Keyboard revision
Exercise 1.20
3087 characters with spaces
In preparation of the timed accuracy test, type the following for three minutes. A mad boxer shot a quick, gloved jab to the jaw of his dizzy opponent.
Fossils that are five million years old – some of animals now extinct – were unearthed during the excavations for a steel mill on the west coast. Te fossils include the bones and teeth of whales, sharks, an extinct seal, and a sivathere, a giraffe with a short neck and long horns that roamed the area.
Construction work was held up for several days while scientists retrieved fossils from a 12-metre deep pit on the site. Te environment co-ordinator for the duration of the mill’s construction, said labourers had been primed to alert him if they found anything unusual during excavation.
He was alerted when the fossils were spotted and a consultant archaeologist was called in. Tey spent days digging out the prehistoric bones and shells. Some fossils were taken to the laboratory for analysis, while others have been placed in huge piles of earth to be sieved through at a later date.
Te fossil-rich layer of pebbly limestone represented an ancient river estuary, possibly of the original Berg River. According to a preliminary examination, the fossils included a molar tooth from an extinct sivathere (short-necked giraffe). Te presence of this animal indicated that there were once trees growing in the now semi-desert area and that the climate was warmer and wetter. Many shark teeth were also found; the species represented included the Great White and ragged- tooth sharks. Te fossils were found in sediments which are about five million years old.
Tese fossils are testimony to an era when the region, now dry and windswept with stunted vegetation, was warmer, wetter and supported an abundance and variety of animals. Some of the animals were familiar, like hyenas and giraffes, and some strange, like sabre-toothed cats, giant pigs and enormous, fleet-footed bears.
Although the fossils have not been studied, they are from the same area that yielded thousands more about 10 km away, during the 1960s and 1970s. Tese have been studied for years by palaeontologists of the national museum, and a book has been written about the unusual creatures found in the region.
Modern humans would have hardly recognised the coastal areas where the sea level was way above its mark today. Te town would have been many metres under water in a 10 km wide sea channel that linked the bay with the island in the north. Te ancient river estuary would have flowed into this channel and animals that died in this region were entombed for millions of years.
Te sediments are one of the most important collections of animal remains from this period in the world, and scientists from many countries have come to study them.
If you travelled back five million years in a time machine, and sat on the river banks, you would see a heavily wooded area with tall trees and palms, vestiges of the more extensive forests that flourished in the Miocene era. You might see a hyena scavenging on the banks, strange elephant- like gomphotheres and an okapi-like giraffe. You would see mammals that are no longer found in sub-Saharan Africa, like bears, wolverines, peccaries, and musk-oxen.
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