weft of the Miffouri to a river which runs weftwardly : that these bones abounded there; and that the natives described to him the animal to which they belonged as still existing in the northern parts of their country; from which defcription he judged it to be an elephant. Bones of the fame kind have been lately found, fome feet below the furface of the earth, in falines opened on the North Halfton, a branch of the Taniffee, about the latitude of 36°. north, From the accounts publifhed in Europe, I fuppofe it to be decided, that these are of the fame kind with those found in Siberia. Instances are mentioned of like animal remains found. in the more fouthern climates of both hemifpheres ; but they are either so loosely mentioned as to leave a doubt of the fact, fo inaccurately described as not to authorize the claffing them with the great northern bones, or fo rare as to found a fufpicion that they have been carried thither as curiofities from more northern regions. So that on the whole there feem to be no certain veftiges of the existence of this animal further fouth than the falines laft mentioned. It is remarkable that the tufks and fkeletons have been afcribed by the naturalifts of Europe to the elephant, while the grinders have been given to the hippopotamus, or river horse. Yet it is acknowledged, that the tufks and keletons are much larger than thofe of the clephant, and the grinders many times greater than thofe of the hippopotamus, and effentially different in form.Wherever these grinders are found, there also we find

the

the tusks and skeleton; but no skeleton of the hippo. potamus nor grinders of the elephant. It will not be faid that the hippopotamus and the elephant came al ways to the same spot, the former to deposit his grinders, and the latter his tufks and fkeleton. For what became of the parts not depofited there? We must agree then that these remains belong to each other, that they are of one and the same animal, that this was not a hippopotamus, because the hippopotamus had no tusks nor fuch a frame, and becaufe the grinders differ in their fize as well as in the number and form of their points. That it was not an elephant, I think af certained by proofs equally decifive. I will not avail myself of the authority of the celebrated anatomist, who, from an examination of the form and structure of the tusks, has declared they were effentially differ ent from those of the elephant: because another fanatomist, equally celebrated, has declared, on a like examination, that they are precisely the fame. Between two fuch authorities I will fuppofe this circumstance equivocal. But, 1. The skeleton of the mammoth (for fo the incognitum has been called) befpeaks an animal of five or fix times the cubit volume of the elephant, as Monf. de Buffon has admitted. 2. The grinders are five times as large, are fquare, and the grinding furface ftudded with four or five rows of blunt points: where as thofe of the elephant are broad and thin, and their grinding furface flat. I have never heard an instance,

* Hunter.

3.

+D'Aubenton.

and

and fuppofe there has been none, of the grinder of an elephant being found in America. 4. From the known temperature and conftitution of the elephant, he could never have exifted in those regions where the remains of the mammoth have been found.. The elephant is a native only of the torrid zone and its vicinities: if, with the affiftance of warm apartments and warm clothing, he has been preferved in life in the temperate climates of Europe, it has only been for a small portion of what would have been his natural period, and no inftance of his multiplication in them has ever been known. But no bones of the mammoth, as I have before obferved, have been ever found further fouth than the falines of the Holfton, and they have been found as far north as the Arctic circle. Those, therefore, who are of opinion that the elephant and mammoth are the fame, must believe, 1. That the elephant known to us can exist and mul◄ tiply in the frozen zone; or, 2. That an eternal fire may once have warmed thofe regions, and fince abandoned them, of which, however, the globe exhibits no unequivocal indications; or, 3. That the obliquity of the ecliptic, when these elephants lived, was fo great as to include within the tropics all thofe regions in which the bones are found: the tropics being, as is before obferved, the natural limits of habitation for the elephant. But if it be admitted that this obliquity has really decreased, and we adopt the highest rate of decrease yet pretended, that is of one minute in a cen

tury

tury, to transfer the northern tropic to the Arctic cir cle, would carry the existence of thefe fuppofed ele phants 250,000 years back; a period far beyond our conception of the duration of animal bones left expofed to the open air, as these are in many inftances! Besides, though these regions would then be supposed within the tropics, yet their winters would have been too fevere for the fenfibility of the elephant. They would have had too but one day and one night in the year, a circumstance to which we have no reason to suppose the nature of the elephant fitted. However, it has been demonftrated, that, if a variation of obliquity in the ecliptic takes place at all, it is vibratory, and never exceeds the limits of 9 degrees, which is not fufficient to bring these bones within the tropics. One of these hypotheses, or some other equally voluntary and inadmissible to cautious philosophy, must be adopted to fupport the opinion that these are the bones of the elephant. For my own part, I find it easier to believe that an animal may have exifted, refembling the elephant in his tusks, and general anatomy, while his nature was in other refpects extremely different. From the 30th degree of fouth latitude to the 30th of north, are nearly the limits which nature has fixed for the existence and multiplication of the elephant known to us. Proceeding thence northwardIy to 36 degrees, we enter those affigned to the mammoth. The further we advance north, the more their vefliges multiply as far as the earth has been explored

in

in that direction: and it is as probable as otherwife, that this progreffion continues to the pole itself, if land extends fo far. The centre of the frozen zone then may be the achmé of their vigor, as that of the torrid is of the elephant. Thus nature feems to have drawn a belt of feparation between these two tremendous ani mals, whofe breadth indeed is not precifely known, though at prefent we may fuppofe it about 6 degrees of latitude; to have affigned to the elephant the regions fouth of thefe confines, and those north to the mammoth, founding the conftitution of the one in her extreme of heat, and that of the other in the extreme of cold. When the Creator has therefore feparated their nature as far as the extent of the scale of animal life allowed to this planet would permit, it seems perverse to declare it the fame, from a partial refemblance of their tufks and bones. But to whatever animal we afcribe these remains, it is certain fuch a one has existed in America, and that it has been the largest of all terrestrial beings. It fhould have fufficed to have rescued the earth it inhabited, and the atmosphere it breathed, from the imputation of impotence in the conception and nourishment of animal life on a large fcale; to have ftifled, in its birth, the opinion of a writer, the moft learned too of all others in the fcience of animal history, that in the new world, La nature 'vivante est beaucoup moins agiffante, beaucoup moins forte :'* that nature is lefs active, less energet

I

*Buffon, xviii. 122 edit. Paris, 1764.

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