. Animals of the past : an account of some of the creatures of the ancient world. Paleontology. 172 ANIMALS OF THE PAST of sticking out from the jaw are bent directly down- wards. No perfect skull of this creature has yet been found, but it is believed to have had a short trunk. For a long* time nothing but the skull was known,, and some naturalists thought the animal to have been a gigantic manatee, or sea cow, and that the tusks were used for tearing food from the bot- tom of rivers and for anchoring the animal to the bank, just as the walrus uses his tusks for digging- clams and climbing ou
. Animals of the past : an account of some of the creatures of the ancient world. Paleontology. 172 ANIMALS OF THE PAST of sticking out from the jaw are bent directly down- wards. No perfect skull of this creature has yet been found, but it is believed to have had a short trunk. For a long* time nothing but the skull was known,, and some naturalists thought the animal to have been a gigantic manatee, or sea cow, and that the tusks were used for tearing food from the bot- tom of rivers and for anchoring the animal to the bank, just as the walrus uses his tusks for digging- clams and climbing out upon the ice. In the first restorations of Dinotherium it is represented lying amidst reeds, the feet concealed from view, the head alone visible, but now it is pictured as standing. Tooth of Mastodon and Mammoth erect, for the discovery of massive leg-bones has definitely settled the question as to whether it did or did not have limbs. There is another hint of relationship in the upper tusks of the earlier mastodons, and this is the pres- ence of a band of enamel running down each tusk. In all gnamng animals the front, cutting teeth are formed of soft dentine, or ivory, faced with a plate of enamel, just as the blade of a chisel or plane is formed of a plate of tempered steel backed with soft iron, the object of this being the same in both tooth and chisel, to keep the edge sharp by wearing away. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Lucas, Frederic A. (Frederic Augustus), 1852-1929. New York : American Museum of Natural History
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Keywords: ., bookaut, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectpaleontology
