286 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



FOSSIL ELEPHANT IN VERMONT. 



AT the meeting of the American Association, Prof. Agassiz exhibited 

 the tooth and tusk of an elephant recently discovered in Vermont. 

 It was found in the construction of the Rutland and Burlington 

 Railroad, upon the slope of Mount Holly, one of the highest mountains 

 in Vermont, and, it is said, under erratic boulders. The specimens in 

 question had been presented to the Lawrence Scientific School, by Mr. 

 Samuel Henshaw, of Boston. Professor Agassiz remarked, that this 

 was the first true elephant found in a fossil condition in the Northern 

 American States, and was of a different species from that found in the 

 caves of Kentucky. It was a question, whether this was identical 

 with. the fossil European elephants or not. He deeply regretted that 

 there were no specimens with which he could compare these teeth, but 

 he would venture, from recollection, to predict that, upon direct com- 

 parison, they would be found to differ from the European, in the same 

 proportion that the mastodons differed. He thought these grinding- 

 teeth had much narrower lamellse, and that the tusk was much more 

 slender. The curve of the tusk was scarcely greater than in the Asiatic 

 elephant, while the European fossil was much more curved. 



Professor Rogers remarked, that he had already, several years 

 since, presented his views to the Association respecting the physical 

 geography of this part of the United States, at the era of the drift. 

 He had shown that New England and New Brunswick constituted an 

 island, detached from the continent, like Great Britain at the present 

 day. From the researches, chiefly of Mather, Emmons, and others, 

 we must now admit that there were two drifts. Up to the time of the 

 first, the mastodon could not have crossed the straits. 



Dr. Warren remarked, that this discovery formed an epoch in the 

 paleontology of New England. North river seemed to have sepa- 

 rated the animals of New England from those of the continent. 



THE FOSSIL RHINOCEROS OF SIBERIA. 



MR. BRANDT, at the request of Humboldt, has communicated to the 

 St. Petersburg Imperial Academy the results of his microscopic ex- 

 amination of the remains of food in the hollows of the teeth of the 

 antediluvian rhinoceros, of which the Academy possesses a complete 

 cranium still covered with the skin. It appears that this species of 

 rhinoceros fed on the leaves and fruit of coniferous plants, so that 

 there is no reason for supposing that the fossil animals found bur- 

 ied in arctic countries have ever lived in a tropical region. The 

 bushy hair with which they were clothed, and the examples of mam- 

 moths found in an upright position, rather incline him to adopt the 

 opinion that they lived in the countries and climate where they were 

 found, than to have recourse to the hypothesis either of a sudden 

 change of temperature in the climate, or of the transportation of their 

 remains from a far distant country. Jameson's Journal, July. 



