Do you remember legend number one and legend number two we introduced to you before? Well, fasten your seat belt and get ready for another jump into history. We are off to the Alps!
He spent decades assembling one of the largest fossil collections of his time.
Scheuchzer's dragon hunting was part of a larger inquiry into the alpine plant and animal life, which had not yet been studied systematically. He documented and published his observations in numerous volumes under the name of J.J. Scheuchzer.
Scheuchzer’s pursuit of dragons was motivated in part by the dragon stone of Lucerne, because in medieval times, it was believed that dragons with healing powers lived in the rugged clefts and crevices of Mount Pilatus.
This is an original part of its latest writings:
“Towards the end of summer 1717 […] Joseph Scherer from Näfels […] came across an animal with a cat's head and protruding eyes. It was a foot long and had a thick body and four feet. Two teat-like structures hung from its lower abdomen. It also had a tail, whose length was a foot, and the entire creature was scaly and colorful. Scherer struck the animal with a pointed stick, and he claimed that it was soft and full of toxic blood, so that when a drop fell on his leg, it swelled.”
For a better and more complete work, especially for those who didn’t trust him, he catalogued dragon references from ancient Greece to China. He compared his findings to these legends, contextualizing them.
In 1725, Scheuchzer extracted a unique fossil that appeared to be a head and a three-feet long vertebrate skeleton.
He wanted strong, scientific evidence that could withstand a challenge. With this skeleton, he had it.
He named his discovery Homo Diluvii Testis or Witness of the Flood from the genus of Man. By the time he published his colossal four-volume Physica Sacra, his compilation of geological phenomena referencing the great biblical flood, Scheuchzer was convinced that he had conclusive physical proof of multiple life forms, from plants and fish to man; dating to a time before the great flood.
But we have to tell to Mr. J.J. Scheuchzer that in the end the huge fossil was not a man at all, the fossil is now understood to date from the Miocene Epoch, roughly 23.5 to 5.3 million years ago, long before humans evolved.
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