The World Before the Deluge
The most remarkable creatures of the period, however, were the great Edentates — the Glyptodon, the gigantic Megatherium, the Mylodon and the Megalonyx. The order of Edentates is more particularly characterised by the absence of teeth in the fore part of the mouth. The masticating apparatus of the Edentates consists only of molars, the incisors and canine teeth being, with a few exceptions, absent altogether, as the animals composing this order feed chiefiy on insects or the tender leaves of plants. The Annadillo, Anteater and Pangolin, are the living examples of the order. We may add, as still further characteristics, largely developed claws at the extremities of the toes. The order seems thus to establish itself as a zoological link in the chain between the hoofed Mammals and the
POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 4OI
ungulated animals, or those armed with claws. All these animals are peculiar to the continent of America.
The Glyptodon, which appears during the Quaternary period, belonged to the family of Armadilloes, and their most remarkable feature was the presence of a hard, scaly shell, or coat of mail six feet in length, and composed of numerous segments, which covered the entire upper service of the animal from the head to the tail. It was, in, short, a mammiferous animal, which appears to have been enclosed in a shell like that of a Turtle; it resembled in many respects the Dasypits or Anteater, and had sixteen teeth in each jaw. These teeth were channeled laterally with two broad and deep grooves, which divided the surface of the molars into three parts, whence it was named the Glyptodon. The hind feet were broad and massive, and evidently designed to support a vast incumbent mass; it presented phalanges armed with short thick and depressed nails or claws. The animal was, as we have said, enveloped in, and protected by, a cuirass, or solid carapace, composed of plates which, seen from beneath, appeared to be hexagonal and united by denticulated sutures: above they represented double rosettes. The habitat of Glyptodon davipes was the pampas of Buenos Ayres, and the banks of an affluent of the Rio Santo, near Monte Video; specimens have been found not less than nine feet in length. The tesselated carapace of the Glyptodon was long thought to belong to the Megatherium \ but Professor Owen shows, from the anatomical structure of the two animals, that the cuirass belonged to one of them only, namely, the Glyptodon.
The Schistopleuroii does not differ essentially from the Glyptodon, but is supposed to have been a different species of the same genus; the chief difference between the two animals being in the structure of the tail, which is massive in the first and in the other composed of half a score of rings. In other respects the organisation and habits are similar, both being herbivorous, and feeding on roots and vegetables. Fig. 186 represents the Schistoplairon typus restored, and as it appeared when alive. Some of the fossil Tortoises discovered in the sub-Himalayan beds possessed a carapace twelve feet long by six feet in breadth, which must have corresponded to an animal from eighteen to twenty feet in length; and the bones of the legs were as massive as those of the Rhinoceros. The Megatherium^ or Animal of Paraguay, as it was called, is, at first view, the oddest and most remarkable animal we have yet had' A A
THE WORLD BEFORE THE DELUGE.
402 under consideration, where all have been, according to our notions, strange, extraordinary, and formidable. The animal creation still goes on as if— " Nature made them and then broke the die."
If we cast a glance at the skeleton figured on the opposite page (Plate XXVII.), which was found in Paraguay, at Buenos Ayres, in
Fig. 185.— Schistopleuron typus. One-twentieth natural size.
1788, and which is now placed, in a perfect state of preservation, in the Museum of Natural History in Madrid, it is impossible to avoid being struck with its unusually heavy form, at once awkward as a whole, and ponderous in most of its parts. It is allied to the existing genus of.Sloths, which Buffon tells us is "of all the animal creation that which has received the most vicious organisation — a being to which Nature has forbidden all enjoyment; which has only been created for hardships and misery." This notion of the romantic Buffon is, however, altogether incorrect. An attentive examination of the Animal of
XXVII.—Skeleton of the Megatherium (Clift).
JParaguay shows that its organisation cannot be considered either odd •or awkward when viewed in connection with its mode of hfc and individual habits. The special organisation which renders the movements of the Sloths so sluggish, and apparently so painful on level .ground, gives them, on the other hand, marvellous assistance when they live in trees, the leaves of which constitute their exclusive food. In the same manner, if we consider that the Megatherium was created to burrow in the earth and feed upon the roots of trees and shrubs, ■every organ of its heavy frame would appear to be perfectly appropriate to its kind of life, and well adapted to the special purpose which was assigned to it by the Creator. We ought to place the Megatherium between the Sloths and the Anteaters. Like the first, it usually fed on the branches and leaves of trees; like the latter, it burrowed deep in the soil, finding there both food and shelter. It was as large as an Elephant or Rhinoceros of the largest species. Its body measured twelve or thirteen feet in length, and it was between five and six feet high. The engraving on page 403 (Plate XXVII.) will convey, more accurately than any mere verbal description, an idea of the form and proportions of the animal.
The English reader is chiefly indebted to the zeal and energy of Sir Woodbine Parish for the materials from which our naturalists have been enabled to re-construct the history of the Megatherium. The remains collected by him were found in the river Salado, which runs through the flat alluvial plains called Pampas to the south of the city of Buenos Ayres. A succession of three unusually dry seasons had lowered the waters to such a degree as to expose part of the pelvis to view, as the skeleton stood upright in the mud forming the bed of the river. Further inquiries led to the discovery of the remains of two other skeletons near the place where the first had been found; and with them an immense shell or carapace was met with, most of the bones associated wuth which crumbled to pieces on exposure to the air. The osseous structure of this enormous animal, .as furnished by Mr. Clift, an eminent anatomist of the day, and under whose superintendence the skeleton w^as drawn, must have exceeded fourteen feet in length, and upwards of eight feet in height. The deeply shaded parts of the figure show the portions which are deficient in the Madrid skeleton.
Cuvier pointed out that the skull very much resembled that of the Sloths, but that the rest of the skeleton bore relationship, partly to the Sloths, and partly to the Anteaters.
The large bones, which descend from the zygomatic arch along the cheek-bones, would furnish a powerful means of attaching the
THE WORLD BEFORE THE DELUGE.
4o6 motor muscles of the jaws. The anterior part of the muzzle is fully developed, and riddled with holes for the passage of the nerves, and vessels which must have been there, not for a trunk, which would have been useless to an animal furnished with a very long, neck, but for a snout analogous to that of the Tapir.
Fig. 186,— Skeleton of Megatherium foreshortened.
The jaw and dental apparatus cannot be exactly stated, because the number of teeth in the lower jaw is not known. The upper jaw,. Professor Owen has shown, contained five molars on each side; and from comparison and analogy with the Scelidotherium it may be conjectured that \^ Mcgatherium\d,dL four on each side of the lower jaw. Being without incisors or canines, the structure of its eighteen molars proves that it was not carnivorous: they each resemble the composite molars of the Elephant.
POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 40/
The vertebrae of the neck (as exhibited in the foreshortened figure (Fig. 1 86), taken from the work of Pander and D'Alton, and showing nearly a front view of the head), as well as the anterior and posterior extremities of the Madrid skeleton, although powerful, are not to be
Fig. 187. — Bones of the pelvis of the Megatherium.
compared in dimensions to those of the other extremity of the body;' for the head seems to have been relatively light and defenceless. The lumbar vertebrce increase in a degree corresponding to the enormous enlargement of the pelvis and the posterior members. The vertebrce of the tail are enormous, as is seen in Fig. 1S7, which represents the bones of the pelvis and hind foot, discovered by
Sir Woodbine Parish, and now in the Museum of the College of Surgeons. If we add to these osseous organs the muscles, tendons, and integuments which covered them, we must admit that the tail of the Megatherium could not be less than two feet in diameter. It is probabk that, like the Armadillo, it employed the tail to assist in supporting the enormous weight of its body; it would also be a formidable defensive organ when employed, as is the case with the Pangolins and Crocodiles. The fore-feet would be about three feet long and one foot broad. They would form a powerful implement for excavating the earth, to the greatest depths at which the roots of vegetables penetrate. The fore-feet rested on the ground to their full length. Thus solidly supported by the two hind-feet and the tail, and in advance by one of the fore-feet, the animal could employ the fore-foot left at liberty in clearing away the earth, in digging up the roots of trees, or in tearing down the branches; the toes of the fore-feet were, for this purpose, furnished with large and powerful claws, which lie at an oblique angle relatively to the ground, much like the burrowing talons of the mole.
The solidity and size of the pelvis must have been enormous; its immense iliac bones are nearly at right angles with the vertebral column; their external edges are distant more than a yard and a half from each other when the animal is standing. The femur is three times the thickness of the thigh-bone of the Elephant, and the many peculiarities of structure in this bone appear to have been intended to give solidity to the whole frame, by means of its short and massive proportions. The two bones of the leg are, like the femur, short, thick, and solid; presenting proportions which we only meet with in the Armadilloes and Anteaters; burrowing animals with which, as we have said, its two extremities seem to connect it.
The anatomical organisation of these members denotes heavy, slow, and powerful locomotion, but solid and admirable combinations for supporting the weight of an enormous sedentary creature; a sort of excavating machine, slow of motion but of incalculable power for its own purposes. In short, the Megatherium exceeded in dim.ensions all existing Edentates. It had the head and shoulders of the Sloth, the feet and legs combined the characteristics of the Anteaters and Sloths, of enormous size, since it was at least twelve feet long when full grown, its feet armed with gigantic claws, and its tail at once a means of supporting its huge body and an instrument of defence. An animal built with such massive proportions could evidently neither creep nor run; its walk would be excessively slow. But what necessity was there for rapid movement in a being only