Show GIANTS IN SWAMPS mastodons that have been unearthed in marshy regions now Itei earch ha ben aided by abe of extinct birda alid la wet it would perhaps ha difficult to find anybody who would speak a good word for swamps 1 he man who drains one and turns its marshy surface into productive soil is universally carded as a public benefactor so the projected draining of the bimal swamp in virginia and the swamp of georgia is regarded only with favor and few could be found to regret the disappearance of these remarkable features of our american landscapes says youths companion yet setting aside the strange of such marshy regions and the curiosities of plant life which they exhibit it is easy to show that swamps have been useful in a manner that could hardly have been anticipated they have very effectually served the cause of science by preserving the remains of some of the most remarkable of the former inhabitants of the earth here in america the skeletons of several mastodons have been found im bedded in ancient swamps and BO perfectly preserved that no difficulty whatever has been encountered in re storing the bones to their normal position setting the skeletons on their feet and thus exhibiting to the eyes of modern man the monster animals which were probably familiar sights to our ancestors nobody knows how many thousands of years ago in ireland the ancient swamps were equally efficacious in preserving for us the gigantic elks which became mired in them swamps leave proved no less useful agents of science in other parts of the world and particularly in australia new zealand and madagascar what could be more interesting than the bones of a giant bird which was in all probability the roc described by just such bones have been discovered in the marshes of madagascar and new Zealan dand there is plenty of evidence that the great birds which owned them were the contemporaries of men in the past history of those islands but for the swamps we might have remained ignorant of the fact that birds with heavier than those of the largest horse once flourished in the southern hemisphere lately these madagascar swamps have yielded other remains of extinct animals hardly less interesting than the huge bird the epi ornis itself these are the skeletons of a creature resembling a lemur of gigantic size but remarkable for the small quantity of brains which it possessed it is said that man was responsible for the destruction st and disappearance of this creature if so it was probably a simple case of brains against brute force there is reason for thinking that still other discoveries remain to be made in madagascar discoveries that will possibly bring to light even more interesting facts concerning the former inhabitants of that part of the world suppose one of our swamps which we regard as utterly useless should preserve to a remote future age the only remains of some animal like the bison or the tiger now rapidly becoming extinct the men of science then living would have the same reason for rejoicing that that swamp bad existed that we have for being thankful for the revelations contained in the swamps of ancient days |