The Adventures of a Grain of Dust

by Hallam Hawksworth

THE TIGER WITH THE SABRE TEETH

Tigers like this lived ages ago in both the Old World and the New. They had canine teeth, curved like a sabre, in the upper jaw.)

TOO MUCH BRAWN, TOO LITTLE BRAIN

Of course, even where they didn't die with their boots on, so to speak, as so many of them did in those lawless days, there came a time for each monster, in the order of nature, when he drew his last breath. But what seems so strange is that all these monsters—the biggest and strongest of them—entirely disappeared and left no descendants![6] The whole of the mystery has not been unravelled yet, even by the wise men of science, but still they have learned a good deal. For one thing, they know that most of the reptiles and the fish-lizards disappeared because so much of the land where they lived went dry. They had to get a new boarding-place, and there wasn't any to get! Another thing was that these big fellows, although they were so big, and got along finely while everything was just so, had so little brain they couldn't change their habits to meet new conditions, as our closer and cleverer cousins, the mammals, did. Why, do you know that one of these monsters, who was twenty-five feet long if he was an inch, and twelve feet high, had a brain no bigger than a man's fist? All the monsters of those days were like that—tons of bone and muscle, but a very small supply of brains.

So when things went against them, they just had to give up, and, like a queer dream, they faded away. But their history makes one of the most interesting chapters in the whole wonderful story of the dust.

Of all the live stock that have fed on the great world-farm and helped enrich it with their bones, these animals were surely the strangest that ever were seen!

[HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY]

"But since these monsters passed away many millions of years ago, and all that is usually found is a piece of them here and there, how do the men of science know so much about them—how they looked, and how they ate, and how they treated one another?"

That's a good question. It does seem strange. Why, to hear them talk, you'd suppose these men, learned in ancient bones, had actually met the monsters! And, speaking of meeting them, I must tell you a little story. It's a good story and it will answer your question.

Baron Cuvier, one of the most famous of the paleontologists, awoke from a deep sleep to see standing by his bed a strange, hairy creature with horns and hoofs. And it said:

"Cuvier! Cuvier! I have come to eat you!" But the baron, taking in the form of the monster at a glance, only laughed.

"Horns and hoofs? You can't. You're a grain-eater!"

See the point? The baron argued that because the monster had horns and hoofs he must be a grain-eater; for all creatures with both horns and hoofs are grain-eaters. This particular creature, to be sure, was an eater of both meat and grain—being one of Cuvier's students who was trying to play a trick on him. But the principle holds good. The scientists, knowing one thing, infer another. Because animals with both horns and hoofs eat no meat Cuvier knew his visitor couldn't eat him, even if he'd been real and not just made up.

For another instance, take our queer old friend that Professor Blackie wrote the funny rhyme about—the Ichthyosaurus "with a saw for a jaw and a big staring eye." The scientists figure, just from looking into the hollow socket where the eye used to be, that he could see at night like a cat—and right through muddy water, too; that he spent most of his time in shallows near the shore; that it didn't make any difference to him whether a fish was near or far, provided it wasn't too far, of course, for he could see it and catch it, just the same. They also said—these learned men, after peering into the dark hollow where that remarkable eye used to be—that Mr. Ichthyosaurus spent a great deal of time diving and a great deal of time with his homely face just above the surface of the water.

Why they could reason all this from a hollow eye socket and some bony, flexible plates around the outer edge of it, you will see by referring to such books as "Animals of the Past," by F. A. Lucas, director of the American Museum of Natural History; "Creatures of Other Days" and "Extinct Monsters," by Hutchinson; "Extinct Animals," by Lankester; "Mighty Animals," by Mix; the chapter "When the World was Young," in Lang's "Red Book of Animal Stories," and "Restoring Prehistoric Monsters" in "Uncle Sam, Wonder Worker," by Du Puy.

Here are some more conclusions they draw from certain facts. See how near you can come to reasoning them out for yourself before looking them up in the books that tell.

Why it is supposed the Dinosaurs swam like Crocodiles. (Look at the picture of Mr. I., and pay particular attention to his tail.)

Why it is they say that the sea-lizards with long necks must have had small heads.

Why it is argued that because the Mesosaurus had a hinge in his jaw he must have had a big, loose, baggy throat.

"Keeping Up the Soil," in "The Country Life Reader," deals with the subject of the use of fertilizers on the farm—how easy it is to waste them, how easy it is to save them, and how important it is that they should be saved; while the article on "Acid Soils" tells how the lime in the bones of the monsters has helped keep the soil from getting "sour stomach," and also how they unlocked the potash and phosphorus in the soil so that the plants could get at them.