356 On some Quadrupeds supposed to be extinct. 



reasons there is every probability of this animal being in exist- 

 ence. 



Captain C. S. Cochrane, in his Journal in Colombia, vol. ii., 

 p. 390, relates that numbers of the carnivorous elephants have 

 been seen feeding on the plains at the foot of a ridge of moun- 

 tains, at Choco, in New Granada. " Part of the foot of a 

 mastodon, with five nails attached, was found in a cave, with a 

 tooth, by a savage west of the Missouri: it was very fresh, and 

 perfectly resembling that of an elephant : it was obtained of a 

 Mexican, who had purchased it of a native *." 



" The native Americans describe the elephant as still exist- 

 ing in the northern parts of their country (the Missouri)." — 

 Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, p. 57. 



Many bones of the mastodon were found in the county of 

 Wythe, Virginia, with a mass of half-ground branches, roots, 

 and leaves, enclosed in a kind of sack, supposed to be the 

 stomach, in the midst of them ; so as to leave no doubt that 

 they were substances which the animal had devoured, and 

 among them were distinguishable the remains of some plants 

 known in Virginia f. Teeth of the mastodon have been found 

 in Little Tartary, (for five centuries possessed by the Moguls,) 

 in Siberia, near the Oural mountains, and one at Harwich, 

 in England J. 



There have been brought from Ava, found on the left bank 

 of the Irawaddy, in N. lat. 20° to 21°, near the wells of petro- 

 leum, in narrow ravines, sand-hills, beds of gravel, ironstone, 

 and calcareous breccia, evidently a diluvial formation, — fossil 

 bones, shells, and wood. Bones of the mastodon, equal in size 

 to those of the Ohio, a grinder 16i inches in circumference, a 

 humerus, measuring 25 inches round the condyles, with several 



* Parkinson, vol. iii., letter 26. Mr. P. relates that Baron Cuvier 

 inclines to doubt the authenticity of this account ; but Capt. Cochrane's 

 testimony now renders it veiy probable to be correct. It is very worthy 

 of remark, that the wild elephants in America are found, as reported, at 

 Choco, and west of the Missouri; and that Mango Capac and Monte- 

 zuma's ancestor, by the traditions, landed at Cape St. Helen's and 

 Culiacan,— as if some elephants had been let loose, or had escaped and 

 betaken themselves to perhaps the nearest thick forests, and have re- 

 mained there undisturbed. 



•I- Rees's Cyclopedia, Addenda, " Mastodon." 



% See Parkinson, voj, iii., letter 26, p. 367. 



