The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

THE GREAT EXTINCTIONS
favorable circumstances even the African and Indian ele-
phants accumulate quite a lot of fat. F. G. Benedict, in his
comprehensive work on the physiology of the elephant, considers
it a fatty animal (27).
The resemblances between the mammoth and the Indian
elephant extend further than the identity of their skins in
thickness and structure, and the fact that they were both fatty
animals. Bell suggests that they were only two varieties of the
same species:
Falconer insists on the importance of the fact that throughout the
whole geological history of each species of elephant there is a great
persistence in the structure and mode of growth of each of the
teeth, and that this is the best single character by which to distinguish
the species from one another. He finds, after a critical examination
of a great number of specimens, that in the mammoth each of the
molars is subject to the same history and same variation as the cor-
responding molar in the living Indian elephant (25).
It is clear that the similarities in the life histories of each
of the teeth of these two animals are more important than the
differences in the shapes of the teeth, which were such as
might easily occur in two varieties of the same species. It
cannot be denied that two varieties of the same species may
be adapted to different climates, but it must be conceded
that the adaptation of two varieties of the same species, one
to tropical jungles and the other to Arctic conditions, is
against the probabilities.
3. The Present Climate of Siberia
are a r
,
The people who lay the greatest 16
st^ rudde** adaptation of
the mammoth to cold ignore the ouier a^mals that lived
with the mammoths. Yet we know that along with the mil-
lions of mammoths, the northern Siberian plains also sup-
ported vast numbers of rhinoceroses, antelope, horses, bison,
and other herbivorous creatures, while a variety of carnivores,
including the sabertooth cat, preyed upon them. What good