But that MAMMOTH is a
problem that you will not solve for a long time, if ever."
Had you known that the red-eyed human animal in the middle of the
pool was sent there by Providence to regulate the globe,
cultivate it, destroy the noxious forms of animal life, etc., you
would certainly have believed that that person would have got rid
of the mosquitoes long before getting rid of the mammoth.
As a matter of fact, the mammoth has gone, the woolly rhinoceros
of Northern Europe has gone, the sabre-toothed tiger prowls no
more. Even wolves have disappeared, and the mosquito is still
flourishing in his millions and billions.
We have only just learned that it is he who gives us malaria,
that it is he who spreads yellow fever and undoubtedly many other
diseases.
The human race, which in its earliest, incapable childhood easily
managed to dispose of the mammoth and his huge fellow-monsters,
still stands helpless before the little mosquito, deadliest of
VISIBLE animals on earth.
Is it not interesting to realize that the hardest work of the
human race, as of the individual, is the most minute work; that
the intellect, which easily copes with the heaviest and the
biggest problems, is baffled by the tiniest?
Ultimately, and perhaps soon, we shall send the mosquito, the
house-fly and the other buzzing pirates to join in the grave's
silence their big brothers--the mastodon and the rest.
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