THE EVOLUTION OF THE ELEPHANT
ment of human thought, and as a scheme of creation is immeasurably more reasonable than its crude predecessors. So far from belittling our conceptions of a Supreme Intelligence, it adds immensely to the dignity and wonder of the universe.
REFERENCES
Horses
- Matthew, W. D. and Chubb, C. H. Evolution and Domestication of the Horse. Guide Leaflet of the American Museum, No. 36, 1924.
- Loomis, F. B. The Evolution of the Horse. 1926. Marshall Jones Co.
- Osborn, H. F. Equidae of the Oligocene, Miocene and Pliocene of North America. Mem. Amer. Museum Nat. Hist., new series. Vol. II, 1918.
- Antonius, O. Stammesgeschichte der Haustiere. 1922.
Elephants
- Osborn, H. F. The Elephants and Mastodons Arrive in America. Jour. Am. Mus. Natural History, Vol. XXV, No. 1, pp. 3–23, 1925.
- Osborn, H. F. Phylogeny and Classification of Elephants. Amer. Phil. Soc. Proc, Vol. LXIV, pp. 17–35, 1925.
- Guide to the Elephants in the British Museum, 1922.
The remains and the impressions of ancient animals and plants found in the rocks—the fossils discovered by our geologists—show a gradual multiplication of species from age to age, and a gradual increase in the complexity of forms and functions. The story told by the record of the rocks is a story of progress from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher. The earliest true vertebrates were the simplest fishes; next came the higher, more complex fishes; then the amphibians, able to live both in water and on land. The reptiles, such as lizards and crocodiles, came next; then birds, which, as the record shows, were derived from the reptiles; and the mammals, some of them, such as the apes and man, of very recent origin. The geologic record reveals strikingly the great story of evolution, and discovery after discovery is making the details of that record more clear and more convincing.—Editor.
[ 241 ]
