red to measure thirty feet from tip to tip. They are of great
variety and many colors. We were permitted to climb up on the edge of
a rock and examine a nest of eggs. There were five in the nest, each of
which was at least two feet in length and fifteen inches in diameter.

After we had been in the city of Hectea about a week, Professor Galdea
took us to an inlet, where we saw thousands of tortoises along the sandy
shore. I hesitate to state the size of these great creatures. They were
from twenty-five to thirty feet in length, from fifteen to twenty feet
in width and fully seven feet in height. When one of them projected its
head it had the appearance of some hideous sea monster.

The strange conditions "within" are favorable not only for vast
meadows of luxuriant grasses, forests of giant trees, and all manner of
vegetable life, but wonderful animal life as well.

One day we saw a great herd of elephants. There must have been five
hundred of these thunder-throated monsters, with their restlessly waving
trunks. They were tearing huge boughs from the trees and trampling
smaller growth into dust like so much hazel-brush. They would average
over 100 feet in length and from 75 to 85 in height.

It seemed, as I gazed upon this wonderful herd of giant elephants, that
I was again living in the public library at Stockholm, where I had spent
much time studying the wonders of the Miocene age. I was filled with
mute astonishment, and my father was speechless with awe. He held my arm
with a protecting grip, as if fearful harm would overtake us. We were
two atoms in this great forest, and, fortunately, unobserved by this
vast herd of elephants as they drifted on and away, following a leader
as does a herd of sheep. They browsed from growing herbage which they
encountered as they traveled, and now and again shook the firmament with
their deep bellowing.(20)

(20 "Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island: and
there was provision for animals of every kind. Also whatever fragrant
things there are in the earth, whether roots or herbage, or woods,
or distilling drops of flowers or fruits, grew and thrived in that
land."--The Cratylus of Plato.)

There is a hazy mist that goes up from the land each evening, and it
invariably rains once every twenty-four hours. This great moisture and
the invigorating electrical light and warmth account perhaps for the
luxuriant vegetation, while the highly charged electrical air