pe 
Memoir upon living and fossil Elephants. 161 
elephant renders things visible which it is extremely Mefhcislt 
to distinguish in those of men or animals. 
But in the first place, accordmg to my usual method, T 
shall describe those places where fossil ossifications have 
been found of that species which forms the principal eejatt 
of my present researches. 
To describe every place where they have been discovered 
would be an endless task; suffice it to say, that every coun- 
try, and every era, hag furnished fossil bones. 
Traces of them ate discovered in the writings of the an- 
tients. Theophrastus speaks of them in a work no longer 
in existence, of which Pliny has given us his testimony + 
** Theophrastus autor est, et ebur fossile candido et nigro 
colore inveniri, et ossa ¢ terra nasci, invenirique lapides 
osseos.” Lib. xxxvi. cap. 18. 
It is probable that the bones of elephants have been often 
taken for human ones ; and this may have given rise to the 
pretended discoveries li the tombs of giants spoken of in 
—__antiquity. 
Of this number the bones discovered in digging a weil 
at Tegea certainly were, although taken for the bones of 
_ Orestes *; and also those seen at Caprea, according to Sie- 
tonius, and regarded as the bones of heroes or giants t. 
As to the stories of bodies still larger, such as that of a 
skeleton 46 cubits in length thrown out of the ground during 
an earthquake at Crete, and regarded as that of Entellus or 
Otus }; or that of another, of 60 cubits, dug up near Tingis 
im Mauritania, when Sertorius commanded there, and which 
was taken for the skeleton of Antzus§; these accounts are 
vertainly exaggerated, or else they have for their origin the 
skeletons of whales. Strabo, who relates the latter story 
on the authority of Gabinius, does not hesitate to regard it 
as fabulous. 
These erroneous ideas, which arise from a total ignorance 
* Herodot. lib. i. § 68. 
t Suet. Aug. § 72. 
¢ Plinwdib. vii. cap. 16. 
§ Strabo, Geogr. lib. xvii. Amsterdam edit. 1707. p. 1185. 
Vol. 26, No, 102, Nov.1806. LL of 
