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While Kirkdale Cave was evidently the haunt of Hyenas chiefly, other caverns in Germany and France were tenanted in a similar manner by a gigantic species of Bear.  Their remains, mingled with those of the animals on which they fed, have been found in great numbers in the Cavern of Gailenreuth, in Franconia.  The subjoined wood-cut shows the head of this formidable beast, which must have exceeded in size any Bear now living.  Indeed, although there were many smaller kinds, and the other types of the Animal Kingdom in the Tertiaries seem to approach very nearly both in size and general character their modern representatives, yet, on the whole, the earlier Mammalia were giants in comparison with those now living.  The Mastodon and Mammoth, as compared with the modern Elephant, the Megatherium, as compared with the Sloths of present times, the Hyenas and Bears of the European caverns, and the fossil Elk of Ireland, by the side of which even the Moose of our Northern woods is belittled, are remarkable instances in proof of this.  One cannot but be struck with the fact that this first representation of Mammalia, the very impersonation of brute force in power, size, and ferocity, immediately preceded the introduction of man, with whose creation intelligence and moral strength became the dominant influences on earth.

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Among these huge Tertiary Mammalia, one of those most common on the North-American continent seems to have been the Mastodon.  The magnificent specimens preserved in this country are too well known to require description.  The remains of the Rhinoceros occur also in the recent Tertiary deposits of North America, though as yet no perfect skeletons have been found.  The Edentata, now confined to South America and the western coast of Africa, were also numerous in the Southern States during that time; their remains have been found as far north as the Salt Lick in Kentucky.  But we must not judge of the Tertiary Edentata by any now known to us.  The Sloths, the Armadillos, the Ant-Eaters, the Pangolins, are all animals of rather small size; but formerly they were represented by the gigantic Megatherium, the Megalonyx, and the Mylodon, some of which were larger than the Elephant, and others about the same size of the Rhinoceros or Hippopotamus.  The subjoined wood-cut represents a Mylodon in the act of lifting himself against the trunk of a tree.

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They were clumsy brutes, and though their limbs were evidently built with reference to powerful movements, perhaps climbing, or at least rising on their hind quarters, the act of climbing with them cannot have had anything of the nimbleness or activity generally associated with it.  On the contrary, they probably were barely able to support their huge bodies on their hind limbs, which are exceedingly massive, and on the stiff, heavy tail, while they dragged down with their front limbs the branches of the trees, and fed upon