Peter Parley's Wonders of the Earth, Sea, and Sky

CHAPTER III.

WHAT SORT OF A PLACE ONCE EXISTED WHERE THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PARIS IS NOW.

I shall show you a picture representing a state of things much more like the present, than the one we looked at before. It existed at a later period, though still a great many years ago; and if you wish to know why we conclude it to be later, since it is the other side of the water and we are therefore prevented from distinctly tracing the succession of the strata, I will tell you.

After leaving the formations of Dorsetshire, in which the great saurian or lizard-like reptiles are found, we come to chalk in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight; and after the chalk, to some beds of clay, and then some beds of limestone. The formations above the chalk, are those called tertiary; those from the chalk down to the lowest containing animal and vegetable remains, are the secondary; and all below that, consisting mainly of various sorts of granite, are the primary.

Now all this occurs in the same order in France, and the neighbourhood of Paris consisting of tertiary formations, just corresponds with the tertiary strata of the Isle of Wight, and them we know to be more recent than the secondary formations of Dorsetshire. Of course, therefore, the animals found at Paris, must be more recent than those found at Lyme Regis.

The largest of the animals represented in the plate, is called the PalÆotherium.

The following is a picture of his skeleton, as it has been made out, bone by bone. A single tooth was first discovered, and the French naturalist, Cuvier, was able to determine from this alone, a great many particulars which have now been proved by the subsequent discovery of the bones; such was the knowledge he had acquired by comparing the bones of different animals. He thus discovered that a certain shape of tooth always accompanied a certain shape of foot, as well as indicated what kind of food the animal lived upon. From this might be judged a great deal about the organs of digestion, and the internal structure, and something of its habits and disposition. In all these points and several others, Cuvier predicted from a single bone of the PalÆotherium, what has been exactly confirmed by the entire skeleton.

It was about the size of a small horse, and must have possessed a little trunk, or proboscis, like the modern Tapir, to which indeed it must have borne a great resemblance.

American Tapir.

The reason for thinking that it had a trunk, is because there is a peculiar contrivance in the bones to give strength to the neck, which only exists in animals that have a proboscis. There are some Tapirs in the Zoological Gardens, and if you have seen them, you will be able to form a pretty good notion of what the PalÆotherium must have been. It had perhaps rather more of the hog about it, than the Tapir has, with a more dull heavy expression of countenance.

There were three varieties of PalÆotherium distinguished by their size. The smallest was not much larger than a little dog, and you may see the figure of one of them in the picture, going down to the water to drink.

The more slender animal, which is walking towards the water, is the Anoplotherium, or un-armed beast. Its size varied from that of a hare, to that of a large dog; it had a very thick tail like that of the Kangaroo. Everything about it would lead one to suppose that it was a timid creature, whose swiftness and agility would protect it against stronger animals; not unlike in disposition to the antelope, or the hare of our times.

Another animal was living at the same period, which I must describe to you, as it was, as far as we know, the largest quadruped that ever lived upon the earth, and in some respects the most remarkable. It was called the Dinotherium, or terrible wild beast, and you will soon know how well it deserved this name. The individual of which a part of the head is now in the British Museum, must have been eighteen feet long in the body, and proportionally large! If you compare this size with that of the largest elephant you have ever seen, you will be able to form some notion of his enormous magnitude.

In his general form he somewhat resembled the Tapirs, but by no means so nearly as did the PalÆotherium. He had a much longer trunk; and his shoulder blade is formed like that of the mole, by which we know that he must have used his feet in digging. It seems almost certain that he was amphibious: and the back part of his skull has a remarkable similarity to that of the whale, and cetaceous fishes in general. But the most striking peculiarity in the bones which remain of this monster, is the existence of two large tusks bending down from the lower jaw, like two hooks, as you may see represented in this cut, of the head preserved in the Museum. His legs were probably rather short, and might have borne nearly the same proportion to his body, as those of the Hippopotamus do to his. From all we can collect, this must have been his general form and appearance.

There can be but little doubt that he was of a savage disposition and lead a sulky sort of life divided between the water and the land, like the Hippopotamus. His great tusks must have rendered him a formidable enemy; but as we know that he was a digging animal, it is very likely that he more frequently used them as a sort of pickaxe, to grub up such roots as he wanted to eat, for he lived wholly upon vegetables. He might also have employed them (as Dr. Buckland has conjectured), to stick into the banks of rivers to support his head above water, and to anchor himself so as not to be carried down by the stream, while his huge body lay in his favourite element: or it does not seem unlikely that he might at times have hooked them on to the lower boughs of trees, to sustain himself while he plucked down from above the fruit and foliage with his trunk.

His bones have been found in various parts of France, Germany and Austria.

When these animals were living, the climate must have been very much warmer than it is at present in France, for their bones are found associated with palm trees, and other vegetable remains of hot climates, and the bones of crocodiles, tortoises, and other creatures which only live in warm regions. The isle of Sheppey consists chiefly of land which was deposited about the same time, and it contains a great quantity of fossil coffee, and similar plants at present restricted to the East and West Indies, and countries near the equator.

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