What is now known as the State of Kansas is one of the most favored spots, and here, embedded in the earth, have been found the remains of these huge forms.  The bones were first seen projecting from a bluff, and, gradually worked out, proved to be those of a gigantic turtle that must have measured across its back from flipper to flipper fifteen feet, while its entire length must have been twenty feet or more.  The name of this giant is the Protostega gigas, a fitting forefather for the great leather turtle of to-day.  In some parts of the West the hardened shells of other and smaller turtles are scattered about in great confusion.  Nearly all have been turned to stone, and, thus preserved, form a monument of this past time.

A number of years ago some natives in Southern India were engaged in making an excavation under the superintendence of an English officer, when they discovered the remains of one of the largest fossil turtles ever found.  They had penetrated the soil for several feet, when their implements struck against a hard substance which was at first supposed to be solid rock, but a bar sank through it, showing it to be either bone or wood.  The earth being carefully removed, the remains of a mound-shaped, adobe structure gradually appeared.  The natives thought it a house; but the Englishman saw that they had come upon the remains of some gigantic creature of a past age.  Every precaution was taken, and finally the shell was fully exposed.  The restoration shows it as dome-shaped, nearly fourteen feet long, thirty-three feet in horizontal circumference, and twenty feet in girth in a vertical direction.  Its length when alive must have been nearly thirty feet, and its feet were as large as those of a rhinoceros.  The capacity of the shell of this ancient boatman was such that six or seven persons could have found protection within it.  Its name is Colossochelys atlas, a land-tortoise of the Miocene time of geology.  Its nearest representatives of to-day are, if not so large, equally marvellous in their general appearance.  They are found in the Galapagos and Mascarene Islands, and some of them are seven feet in length, with high domed and plated shells, presenting the appearance of miniature houses moving along.  A single shell would form a perfect covering for a child.  There are five distinct species found here, each inhabiting a different island.  Chatham Island, the home of some, seems completely honeycombed with black truncated volcano cones that spring up everywhere, while masses of lava cover the ground, having been blown into weird and fantastic shapes when soft.

In among the cones low underbrush and cacti grow, and feeding upon these are found the great tortoises, which at the approach of danger draw in their heads with a loud hiss or move slowly and clumsily away.  Their strength is enormous.  A small one, three feet long, carried the writer along a hard floor with perfect ease, and one of the largest would probably not be inconvenienced by a weight of five hundred pounds.  They attain a great age, often living, it is said, a hundred years or more.