An illustration of Albert Koch’s reconstructed “Missourium”, or an American mastodon with a few extra bones.

Even though I find modern creationism to be intensely aggravating I occasionally like to browse older creationist texts. It is amusing to see how old creationist arguments have been recycled ad naseum, refitted for new uses (i.e. acceptance of evolution is responsible for [insert social ill here]), or given up entirely over time. In this latter category falls the assertion of the 19th century biblical literalist Mary Roberts that God had purposefully created, and subsequently destroyed, enormous carnivorous elephants.

[As noted in the comments, the word term “creationist” might not be the best fit to describe Roberts’ outlook. Scientific and popular attempts to