. 4, "the outer, and fig. 5, the inner, surface of the fourth
molar of _Palæotherium medium_, of M. Cuvier."--_Mr.
Parkinson._ From the eocene tertiary deposits of Paris.
Fig. 6, the outer, and fig. 7, the inner, aspect of an upper
molar of the same animal.
Figs. 8, & 9. Lower molars of _Amplotherium commune_, of M.
Cuvier.[75]
[Footnote 75: Ibid, p, 256.]
Fig. 10. An ungueal or bone of the claw, of a gigantic animal of
the Sloth tribe (_Megalonyx Jeffersoni_); the figure is half
the linear diameter of the original.[76]
[Footnote 76: Ibid. p. 169.]
Fig. 11. Vertical section of a tooth of the same. These remains
of a colossal animal of that remarkable group of
mammalia--the Edentata--are from Big-bone Cave, in Kentucky.
The Megalonyx resembled the Megatherium in its general
characters but was one-third smaller. See _Supplementary
Notes_, p. 184.
[Illustration: Plate LXXIII.]
PLATE LXXIII.
Megatherium and Fossil Bears.
Fig. 1, is a sketch, on a very small scale, of the skeleton of a
colossal extinct animal of the Sloth tribe, discovered in
the alluvial deposits of the Pampas, and preserved in the
museum at Madrid. A plaster model of a skeleton, restored
from the remains of various individuals, dispersed in
different collections, is just completed, and exhibited to
the public in the Gallery of Organic Remains of the British
Museum.[77] This extinct animal is named the _Megatherium_
(_gigantic wild animal_) _Cuvieri_. It was seven feet
high, and nine long, and therefore larger than the largest
rhinoceros. It possessed no incisor teeth; and the grinders,
which are seven inches long, are of a prismatic form,
and like those of the sloths, are composed of dentine
and cement. They are so formed that the crown always
presents two cutting, wedge-shaped, salient angles; they
are therefore admirably adapted for cutting and bruising
vegetable substances. The entire fore-foot is about a yard
in length, and armed with strong claws. The Megatherium held
an intermediate place between the sloths, armadillos, and
ant-eaters. The celebrated specimens of different parts of
the skeleton of this colossal creature, preserved in the
Hunterian Museum of the College of Surgeons of England, were
collected and presented by Sir Woodbine Parish.
[Footnote 77: See Wonders of Geology, pp. 164-167.]
Fig. 2. The hindmost grinder of the upper jaw of the Fossil Bear
(_Ursus spelæus_) of the Caverns, from Gaylenreuth.[78]
[Footnote 78: Ibid. vol. i. p. 176.]
Fig. 3. The middle upper grinder.
Fig. 4. The foremost upper grinder.
Fig. 5. The hindmost grinder of the lower jaw.
Fig. 6. The penultimate grinder of the lower jaw.
Fig. 7. The antepenultimate lower grinder.
Fig. 8. The foremost lower grinder.
Fig. 9. The canine tooth of the Fossil Bear.
[Illustration: Plate LXXIV.]
PLATE LXXIV.
Tooth of the Mastodon.
A molar tooth of the _Mastodon giganteus_, from Big-bone Lick,
Kentucky; of the natural size.
From the great number of bones and teeth of animals of the extinct
elephantine genus, to which the name of Mastodon was given by Cuvier
(from the structure of the crowns of the teeth), that have of late
years been brought to England, and are dispersed in our public and
private collections, the intelligent reader must be familiar with the
forms, characters, and gigantic proportions, of that stupendous tribe
of animals which once ranged through the primeval forests not only of
America, but also of some parts of Europe. From a perfect skeleton
lately set up in the British Museum (in the same room with that of
the Megatherium), a correct idea may be obtained of this peculiar
type of mammalian structure. From this specimen it appears that
the great Mastodon of the Ohio was not unlike the elephant In its
general outline, though somewhat longer and thicker. It had a trunk
or proboscis, tusks which curved upward, and four molar teeth in each
jaw, but no incisors. But another remarkable peculiarity, and which
entirely separates the Mastodon from the Elephant, is that the young
animal had a pair of tusks, placed horizontally in the lower jaw, and
of these tusks one only became developed, and that in the adult male:
both were early shed in the female. In the midst of a collection of
Mastodon bones imbedded in mud, a mass of small branches, grass, and
leaves, in a half bruised state, and a species of reed common in
Virginia, were discovered; the whole appeared to have been enveloped
in a sac, probably the stomach of the animal. In another instance
traces of the proboscis were observed. The tusks are composed of
ivory, and vary somewhat in the direction and degree of their
curvature. The bones of this colossal quadruped are found remarkably
fresh and well preserved, and are generally impregnated with iron. No
living instance of this creature is on record, and there can be no
doubt that its race has long since been extinct.
"Big-bone Lick, where so many remains of the Mastodon and other
extinct quadrupeds have been dug up, is distant from Cincinnati
about twenty-three miles in a south-west direction. This celebrated
bog is situated in a nearly level plain, in a valley bounded by
gentle slopes, which lead up to flat table-lands composed of blue
argillaceous (Silurian) limestone, and marl. The general course of
the meandering stream which flows through the plain, is from east to
west. There are two springs on the southern or left bank, rising from
marshes, and two on the opposite bank; the most western of which,
called the Gum Lick, is at the point where a small tributary joins
the principal stream. The quaking bogs on this side are now more than
fifteen acres in extent; but all the marshes were formerly larger,
before the surrounding forest was partially cleared away. Within the
memory of persons now living, the wild bisons or buffaloes crowded
to these springs; but they have retreated many years, and are now as
unknown to the inhabitants as the Mastodon itself. The bog in the
spots where the salt springs rise is so soft, that a pole may be
forced down into it many yards perpendicularly.
"The greater numbers both of the entire skeletons and the separate
bones have been taken up from black mud, about twelve feet below
the level of the Creek. It is supposed that the bones of the
mastodons found here could not have belonged to less than one hundred
individuals: those of the fossil Elephant (_Elephas primigenius_) to
twenty; besides which a few bones of the Megalonyx, and of a species
of stag, horse, and bison, are stated to have been collected. The
greatest depth of the black mud has not been ascertained; it is
composed chiefly of clay, with a mixture of calcareous matter and
sand, and contains 5 parts in 100 of sulphate of lime, with some
animal matter. Layers of gravel occur in the midst of it at various
depths. It contains remains of seeds, and of several species and
genera of fresh-water and terrestrial shells. It is impossible to
view this plain without at once concluding that it has remained
unchanged in all its principal features, from the period when
the extinct quadrupeds inhabited the banks of the Ohio and its
tributaries.
"There are two buffalo paths or trails still extant in the woods,
and both lead directly to springs: the one which strikes off in a
northerly direction from the Gum Lick, may be traced eastward through
the forest for several miles. It is three or four yards wide, and
only partially overgrown with grass, and sixty years ago was as bare,
hard, and well trodden, as a high road. It is well known that during
great droughts in the Pampas of South America, the horses, deer,
and cattle, throng to the rivers in such numbers, that the foremost
of the crowd are pushed into the stream by the pressure of others
behind, and are sometimes carried away by thousands, and drowned. In
their eagerness to drink the saline waters and lick the salt, the
heavy mastodons and elephants seem in like manner to have pressed
upon each other, and sunk in the soft quagmires of Kentucky."[79]
[Footnote 79: Extracted from Sir Charles Lyell's "Travels in North
America," vol. ii. chap. xvii. 1845.]
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.
I. Fossil Bears of the Caverns. (Plate LXXIII.) For many centuries
certain caves in Germany have been celebrated for their osseous
treasures, particularly those in Franconia. The most remarkable of
these caverns is that of Gaylenreuth, which lies to the north-west
of the village of that name, on the left bank of the river Wiesent,
on the confines of Bayreuth.[80] The entrance to this cave is in the
face of a perpendicular rock, and leads to a series of chambers from
fifteen to twenty feet high, and several hundred feet in extent,
terminating in a deep chasm. The cave is quite dark; and the icicles
and pillars of stalactite, reflected by the light of the torches,
which it is necessary to use, present a highly picturesque effect.
The floor is literally paved with bones and fossil teeth, and the
pillars and corbels of stalactite also contain similar remains. The
bones are generally scattered and broken, but not rolled; they are
lighter and less solid than recent bones, and are often incrusted
with stalactites. Three-fourths of the bones belong to two species
of bears (_Ursus_), the remainder to hyænas, tigers, wolves, foxes,
gluttons, weasels, and other small carnivora. Those belonging to
bears are referable to two extinct species: the largest has the skull
more prominent on the front than any living species; it is named
_Ursus spelæus_, or cavern bear; the other has a flat forehead,
and is the _Ursus priscus_ of Cuvier. The Hyena was allied to the
spotted hyena of the Cape, but differed in the form of the teeth and
skull. Bones of the Elephant and Rhinoceros are said to have been
discovered, together with those of existing animals, and fragments of
sepulchral urns of high antiquity.[81]
[Footnote 80: See Medals of Creation, vol. ii. p. 869, for an
interesting account of the present state of these caverns, by my
friend. Major Willoughby Montague.]
[Footnote 81: Dr. Buckland's "Reliquia Diluviana" contains a full
account of the most remarkable ossiferous caverns and their contents.]
Similar ossiferous caves occur in England; of these, the most
remarkable now accessible are Kent's Hole, near Torquay, and Banwell
Cave, in the Mendip Hills, near the village of Banwell. The latter
may be easily visited, as the Exeter railway passes within three
miles of the village, and there is a station, with vehicles to convey
passengers to Banwell.
II. The Belemnite. (Plates LIX. and LX.) Among the innumerable relics
which abound in the secondary deposits, there are perhaps no fossil
bodies that have excited so much curiosity, or given rise to so many
fanciful conjectures as to their nature and origin, as the long,
cylindrical, fusiform, crystalline stones, called _Belemnites_ by
naturalists, and _thunderbolts_ by common observers. Mr. Parkinson
gives an amusing account (vol. iii. p. 122) of the discordant
opinions entertained at various times respecting the nature of these
bodies.
It would be irrelevant to dwell on the history of the successive
attempts that have been made to elucidate the origin and structure
of the Belemnite. It will suffice to describe concisely the present
state of our knowledge as to the organization of the original.
Mr. Miller, in 1823,[82] showed that the Belemnite was the rostrum
or osselet of an animal allied to the Sepia, or Cuttle-fish, and
gave a restored outline of the supposed form of the original, with
the Belemnite in its presumed natural situation. Dr. Buckland and M.
Agassiz imagined that they had traced a natural connexion between
certain species of Belemnites that abound in the Lias, and the ink
bag and other soft parts of the Sepiæ or Calamaries found associated
with them; and they suggested the name of _Belemno-sepia_ for the
supposed animal of the Belemnite,[83]
[Footnote 82: Geological Transactions, New Series, vol. ii.; and Dr.
Buckland's Bridgewater Essay.]
[Footnote 83: Bridgewater Essay, p. 374.]
In 1842, the late Mr. Channing Pearce described, under the name
of _Belemnoteuthis antiquus_, a naked (destitute of a shell,)
cephalopod, which occurs in immense numbers in certain beds of the
Oxford clay, especially at Christian Malford, in Wiltshire. This
animal has at the lower apical part a conical osselet of a horny
substance, and fibrous structure, enclosing a chambered siphunculated
shell, which becomes gradually thinner at the upper part, and forms
a cup-like receptacle, in which is placed the ink-bag. The soft body
of an elongated oval form, with a pair of lateral palleal fins, two
large sessile eyes, and with eight uncinated arms and a pair of long
tentacula, are preserved in a more or less distinct and perfect state
in several specimens that have lately been discovered. Mr. Channing
Pearce, Mr. Cunnington, and other collectors of these interesting
remains, were convinced that this cephalopod was entirely distinct
from the animal to which the Belemnite belonged.
In 1844, Professor Owen laid before the Royal Society "A description
of certain Belemnites preserved with a great proportion of their soft
parts in the Oxford clay, at Christian Malford, Wilts."[84] In this
memoir (for which one of the royal medals of the Society was awarded)
the author describes as the soft parts of the Belemnite the remains
of the animal which Mr. Channing Pearce had two years previously
shown to belong to a different genus (_Belemnoteuthis_). Belying on
the correctness of Professor Owen's views, I gave an abstract of this
memoir in my "_Medals of Creation_," and stated that belemnites had
been discovered with the osselet, receptacle, and ink-bag, in their
natural position, and with remains of the mantle, body, fins, eyes,
and the tentacula, with their horny rings and hooks.[85]
[Footnote 84: Philos. Trans. Part I. 1844. p. 65.]
[Footnote 85: Medals of Creation, vol. ii. p. 467.]
The discovery by my son (Mr. Reginald Neville Mantell) of some
remarkably perfect specimens of belemnites in the Oxford clay,
exposed in the railway works on which he was engaged, near
Trowbridge, in Wilts, led me to examine the structure of the
Belemnoteuthis with more attention than I had hitherto done, as well
as the evidence adduced by Professor Owen in proof that the fossil
osselet, the Belemnite, belonged to the same genus of cephalopoda. I
found that _no specimen had been obtained in which the phragmocone,
or terminal chambered part of the Belemnoteuthis_ (of Pearce),
_was situated in the alveolus of a Belemnite_; but Professor Owen
having assumed that the osselet of the former must have originally
been protected by a rostrum, or guard, described the soft parts
as belonging to the animal of the Belemnite, conceiving that the
phragmocone of the Belemnoteuthis was that of a Belemnite that had
slipped out of the guard.
In a communication to the Royal Society, in 1848, I demonstrated
how utterly at variance with the facts were these conclusions, and
pointed out the essential distinctive characters that separated the
two extinct genera, so far as the specimens then discovered would
warrant.[86] Other illustrative examples of the Belemnite have since
been obtained; and in a supplementary paper read before the Royal
Society, February 14th, of the present year (1850), I have stated
what appears to me to be the extent of our present knowledge of the
organization of the Belemnite. I subjoin an abstract of that paper,
which embodies the result of an examination of many hundred specimens
of Belemnites and Belemnoteuthites. The annexed outline, or diagram,
shows the known structures of the Belemnite; of the soft parts of
the animal, a few imperfect carbonaceous traces, apparently of the
mantle, around and between the shelly processes of the upper part of
the phragmocone, are the only vestiges I have been able to detect.
The most perfect Belemnite hitherto discovered consists of,
[Footnote 86: Philos. Trans. 1848, p. 171.]
[Illustration]
1. An external _Capsule_ (_e_) which invested the osselet or
sepiostaire, and extending upwards, constituted the external sheath
of the receptacle.
2. The _Osselet_, characterized by its fibrous radiated structure,
terminating distally in a solid rostrum or guard (_i_), having an
alveolus, or conical hollow (_g_), to receive the apical portion of
the chambered phragmocone, and expanding proximally into a thin cup,
which became confluent with the capsule, and formed the receptacle
(_b, b_,) for the viscera.
3. The _Phragmocone_ (_d_), or chambered, siphunculated (_c_),
internal shell; the apex of which occupied the alveolus (_g_) of
the guard, and the upper part constituted a capacious chamber, from
the basilar margin of which proceeded two long, flat, testaceous,
processes (_a, a_,).
These structures comprise all that are at present known of the animal
to which the fossil commonly called "_Belemnite_," belonged.
Of the _Belemnoteuthis_, the cephalopod which Professor Owen
considers to be a Belemnite, many examples of the body with eight
uncinated arms and a pair of long tentacula, and with an ink-bag, and
palleal fins, have been discovered. The osselet of this animal, like
that of the Belemnite, has a fibro-radiated structure, investing a
conical chambered shell; but this organ, for reasons fully detailed
in the memoir, could never have been contained within the alveolus of
a Belemnite.
No _certain_ evidence has been obtained of the occurrence of an
_ink-bag_ in natural connexion with a Belemnite.
Diagram of the known Structures of the _Belemnites Puzosianus_, from
Trowbridge.
_a, a_, dorsal processes.
_b, b_, the receptacle.
_c, c_, the siphuncle.
_d, d_, the phragmocone.
_e_, the capsule.
_f_, the inferior end of the phragmocone.
_g_, the alveolus of the guard.
_h_, vertical section of the guard.
_i_, the guard, or rostrum of the osselet.
_k_, sulcus, or furrow, on the ventral aspect of this species of
Belemnite.
_l_, capsule, or periostricum.
_m_, the dorsal line.
_n_, transverse section, showing the fibrous radiated structure of
the guard.
In the annexed outline the several parts are represented in their
natural relative positions. The capsule, or most external investment,
(_e_) is seen only in section, being removed to expose the rostrum
or guard (the fossil body generally known as the Belemnite). The
upper three-fourths of the rostrum are also taken away, to show the
phragmocone which it originally enveloped. The straight transverse
lines denote the chambers of the phragmocone; the latter is seen
extending downwards till it terminates in a point or apex; that part
of the cavity in the guard is called the _alveolus_. The _siphuncle_,
or tube which extends through the entire series of chambers, and is
situated on the ventral margin, is indicated at _c, c_. The dorsal
processes (_a, a_) are seen on their inner aspect at the upper part;
the diverging lines (_m_) between them indicate the impressions of
the soft parts, of which some traces remain.
III. Fossil Remains of Birds.--_The Moa, or Dinornis of New
Zealand._ The bones of birds are of extreme rarity in a fossil
state. Throughout the immense series of the palæozoic and secondary
formations--the accumulated sedimentary deposits of innumerable
ages--no unquestionable indications of the existence of this class of
highly organized beings have been brought to light.
In the Triassic, or New Red argillaceous sandstones of the valley
of the Connecticut River, in North America, some very remarkable
phenomena have, however, been discovered, and which in the opinions
of many eminent observers render it highly probable, that at the
period when these strata were deposited, numerous birds, some of
colossal magnitude, abounded on the then dry land. When slabs of
these sandstones are split asunder, or exposed, so as to exhibit
the sedimentary surface which separates one layer from another,
the foot-prints of many species of bipeds are perceived deeply
impressed on the stone, and disposed in such manner as to prove that
they are the tracks of animals that walked over the surface of the
deposit when it was in a soft or plastic state. The close analogy of
these imprints to those of birds' feet, not only in their general
resemblance, but also in the disposition of the tracks, and in the
relation of the distance of the stride, and the depth and shallowness
of the impressions, to the size of the respective feet, tends to
corroborate the inference first enunciated by Professor Hitchcock,
and subsequently confirmed by other geologists, that these mysterious
markings on the rock, are natural records of the existence of various
tribes of birds during the Triassic period;[87] but unfortunately the
only certain evidence of the correctness of this opinion--remains of
the skeletons--is wanting; not a vestige of a vertebrated animal of a
higher class than fishes and reptiles has been discovered.[88]
[Footnote 87: Travels in North America, vol. ii. pl. 7.]
[Footnote 88: See Wonders of Geology, vol. ii. p. 556.
Ornithichnites, or Fossil Footprints of Birds; Medals of Creation,
vol. i. p. 808.]
In the vast fluviatile formation--the Wealden--of the south-east
of England, which abounds in the remains of terrestrial plants and
reptiles, many fragments of bones of such tenuity as to indicate that
they belonged to animals capable of flight, have from time to time
been collected since my first discovery and announcement, in 1822, of
supposed birds' bones in the strata of Tilgate Forest. Some of these
relics were declared by Baron Cuvier, and subsequently by Professor
Owen, to be unquestionably those of birds; probably some species of
waders. But recent observations have rendered it doubtful whether
all the specimens of this class from the Wealden, like those from
Stonesfield, are not to be regarded as referable to flying reptiles
(Pterodactyles).[89]
[Footnote 89: Wonders of Geology, vol. i. p. 438, 440. I still think
it probable, however, that bones of birds will be detected among the
Wealden fossils.]
In the chalk of Kent several bones of a very large flying animal
have been obtained from a quarry at Burham, near Maidstone; some of
these are figured and described in Professor Owen's beautiful work
on British Fossil Mammals and Birds, as those of a bird allied to
the Albatross; but the occurrence in the same quarry of jaws with
teeth, and other undoubted remains of a gigantic Pterodactyle,[90]
and the absence in the specimens figured of osteological characters
exclusively ornithic, seem to support the conclusion that these also
must be ascribed to flying reptiles.
[Footnote 90: These fossils are in the splendid museum of J. S.
Bowerbank, Esq. of Highbury Grove, Islington.]