THE WESTERN COUNTRY 267 



of the bones and the elephant-like tusks found among 

 them most naturally gave occasion to regard them as 

 the remains of elephants formerly native to this part 

 of the world or brought hither by chance and come to 

 grief; and there was all the more ground for this 

 opinion, in itself not at all contradictory, since in so 

 many other regions similar elephant-skeletons have 

 been found where the race of elephants was at the time 

 as little indigenous as in America. But on a more 

 exact comparison between these bones from the Ohio 

 and other bones and teeth derived from actual ele- 

 phants, certain differences were observed which aroused 

 fresh doubts. It was found particularly that the thigh- 

 bones discovered on the Ohio were thicker and 

 stronger than those of the elephant as known today, 

 that the tusks were somewhat more curved, and espe- 

 cially that the crowns of the molar-teeth were fur- 

 nished with wedge-shaped ridges, which is not the case 

 with the elephant. Influenced by these several cir- 

 cumstances, but more especially by the last mentioned, 

 the learned Dr. Hunter * believed himself warranted 

 in supposing that those American bones and tusks be- 

 longed to a carnivorous animal larger than the known 

 elephant. From the likeness of those relics to bones 

 found in Siberia, Germany, and other northern 

 countries of the old world Raspe f sought to show the 

 probability that they are the remains of a large animal 

 (elephant or not) of a singular species, and originally 



* Philosoph. Transact. Vol. LVIII. 1768. 



t Philos. Transact. Vol. LIX. 1769. Dissertatio epistolaris 

 de Ossibus & Dentibus Elephantum, aliarumque Belluarum, in 

 America boreali &c. obviis, quae indigenarum belluatum esse 

 ostenditur, I. C. Raspe. 



