Chapter 8

Fig. 41a.—Skull ofPlatecarpus. Upper Cretaceous. North America. (After Cope.)

"On another occasion, riding along a spur of yellow chalk bluff, some vertebræ lying at its foot met my eye. An examination showed that the series entered the rock, and, on passing round to the opposite side, the jaws and muzzle were seen projecting from it, as though laid bare for the convenience of thegeologist. The spur was small and of soft material, and we speedily removed it in blocks, to the level of the reptile, and took out the remains as they lay across the base from side to side."

In taking leave of the “Age of Reptiles,” we cannot but marvel greatly at the diversity of forms assumed by the various orders of this class, their strange uncouth appearance, their assumption, in some cases, of characters only known at the present day among the mammals, their great abundance, and the perfect state in which their remains have been preserved in the stratified rocks of various parts of the world. And the reader may naturally ask, “How is it that so many types have disappeared altogether, leaving us out of a total of at least nine orders, only four, viz. those represented by crocodiles, lizards, snakes, and turtles?” To such a question we can only answer that the causes of the extinction of plants and animals in the past are not yet known. Climate, geographical conditions, food-supply, competition, with other causes, doubtless operated then as now; but if there is one clear lesson taught by the record of the rocks, it is this—that there has been at work from the earliest periods a Law of Progress, so that higher types, coming in at certain stages, have ousted the lower types, sometimes only partially, sometimes completely. But why the Dinosaurs, for instance, perished entirely, while the crocodiles survived to the present day, no one can yet explain. We can see no reason, however, why such problems as these should not be solved in the future by the co-operating labours of naturalists and geologists.

In the great onward and upward struggle for existence, higher types have supplanted lower ones; and, in accordance with this biological truth, we find that in the next era (known as the Tertiary or Cainozoic) the mammal held the field while the reptile took a subordinate place.

CHAPTER X.

SOME AMERICAN MONSTERS.

“Geology, in the magnitude and sublimity of the objects of which it treats, ranks next to Astronomy in the scale of the Sciences.”—Sir John F. W. Herschel.

With the advent of the Cainozoic or Tertiary era, we enter upon the “Age of Mammals,” when great quadrupeds suddenly came upon the scene. The place of the reptile was now taken by the mammal. In the long previous era this higher type of life was not altogether wanting, but as far as the geological record is yet known, it appears only to have been represented by a few primitive little creatures, probably Marsupials, whose jaw-bones have been discovered in the New Red Sandstone, and the Stonesfield Oolite.[39]

[39]The English Cretaceous rocks, previously thought to be destitute of mammalian remains, have quite recently yielded teeth belonging to some small mammal. These were found in Wealden strata.

Geology tells of a great gap between the highest rocks of the Cretaceous period and the lowest group of the succeeding Eocene period (seeTable of Strata, Appendix I.). This gap, or break, testifies to a very long interval of time during which important geographical and other changes took place; and consequently we find in Eocene rocks (at the base of the Cainozoic series) a very different fauna and flora to that which is preserved in the Chalk formation.

The researches of Cuvier among the fossils collected from Eocene rocks in the neighbourhood of Paris, especially theGypseous series of Montmartre, revealed the existence of a very extensive fauna, especially of new types of mammals; and his restoration of the Palæotherium, a tapir-like animal, and other forms, created a vast amount of interest, and greatly stimulated the study of extinct animals. As we have already remarked, the science of palæontology may be said to have been founded by Cuvier (see Introduction,p. 5).

But now the scene shifts once more from Europe to the wilds of the Far West. American geologists tell us that a long time ago (during the Eocene period) there was a great tropical lake in the Wyoming territory, on the borders of which roamed, amidst luxuriant vegetation, a large number of strange and primitive quadrupeds, together with many other forms of life. The most wonderful group of animals that haunted the shores of this lake, or series of lakes, was the Dinocerata so fully described by Professor Marsh, in his exhaustive monograph.[40]The name implies that they were terrible horned monsters, but whether Nature provided them with true horns, like those of horned cattle to-day, is at least open to doubt.

[40]The Dinocerata, a monograph by O. C. Marsh,United States Geological Survey, vol. x.

Fig. 42shows the skeleton of one of these, namely, Tinoceras ingens. Its length was about 12 feet without the tail. Its weight, when alive, is calculated to have been six thousand pounds, or about two tons and three quarters.

Plate XIV.is a restoration of the Tinoceras, made by our artist, after much consideration and careful study of the valuable cast exhibited in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, which was generously presented by Professor Marsh (Gallery I. Case MM on plan). In planning this and other restorations, both artist and author have received valuable assistance from Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., Keeper of the Geological Department of the Museum, who is ever ready to help with his great knowledge those who come to consult him.

There may be differences of opinion among palæontologists as to the appearance presented by this formidable creature when alive, and no doubt the nature of the skin must always be more or less a matter of conjecture in such cases, but we venture to hope that the restoration here given, based as it is upon Mr. Smit’s thorough acquaintance with living animals and Professor Marsh’s description, will meet with a favourable verdict.

Fig. 42.—Skeleton ofTinoceras ingens. (After Marsh.)

Looking at the skeleton, one is struck with a certain resemblance to the rhinoceros on one hand, and to the elephant on the other. The legs are very elephantine, and the feet must have been covered with thick pads, but the body reminds one more of the rhinoceros; and yet, again, there is some suggestion of the hippopotamus. The eye was small and deep set, as in the rhinoceros. In the upper jaw the two canine teeth are developed into dagger-shaped tusks, the use of which can only be conjectured. In the females these are but slightly developed.

Plate XIV.

A LARGE EXTINCT MAMMAL, TINOCERAS INGENS.From North America. Length about 12 feet (without the tail).

It is quite clear, then, that we cannot place the Dinoceras in any order of living mammals. It is what palæontologists call a “generalised type;” that is to say, it presents certain characters seen in several groups of living quadrupeds, and not any of those elaborated or highly developed parts which we see in such animals to-day. Thus the proboscis of the elephant is a greatly elongated nose; in other words, the elephant is highly “specialised” in that direction, whereas our Dinoceras had no proboscis, or only a very slight one.

Fig. 43.—Skull ofDinoceras mirabile. (After Marsh.)

Again, the six remarkable bony protuberances of the skull served to some extent as horns, and probably were covered with thick bosses of skin, and did not support true horns like those of our modern oxen and other ruminants. Speaking of these protuberances, Professor Marsh says, “None of the covering of these elevations, or horn-cores, has, of course, been preserved; yet a fortunate discovery may perhaps reveal their nature by the form of a natural cast, as the eye-ball of the Oreodon is sometimes thus clearly indicated in the fine Miocene matrix which envelops these animals.” It looks rather as if we have here an early stage in the evolution of horns,and it may be that in the course of subsequent ages such prominences as those developed into true “horn cores,” such as sheep or goats have, while the thick bosses of skin that covered them slowly developed into the true horns that are attached to these cores. If this is so, then we have here another instance of a “generalised” structure. Again, the limbs with their five toes tell us at once that the creature’s place in Nature is outside of those two great groups of modern ungulates, or hoofed quadrupeds, the odd-toed and the even-toed, represented on the one hand by the horse, rhinoceros, and tapir, on the other by the pig, camel, deer, ox, and many other forms. Probably the two groups had not at this early period branched off from the primitive ungulate stock with five toes in each foot, of which the elephant is a living descendant, and from which also the Dinoceras must have come.

Fig. 44.—Cast of brain-cavity ofDinoceras mirabile. (After Marsh.)

The limbs were strong and massive, but the brain was remarkably small, so that our Dinoceras cannot be credited with any high degree of intelligence: and here again we see an absence of “specialisation” compared with the sagacious elephant. Professor Marsh has taken casts of its brain-cavity (seeFig. 44). These casts show that the brain was smaller (in proportion to the size of the animal) than in any other mammal, whether living or extinct—and even less than in some reptiles!In fact, it was a decidedly reptilian kind of brain. Perhaps it may seem hardly credible, but so small was the brain of Dinoceras mirabile, that it could have been pulled through the apertures (neural canals) of all the neck vertebræ! In certain marsupials of the present day we find an approach to this kind of brain. It seems to be an established fact, according to Professor Marsh, that all the Eocene or earlier Tertiary mammals had small brains. His researches among fossil mammals have led him to the important conclusion that, as time went on, the brains of mammals grew larger; and thus he has been able to establish his law of brain-growth during the Tertiary period, a law which appears to be plainly recorded in the fossil skulls of succeeding races of ancient mammals. The importance of a discovery such as this cannot fail to strike the imagination of even the most unlearned in geology as being singularly suggestive and instructive. It is not difficult to picture these dull, heavy, slow-moving creatures haunting the forests and palm jungles around the margin of the great Eocene lake, into the waters of which their carcases from time to time found their way—perhaps swept down by floods. No footprints have been discovered as yet.

The Dinocerata were very abundant for a long time during the middle of the Eocene period. The position of their remains suggests that they lived together in herds, as cattle do now, and they probably found an abundance of food in the shape of succulent vegetation round the great lake. Geological evidence points to their sudden extinction before the close of the Eocene period; but it is difficult to understand this. Professor Marsh thinks that from their sluggish nature they were incapable of adapting themselves with sufficient rapidity and readiness to new conditions, such as may have been brought about by geographical changes. It must be admitted, however, that the geological record in this region does not give evidence of any sudden change. Possibly they may only have migrated to some other region, where theirremains have not yet been discovered, or where, for various reasons, their skeletons were not preserved. In this Eocene lake, where sediments went on being quietly deposited for a long time, we have the most favourable conditions for the preservation of the different forms of life that flourished round its borders.

In the museum at Yale College are collected the spoils of numerous expeditions to the West, and the many tons of bones lying there are believed to represent the remains of no less than two hundred individuals of the Dinocerata. So perfectly have these bones been preserved by Nature that, even if the creatures had been living now, the material for studying their skeletons could hardly be more complete. Professor Marsh recognises three distinct types in this strange group of quadrupeds, on each of which a genus has been founded. The first and oldest form is the Uintatherium, which takes its name from the Uinta Mountains. This, as might be expected, is the most primitive or least specialised form, and comes from lower strata. The most highly developed or specialised form is the Tinoceras, and this is found at the highest geological level or “horizon.”

Between these two extremes, and from an intermediate horizon, comes the Dinoceras,[41]so that in tracing these animals through the strata in which they occur the geologist finds that he is following for a while the course of their evolution. Doubtless there were many slight differences presented by the members of this group, but at present it has not been found possible to determine the number of species, although about thirty forms more or less distinct have been recognised. Professor Marsh says that the specimen of the skull of Dinoceras mirabile, on which the whole order Dinocerata was founded, is, fortunately, in a very perfect state of preservation, and that it belonged to a fully adult animal. Moreover, it was embedded in so soft amatrix that the brain-cavity and the openings leading from it could be worked out without difficulty. In removing the skull from the rock, on the high and almost inaccessible cliff where it was found, two or three important fragments were lost; but Professor Marsh, after a laborious search, recovered them from the bottom of a deep ravine, where they had been washed down and covered up.

[41]The Dinoceras of Marsh is the same form as Eobasileus of Cope. Uintatherium was discovered by Leidy.

It is about twenty-two years since the wonderful forms of life sealed up within these Eocene lake-deposits first became known to science. Long before then, however, the wandering Indian had been accustomed to seeing strange-looking skulls and skeletons that peeped out upon him from the sides of cañons and hills, as the rocks that enclosed them crumbled away under the influence of atmospheric agents of change—the ceaseless working of wind, rain, heat, and cold. To his untrained mind no other explanation suggested itself than the idea that these were the bones of his ancestors, which it would be highly impious to disturb.Requiescant in pace!So he left them in peace. Perhaps he believed in a former race of human giants; if so, these would be their bones. Long before Professor Marsh’s expeditions, the earliest squatters, trappers, and others used to bring back news of marvellous monsters grinning from the ledges of rock beneath which they camped. At last these tales attracted the notice of some enthusiastic naturalists in the eastern States. Professor Leidy obtained a number of bones, from which he was able to bring to light an extinct creature at that time unknown to science, namely, the Uintatherium. Professor Cope also described some extinct animals disinterred by himself from the same region.

But our knowledge of the Dinocerata is chiefly due to Professor Marsh, who has despatched one expedition after another, and who, after many years of laborious research both in the western deserts and in his wonderful collection at Yale College, has published a splendid monograph on the subject.No trouble and no expense have been spared in order to obtain material for this great work, and all geologists must feel grateful to Professor Marsh for so liberally devoting his time and his private resources in order to advance the science of Palæontology.

The region in which the remains occur of the remarkable group of extinct animals now under consideration, has a peculiar scenery of its own, unlike anything in Europe. The following graphic description of its features is from the pen of Sir Archibald Geikie:—[42]

[42]Nature, vol. xxxii. p. 97.

“On the high plateau that lies to the west of the Rocky Mountains, along the southern borders of the Wyoming territory, the traveller moving westwards begins to enter on peculiar scenery. Bare, treeless wastes of naked stone, rising here and there into terraced ledges and strange tower-like prominences, or sinking into hollows where the water gathers in salt or bitter pools. Under the cloudless sky, and in the clear dry atmosphere, the extraordinary colouring of these landscapes forms, perhaps, their weirdest feature. Bars of deep red alternate with strips of orange, now deepening into sombre browns, now blazing out again into vermilion, with belts of lilac, buff, pale green, and white. And everywhere the colours run in almost horizontal bands, running across hollows and river-gorges for mile after mile through this rocky desert. The parallel strips of colour mark the strata that cover all this wide plateau country. They are the tints characteristic of an enormous accumulation of sedimentary rocks, that mark the site of a vast Eocene lake, or succession of lakes, on what is now nearly the crest of the continent.”

In this strange region the flat-topped hills, table-lands, or terraces, as they are variously named, seen from lower levels, are usually called “buttes,” especially when they are of limited extent. This name is of French origin, and signifies a bank ofearth or rising ground. It is also applied in a limited sense to the more prominent irregularities of the deeply sculptured slopes of the larger terraces. These buttes, therefore, vary in extent, from a mere mound rising slightly above the level of the plains to hills of varied configuration reaching to the level of the broader buttes or terraces.

Thedébrisresulting from the continual wearing away, or demolition of these buttes and terraces, now lies spread out on the plains below. From the lower plains the smaller terraces appear like vast earth-work fortifications, and when not too much cut up by erosion, remind one of long railway embankments. But in many cases the terraces are so much cut up by narrow ravines that they appear as great groups of naked buttes rising from the midst of the plain. Nothing can be more desolate in appearance than some of these vast assemblages of crumbling buttes, destitute of vegetation, and traversed by ravines, in which the watercourses in midsummer are almost all dried up. To these assemblages of naked buttes, often worn into castellated and fantastic forms, and extending through miles and miles of territory, the early Canadianvoyageursgave the nameMauvais Terres. They occur in many localities of the Tertiary formations west of the Mississippi River. Professor Leidy, who with two friends made an expedition in search of fossils to Dry Creek Cañon in this region of the “Bad Lands,” about forty miles to the southeast of Fort Bridger (Wyoming), thus describes his impressions:—

"On descending the butte to the east of our camp, I found before me another valley, a treeless barren plain, probably ten miles in width. From the far side of this valley butte after butte arose and grouped themselves along the horizon, and looked together in the distance like the huge fortified city of a giant race, the utter desolation of the scene, the dried-up watercourses, the absence of any moving object, the profound silence which prevailed, produced a feeling that was positively oppressive. When I thought of the buttes beneath our feet, with theirentombed remains of multitudes of animals for ever extinct, and reflected upon the time when the country teemed with life, I truly felt that I was standing on the wreck of a former world."

These old lake-basins, in which so many forms of life have been sealed up, all lie between the Rocky Mountains on the east, and the Wasatch Range on the west, or along the high central plateau of the continent. As the mountains were slowly elevated, part of the old sea of the Cretaceous period (that sea in which the “sea-serpents” played so important a part) was enclosed and cut off from the ocean. Rivers began to pour their waters into it, so that the waters became less and less salt, until at last a fresh-water lake, or series of lakes, was formed. As the upward movement of this region continued these lakes were all the while receiving sedimentary materials, such as sand and mud, from the rivers, until finally they were filled up, but not until the sediments had formed a mass of strata over a mile in thickness. Thus we see how favourable were the conditions for a faithful record of Eocene life-history.

But another process was going on which helped to bring them to an end; for they were being slowly drained by the rivers that flowed out of them, and these rivers kept on continually deepening their channels, so that we have dry land where the lakes once were.Nowthe region is over 6000 feet above the sea, and probably more than one-half of these fresh-water deposits have been washed away, mainly through the Colorado River. What is left of the Eocene strata forms the “Bad Lands.” The same geological action that has cut up and carved out this region into buttes, cañons, cliffs, peaks, and columns of fantastic shapes, has also brought to light the extinct animals preserved in the rocks, much in the same way as an old burial-ground, if cut up by intersecting trenches, might be made to yield up the bones of those who for generations had been buried therein.

Professor Marsh first discovered remains of Dinocerata in 1870, while investigating this Eocene lake-basin, which hadnever before been explored. It was here, also, that he found the wonderful series of fossil horses by means of which he has been able to prove that our modern horse is descended from a small quadruped with five toes, and to show the different stages in its evolution. Here, also, were found old-fashioned types of carnivorous quadrupeds, of rodents, and of insectivorous creatures. But reptiles as well as quadrupeds flourished on the borders of the old lake, for the remains were found of crocodiles, tortoises, lizards, and serpents; its waters, too, were well stocked with fish.

Everything here testifies to a long continuance of those conditions under which plant and animal life can flourish, namely, a warm climate, plenty of food, and freedom from those physical changes which, by altering the geographical features of a country, bring so many important consequences in their train. The geological record tells us that this happy state of things lasted all through the Eocene period, and until the fresh-water lakes had at last been drained away by their outflowing rivers.

In October, 1870, a later Eocene lake-basin was discovered by the same exploring party, and this Professor Marsh calls the Uinta basin, because it was situated south of the Uinta Mountains. “In the attempt to explore it,” he says, “our party endured much hardship, and also were exposed to serious danger, since we had only a small escort of United States soldiers, and the region visited was one of the favourite resorts of the Uinta-Utes. These Indians were then, many of them, insolent and aggressive, and since have been openly hostile, at one time massacring a large body of Government troops sent against them. Two subsequent attempts ... to explore this region met with little success.”

This lower lake was of later (or upper) Eocene age, and the extinct animals preserved in its ancient bed appear to resemble more nearly those of the famous Paris basin, referred to in the beginning of this chapter, than any yet discovered in America. But the basin north of the Uinta Mountains, where alone theDinocerata had been found, offered so inviting a field that, in the spring of 1871, Professor Marsh began to explore it systematically. He organised an expedition, with an escort of U.S. soldiers, and the work continued during the whole season. In this way a large collection was secured. Explorations were continued in the spring of the following year, which resulted in the discovery of the type specimen of the Dinoceras mirabile. Another expedition was organised in 1873, also with an escort of soldiers, and a great many specimens were collected. These researches were continued during 1874, and again in 1875, with good results. Since then various small parties have been equipped and sent out by Professor Marsh to collect in the same region of the “Bad Lands;” and, finally, during the entire season of 1882, the work was vigorously prosecuted under his direction, and afterwards under the auspices of the United States Geological Survey. This brief account of the difficulties and hardships encountered by Professor Marsh and his companions, for which we are indebted to his exhaustive monograph, will serve to give some idea of the nature of those labours, undertaken in the cause of Science, which he has brought to so successful an issue.

In the country east of the Rocky Mountains, including the states of Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and part of Colorado, Professor Marsh has discovered the remains of yet another strange group of large quadrupeds. The best known of these is Brontops, of which the skeleton is seen inFig. 45. These animals lived after the Dinocerata, namely, in the Miocene period, and were the largest American mammals of that period. They constitute a distinct family more nearly allied to the rhinoceros than to any other living form. The skeleton on whichFig. 45is founded was the most complete of any yet discovered by Professor Marsh. Portions of it were exhumed at different times, but it was first found in 1874. Our artist has made the restoration seen inPlate XV.from this skeleton, as figured by Professor Marsh.

Plate XV.

A HUGE EXTINCT MAMMAL FROM NORTH AMERICA. BRONTOPS ROBUSTUS.

This strange group of creatures flourished in great numbers on the borders of an old lake of Miocene age. The Brontops was a heavy massive animal, larger than any of the Dinocerata, with a length of twelve feet, not including the tail, and a height of eight feet. The limbs are shorter than those of the elephant, which it nearly equalled in size. As in the tapir, there were four toes to the front limbs, and three to the hind limbs. Its skull was of a peculiar shape, shallow, and very large. That of Brontops ingens is thirty-six inches long, and twenty inches between the tips of the two horns, or protuberances. The creature was probably provided with an elongated, flexible nose, like that of the tapir, but not longer, because the length of the neck shows that it could reach the ground without the aid of a trunk such as the elephant’s. It is doubtful if the two prominences on the front of the skull were provided with horns, for, if directed forwards, they would interfere with the animal when grazing.

Fig. 45.—Skeleton of Brontops robustus. (After Marsh.)

CHAPTER XI.

SOME INDIAN MONSTERS.

“What a glorious privilege it would be, could we live back—were it but for an instant—into those ancient times when these extinct animals peopled the earth! to see them all congregated together in one grand natural menagerie—these mastodons and elephants, so numerous in species, toiling their ponderous forms and trumpeting their march in countless herds through the swamps and reedy forests!”—Hugh Falconer.

It is a far cry back, against the sun’s path, from Wyoming and the flanks of the Rocky Mountains to the sacred Himalayas—the “abode of snow”—of Northern India. But if the reader will follow us to that country, we will endeavour to describe two or three out of many strange and now lost forms of life brought to light from the famous Sivalik Hills, on the southern border of the Himalayas, for the knowledge of which Science is greatly indebted to a very distinguished palæontologist, the late Mr. Hugh Falconer. Together with his friend Captain Cautley (afterwards Sir Proby Cautley), he explored this region, and their joint arduous labours show that it was at one time inhabited by a very large and varied group of quadrupeds, together with many birds, reptiles, fishes, mollusca, and crustaceans.

In this region there lived, throughout a considerable part of the Tertiary period, elephants, of various species, whose skulls and bones were found in great numbers; mastodons (a closely allied form); and several species of hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and horse: among ruminants, species of the camel, the ox, thestag, and the antelope, together with a colossal creature unknown before, the Sivatherium, which has never been found elsewhere; a huge tortoise, and various species of carnivora, rodents, and apes.

With regard to the geography of the region, it appears that the continent of India, at an early period of the Tertiary era, was a large island, situated in a bight, or bay, formed by the Himalayas and the Hindoo Koosh range. The valleys of the Ganges and Indus formed a long estuary, into which the drainage of the Himalayas poured its silt and alluvium. Later on, an upheaval took place, converting these straits into the plains of India, connecting them with the ancient island, and forming the existing continent. The large and varied forms whose remains now lie “sealed within the iron hills” then spread over the continent, from the Irrawaddi to the mouths of the Indus, two thousand miles; and north-west to the Jhelum, fifteen hundred miles. After a long interval of repose, another great upheaval took place, which threw up a strip of the plains of India, crumpled and ridged it up to form the Sivalik Hills, and at the same time increased the elevation of the Himalayas by many thousands of feet.

It would be easy to show that such events as these must have been followed by changes in climate, for the climate of a region depends largely on its physical features—the proportion of land and water, the presence of hills and mountain ranges, and their height; and it is considered probable that the physical changes above mentioned helped to bring about the extinction of this most interesting and ancient fauna. Throughout the latter part of the Tertiary era it is well known to geologists that the climate of Europe was becoming gradually colder, until at last a glacial period, or “Ice Age,” was experienced, during which Northern Europe was subjected to an arctic climate, and the great ice-sheet seems to have been slowly retiring and melting away in the early part of the Stone Age. But in India there has been no such decrease in temperature, and it enjoyed in Tertiary timesas warm a climate as it now has, so that both animal and vegetable life continued to flourish vigorously.

By the Sivalik (or Sewalik) Hills is meant that range of lower elevations which stretches along the south-west foot of the Himalayas, for the greater portion of their extent from the Indus to the Brahmapootra, where those rivers respectively debouche from the hills into the plains of India. It extends for nearly a thousand miles, and it appears to have been entirely built up of alluvialdébris, washed down from the Himalayas into that sea which we have already referred to as having once separated the plains of India from the great range now forming its northern boundary. The strata thus formed were subsequently upheaved to form the Sivalik Hills. Thus we see that one mountain range may help to form another one running parallel to itself. The name is derived from Siva, or Mahadeo, the Hindoo god; these hills, as well as the Himalayas, being connected in Hindoo mythology in various ways with the history of Siva.

Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley soon found that they had “struck oil” in the Sivalik Hills, or, in other words, had come upon one of Nature’s great graveyards, full of material most valuable to the palæontologist—one which, extending for hundreds of miles, might perhaps prove to be as rich in relics of the world’s “lost creations” as the lake-basin in Wyoming, where Professor Marsh discovered his Dinocerata and other extinct types.

Let us give Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley their due. They found themselves suddenly confronted with a perfect mine of wealth, in a far country, where the ordinary means resorted to by men of science for determining extinct types and species, by comparison with living forms, were not to be obtained, for there were no libraries and no museums of comparative anatomy in that remote quarter of India. But Dr. Falconer was not the man to be baffled by such drawbacks, which would have deterred and discouraged some men. He appealed to the living forms that abounded in the surrounding forests, rivers, and swamps, andtook toll of them to supply the want. Nature herself became his library and his museum. Skeletons of all kinds were prepared; the extinct forms he collected were compared with their nearest living allies, and a valuable series of “Memoirs” by himself and Captain Cautley was the result.[43]

[43]These appeared in theAsiatic Researches, theJournal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and in theGeological Transactionsof the London Geological Society.

The Sivalik explorations soon attracted attention in Europe, and in 1837 the Wollaston Medal, in duplicate, was awarded for their discoveries to Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley by the Geological Society, the fountain of geological honours in England; while the value of the distinction was enhanced by the terms in which the President, Sir Charles Lyell, was pleased to announce the award. This is what he said: "When Captain Cautley and Dr. Falconer first discovered these remarkable remains, their curiosity was awakened, and they felt convinced of their great scientific value; but they were not versed in fossil osteology [the study of bones], and, being stationed on the remote confines of our Indian possessions, they were far distant from any living authorities or books on comparative anatomy to which they could refer. The manner in which they overcame these disadvantages, and the enthusiasm with which they continued for years to prosecute their researches, when thus isolated from the scientific world, are truly admirable. Dr. Royle has permitted me to read a part of their correspondence with him, when they were exploring the Sivalik Mountains, and I can bear witness to their extraordinary energy and perseverance. From time to time they earnestly requested that Cuvier’s works might be sent out to them, and expressed their disappointment when, from various accidents, these volumes failed to arrive. The delay, perhaps, was fortunate; for, being thrown entirely upon their own resources, they soon found a museum of comparative anatomy in the surrounding plains, hills, and jungles, where they slew the wild tigers, buffaloes, antelopes, and other Indian quadrupeds, of which they preservedthe skeletons, besides obtaining specimens of all the reptiles which inhabited that region. They were compelled to see and think for themselves, while comparing and discriminating the different recent and fossil bones, and reasoning on the laws of comparative osteology, till at length they were fully prepared to appreciate the lessons which they were taught by the works of Cuvier."

In 1840 Captain Cautley presented his vast collection, the result of ten years' unremitting labour and great personal outlay, to the British Museum, the Geological Society having declined to accept it, as it was beyond their means of accommodation. Its extent and value may be estimated from the fact that it filled 214 large chests, the average weight of each of which amounted to 4 cwt., and that the charges on its transmission to England alone, which were defrayed by the Government of India, amounted to £602. Dr. Falconer’s selected collection was divided between the India House and the British Museum; the greater part was presented to the former, but a large number of unique or choice specimens, required to fill up blanks, were presented to the latter. The greater part of the specimens in the British Museum were still unarranged and embedded in their matrix. In 1844 a memorial was presented to the Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company, pointing out the desirability of having the specimens in the national collection prepared, arranged, and displayed, and also of publishing an illustrated work, which would convey to men of science in both hemispheres a knowledge of the contents of the Sivalik Hills, and suggesting Dr. Falconer as the person most fitted to superintend the work. The Government of the time, under Sir Robert Peel, made a grant of £1000 to enable the collection to be exhibited in the British Museum, and Dr. Falconer was entrusted with the work. Besides this, a large illustrated work, entitledFauna Antiqua Sivalensis, was begun, but owing to the demands upon Dr. Falconer’s time, and his subsequent death, this work was not completed, although nine out of the twelve parts originally contemplated were finished.The great Indian collection of fossils, mainly the gift of Sir Proby Cautley (the specimens of which, stupendous in their size, and in fine preservation, were prepared, identified, and arranged by Dr. Falconer), has long constituted one of the chief ornaments of the collection at the British Museum—now removed to the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington.

Other collections of fossils from the Sivalik Hills have been presented to the Museum of Edinburgh University by Colonel Colvin, and to the Oxford University by Mr. Walter Ewer. When it is remembered that these collections have since been increased tenfold, and that the remains were either excavated or found in thedébrisof cliffs, and that the explored surface bears a very small proportion to that which has not yet been investigated, one may conceive how prodigious must have been the number of animals that lived together in the former plains of India, even when every allowance is made for the bones having accumulated during many successive generations in the Sivalik strata.

From this large and important collection we select two of special interest for brief notice here, namely, the Sivatherium,[44]and an immense tortoise known as the Colossochelys.

[44]FromSiva, the Hindoo god; and Greek,therion, a beast.

The first of these monsters was a remarkable form of animal, unlike anything living. In size it surpassed the largest rhinoceros, and was bigger than any living ruminant. Altogether, it was one of the most remarkable forms of life yet detected in the more recent strata. It had two pairs of horns on its head—two short and quite simple ones in front, and two larger ones, more or less expanded, behind them. From the character of these long horn-cores, which are prolongations of the skull, it may be concluded that the Sivatherium was a gigantic ruminant with four horns. A cast of the original skull, with the horn-cores restored from actual parts, in the collection and elsewhere, has been placed on a stand in the centre of the long gallery of fossil vertebrates atSouth Kensington (Stand I) near to the case containing the skull and other portions of the skeleton (seeFig. 46). There is also hanging on the wall near, a clever painting by Berjeau, representing the creature as it may have appeared when alive. The entire skeleton, partly restored, is shown inFig. 47, with a conjectural outline of the body. A hornless skull of a nearly allied animal from the same strata and locality is placed with that of the Sivatherium, and was considered by Dr. Falconer and others to be the skull of the hornless female (also represented as such in the above picture referred to); but is now, by more recent writers, regarded as a separate genus, viz. the Helladotherium, so named because the remains were first discovered at Pikermi, near Athens, Greece (ancient Hellas). (SeePlate XVI.)

Fig. 46.—Skull ofSivatherium giganteum, from the Sivalik Hills, Northern India.

Plate XVI.

Back to Index Next