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, the stag, 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 times as 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 alluvial _débris_, 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, and took 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 the _Asiatic Researches_, the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, and in the _Geological Transactions_ of 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 preserved the 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, entitled _Fauna 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 the _débris_ of 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] From _Siva_, 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 at South Kensington (Stand I) near to the case containing the skull and other portions of the skeleton (see Fig. 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 in Fig. 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). (See Plate XVI.)

In the Sivatherium we have a new type which seems to connect together two families at the present time well marked off from each other, namely, the giraffe and the antelope. Its teeth resemble those of the former animal, while in its four horns it resembles a certain antelope (Antilope quadricornis). The head in certain respects shows resemblances to that of the ox, but the upper lip must have been prolonged into a short proboscis, or trunk, like that of the tapir. The form and proportions of the jaw agree closely with the corresponding parts of a buffalo. But no known ruminant, fossil or existing, has a jaw of such large size, the average dimensions being more than double those of a buffalo. The skull is the best known part of the animal, but Captain Cautley came across some of the bones of the limbs.

The Colossochelys atlas,[45] or gigantic fossil tortoise of India, supplies a fit representative of the tortoise which sustained the elephant and the infant world in the fables of the Pythagorean and Hindoo cosmogonies. It is highly interesting to trace back to its probable source a matter of belief like this, so widely connected with the speculations of an early period of the human race.

[45] Greek, _Colossos_, Colossus, and _chelus_, tortoise. Atlas was supposed to sustain the world on his shoulders.

The carapace, or buckler, of the shell of this crawling monster is similar in general form to the large land-tortoises of the present day.[46] The shell is estimated to have been at least six feet long. The limbs were probably similar to those of a modern land-tortoise, and the limb-bones are of huge size--a single humerus, or arm-bone, measuring 28 inches. Probably the foot was as large as that of a rhinoceros. A restored cast of a young individual stands at the West end of the fossil reptile gallery, South Kensington (Stand Z on plan). Length of the shield, 10 feet[47] (see Fig. 48).

[46] Giant tortoises of the present day live on islands--where they have escaped competition with large carnivora and other foes--such as the Aldabra group, N.W. of Madagascar, in the Mascarenes, which comprise Mauritius and Rodriguez; and the Galapagos, or "Tortoise Islands," off the coast of South America. When Mr. Darwin visited the latter islands he saw the relics, as it were, of a family of huge tortoises, which lived there in abundance a few years before, and was able to verify many interesting facts which had been recorded by Porter in 1813, who stated that some of those captured by him weighed from 300 to 400 lbs., and that on one island they were 5-1/2 feet long. Those of one island differed from those of another. Some had long necks. After Mr. Darwin's visit the process of extermination went on. At the present time it is most probable that the gigantic tortoises are very rare where formerly they were so abundant. One of these great tortoises is that of Abingdon Island, in the Galapagos Archipelago, of which there is a fine stuffed specimen in the Natural History Museum (Reptile Gallery). It has a very long neck, and a small flat-topped head with a short snout. It weighed originally 201 lbs. The Indian tortoises of the present day are not of large size. See the fine specimens in the Natural History Museum--Reptile Gallery (left wing of the building).

[47] Dr. Falconer's estimate was much too great, so that this model is too large. Mr. Lydekker prefers to drop the generic term Colossochelys, and call it Testudo Atlas. In length it was only one-third greater than Testudo elephantina of the Galapagos Islands.

The first fossil remains of this colossal tortoise were discovered by Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley in 1835, in the Tertiary strata of the Sivalik Hills. At the period when it was living--probably the Pliocene--there was great abundance and variety of life on the scene, for its remains were found to be associated with those of many great quadrupeds, such as the elephant, mastodon, rhinoceros, horse, camel, giraffe, sivatherium, and many other mammals. The Sivalik fauna also included a great number of reptiles, such as crocodiles, lizards, and snakes.

The greater part of the remains of the Colossochelys atlas were collected during a period of eight or nine years, along a range of about a hundred miles of hilly country. Consequently, they belong to a large number of individuals, varying in size and age. They were met with in crushed fragments, contained in upheaved strata, which have undergone considerable disturbance, so that it is improbable that an entire uncrushed specimen will ever be found. When the first fragments, in huge shapeless masses, were found by the discoverers, they were utterly at a loss what to make of them, and for many months could do nothing more than look upon them in bewildered and nearly hopeless admiration. But no sooner was the clue found to a single specimen than every fragment moved into its place so as to form a consistent whole.

It is not possible at present to say, with any degree of certainty, whether this colossal tortoise survived into the human period; but at least there is no evidence against the idea, and Dr. Falconer shows it is quite possible that the frequent allusions to a gigantic tortoise in Hindoo and other mythologies are to be explained on the supposition that the creature was seen by the men of a prehistoric age. Other species of tortoises and turtles that were coeval with the Colossochelys have lived on to the present day. So have other reptiles, for some of the crocodiles now living in India appear to be identical with the forms dug out of the Sivalik Hills. In the absence of direct geological evidence, we must fall back on traditions.

Now, there are traditions connected with the speculations of nearly all Eastern nations with regard to the world (cosmogonies) that refer to a tortoise of such gigantic size as to be associated with the elephant in their fables. The question therefore arises--Was this tortoise a creature of the imagination, or was the idea of it drawn from a living reality? Besides a tradition current among the Iroquois Indians of North America, referring to the important share which the tortoise had in the formation of the earth, there are several cases in ancient history bearing on the same point. Thus, we find in the Pythagorean doctrine the infant world represented as having been placed on the back of an elephant, which was sustained on a huge tortoise. Greek and Hindoo mythologies were undoubtedly related to each other, and accordingly we find in the Hindoo accounts of the second Avatar of Vishnoo, that the ocean is said to have been churned by means of the mountain placed on the back of the king of the tortoises, and the serpent Asokee used as the churning-rope. Again, Vishnoo was said to have assumed the form of the tortoise, and to have sustained the created world on his back to make it stable. This fable has taken such a firm hold of the Hindoos, that to this day they believe the world rests on the back of a tortoise (see Fig. 49). In the narratives of the feasts of the bird-demigod, Garuda, the tortoise again figures largely, and Guruda is said on one occasion to have appeased his hunger at a certain lake where an elephant and a tortoise were fighting.

These three instances, in each of which there is a distinct reference to a gigantic form of tortoise, comparable in size with the elephant, suggest the question whether we are to regard the idea as a mere fiction of the imagination, like the Minotaur or the Chimæra, or as founded on a living tortoise. Dr. Falconer points out that it seems unlikely that such fables could have been suggested by any of the small species of tortoises now living in India, and consequently is inclined to think that the monster was seen by man many centuries ago, long before he began to write history. We have already alluded to the large number of mammalian forms of life that were contemporary with the Sivatherium and Colossochelys, but if we examine this old Sivalik fauna we find it presents several very interesting features. In the first place, it exhibits a wonderful richness and variety of forms, compared to the living fauna of India. Take the pachydermata, for instance--an old order established by Cuvier to include the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, elephant, etc.--and we find there were, in the period under consideration, about five times the number of species now known in India. Elephants and mastodons, too, of various species abounded. So it is with the ruminants; besides a large number of species allied to those now living, such as the ox, buffalo, bison, deer, antelope, musk-deer, and others, there were giraffes and camels, as well as the strange Sivatherium. And so it is with the other orders, such as carnivora, rodents, insectivora, etc.

Secondly, this great and varied fauna of the past shows a striking resemblance to that of India at the present day. Darwin found the same resemblance in South America; and now it is accepted as a general law, that the living fauna of a country resembles its extinct fauna, especially that of the latest geological period. Dr. Falconer found that India's living fauna is but, as it were, a remnant of that which it once possessed.

Thirdly, this extinct Sivalik fauna presents a singular mixture of old and new forms. And lastly, it points to a very different geographical distribution of animals. Thus the giraffe, the hippopotamus, and the ostrich are _now_ confined to Africa. Facts such as these serve to throw light on the geography of the past; but we cannot stay to enlarge on that subject here.

Much might be said about the fossil elephants and mastodons from the Sivalik Hills, so fully described by Dr. Falconer, but since chapters xiii. and xiv. deal with elephants, we must reserve our remarks till then, only alluding here to one striking form from the Sivalik Hills, namely, the Elephas ganesa, the tusks of which were more than ten feet in length, and much less curved than those of the mammoth. A very fine specimen of the head and tusks may be seen in the gallery of fossil mammals in the Natural History Museum (Gallery I, Stand D).

With the following eloquent passage from Dr. Falconer's "Memoirs," we take leave of the remarkable Sivalik fauna, hoping that future geologists will endeavour to follow his example and bring to light yet other "lost creations" from that region, so rich in fossils, yet comparatively unexplored. Would that the English Government could see their way to follow the example of the United States, and send out a scientific expedition to explore this wonderful region! There can be no doubt that a rich harvest lies waiting there to be reaped.

"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! to view the giant Sivatherium, armed in front with four horns, spurning the timidity of his race, and, ruminant though he be, proud in his strength, and bellowing his sturdy career in defiance of all aggression! And then the graceful giraffes, flitting their shadowy forms like spectres through the trees, mixed with troops of large as well as pigmy horses, and camels, antelopes, and deer! And then, last of all, by way of contrast, to contemplate the colossus of the tortoise race, heaving his unwieldy frame, and stamping his toilsome march along plains which hardly look over strong to sustain him!

"Assuredly it would be a heart-stirring sight to behold! But although we may not actually enjoy the effect of the living pageant, a still higher order of privilege is vouchsafed to us. We have only to light the torch of philosophy, to seize the clue of induction, and, like the Prophet Ezekiel in the vision, to proceed into the valley of death, when the graves open before us and render forth their contents; the dry and fragmented bones run together, each bone to his bone; the sinews are laid over, the flesh is brought on, the skin covers all, and the past existence--_to the mind's eye_--starts again into being, decked out in all the lineaments of life. 'He who calls that which hath vanished back again into being, enjoys a bliss like that of creating.' Such were the words of the philosophical Niebuhr, when attempting to fill up the blanks in the fragmentary records of the ancient Romans, whose period in relation to past time dates but as of yesterday. How much more highly privileged, then, are we, who can recall, as it were, the beings of countless remote ages, when man was not yet dreamed of! not only this, but if we use discreetly the lights which have been given to us, we may invoke the spirit of the winds, and learn how _they_ were tempered to suit the natures of these extinct beings."