$4 Memoir vpcni living and fossil Elephants, 



But in order to infer from any one of these crania the 

 dimension^ of the animal to which it belonged, it is not 

 necessary to refer to its first dimensions, into which the 

 excessive length of the alveoli of the tusks enters ; these 

 oiily should be taken into consideration which are really 

 homol.)p;ous. 



Now, by comparing them with those of the cranium of 

 our Indian skeletons of the mookna and comerea, we find 

 that the fossil animal must have been nearly twelve feet 

 high. A comparison with the skeletons of the Indian 

 dauntelah and meyfiBe would give a little more to the fossil. 



As soon as I was acquainted with this drawing of Messer- 

 schmidt, and added to the differences it presented those I 

 had myself observed in the lower jaw and in some isolated 

 teeth, I no longer supposed that the fossil elephants were of 

 a different species from those of India. 



This idea, which I first announced in a memoir to the 

 Institute, opened quite new views to me upon the theory of 

 the earth ; a hasty glance at other fossil bones induced me to 

 presume every thing I have since discovered, and determined 

 nie to devote myself to the assiduous researches and tedious 

 labours in which I have been occupied these ten years past. 

 I ought therefore to acknowledge, that it is to this draw- 

 ing, buried as it were in the Philosophical Transactions for 

 seventy years, that the public are indebted for all those 

 Works upon which I set so high a value. 



I must not dissemble, however, that the characters it 

 presented me required to be confirmed by some other speci- 

 men, in order that they might not be considered as the same 

 species, and in spite of their agreement with those of the 

 lower jaw, I was happy to find a drawing of another 

 cranium. 



I ap|1ied to the Petersburgh Academy; and this illustrious 

 body, to which I now belong, complied with my wishes, 

 with a generosity worthy of a Society to which science is so 

 much indebted. 



The Academy ordered a superb coloured drawing of the 

 natural size to be transmitted to me of another fossil cranium 

 from Siberia, in their collection also. It was accompanied 



with 



