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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



various reasons favored b^' several 

 writers (notably Henry Fairfield Os- 

 born) as the original home of the race. 

 And in 1902 researches in the early Ter- 

 tiary formations of Egypt did in truth 

 reveal two earlier stages in the evolution 

 of the Proboseidea, clearly demonstrated 

 as such by Dr. C. W. iVndrews. The 

 Argentine palaeontologist, Ameghino, 

 had, not long before, claimed that cer- 

 tain large animals which he had dis- 

 covered in the older Tertiaries of Pata- 

 gonia, Pi/rotherium and its relatives, 

 were the group from which the Pro- 

 boseidea had sprung. This claim was 

 not generally accepted; if true it would 

 have indicated that the ancestors of the 

 elephants came originally from South 

 America. About the Egyptian Palceo- 

 mastodon, however, there could be no 

 question, and while the moi'e primitive 

 Moeritherium was not indeed a direct 

 ancestor, it afforded a clue at least to 

 what the still earlier stages in the evolu- 

 tion of the race were like. 



Here then appeared to be proof of the 

 African origin of the race; yet not as 

 good proof as one might wish, for north- 

 ern Egypt is very close to Asia, and its 

 wild animals today are more those of 

 southern Asia than of Africa. However, 

 palaeontologists with a theory to prove 

 cannot afford to be too critical in sifting 

 the evidence, and no one save the writer 

 of this review has hesitated to accept the 

 Ethiopian origin of the Proboseidea.^ 



' The last word in pala^ontological discovery in the 



Whether they came from Africa or 

 not, the Proboseidea at all events 

 spread widely over the northern conti- 

 nents during the later Tertiary, and 

 even penetrated into South America, 

 where (aside from the Pyr other ium which 

 does not seem to have been especially 

 related to them, although it developed 

 tusks and grinding teeth curiously like 

 the earlier Proboseidea) there were also 

 true mastodons {Dihelodon) as far 

 south as Argentina. The modern ele- 

 phants, now limited to Central Africa 

 and to India and Further India, are but 

 a remnant of this formerly wide dis- 

 tribution, which lasted in the northern 

 world almost to historic time and has left 

 its records in the cave-drawings of 

 prehistoric man and in the frozen car- 

 casses preserved in the tundra soil of 

 northern Siberia and Alaska. Of the 

 most remarkable of these discoveries, 

 the Beresovka mammoth. Dr. Kunz 

 gives a fine photograph, which through 

 his courtesy is reproduced here, along 

 with a number of other illustrations 

 from his book. The reader will find in 

 the book, and in the various special 

 authorities whom he cites, the most 

 complete account at present available 

 of what is known of the evolution of the 

 elephant. 



Old World has added a little to the evidence in favor 

 of the theory; for a small collection of fossil mammals 

 from the early Tertiary of Burma, while it had remains 

 of very primitive ruminants, did not include any teeth 

 of primitive Proboseidea, as one might hope to find il" 

 they had originated in southern Asia. 



