Memoir upon living and fossil Elephants. 313 
The other piece is a point of a tusk of calcined ivory, but 
completely recognisable: it comes from the province ot 
Quito, in Peru. This tusk was less compressed than the 
tusk of the mastodonta is at present, and I have every reason 
to believe that it belonged to an elephant. 
I shall carefully deposit in the museum these two precious 
pieces, which prove that the true elephants of antiquity, 
with grinder tecth composed of thin lamin, have also left 
their carcases to the north and south of the isthmus of Pa- 
nama. 
That we may neglect no information on the subject, we 
have to mention the stories told us by the Spaniards of the 
giants’ bones found in Mexico and Peru. We may find 
extracts of these fables, accompanied with new and detailed 
accounts, in the ‘ Gigantologie Espagnole,” by Torrubia 
the Franciscan. 
What hinders us from applying all these details to the 
elephant is, that they may owe their origin to the bones of 
two mastodontes, which are much more common in Ame- 
rica than those of the elephant; and no person who has 
transmitted these details has taken the trouble of giving 
drawings, or has said any thing that might lead us to di- 
stinguish the species. It is true, however, that their pre- 
tended giants are now completely extirpated. 
This enumeration of the places where the fossil bones of 
elephants have been found, is the result of an investigation 
which our anatomical labours, properly so called, have not 
permitted us to render so complete as we could have de- 
sired. It is probable that our enumeration would have been 
much more voluminous if we could have spared time to go 
over more carefully the works of naturalists and travellers, 
or the philosophical journals. It is, however, already sufhi- 
cient to give an idea of the prodigious quantity of these 
bones which the earth contains, and of what may be yet 
discovered if such researches are continued, and if they were 
oftener directed by men of science. 
7 
XLVIIT. De- 
