I60 Covjeciural Ohservations on the j\Tanimoik* 



stroyed, must not be expected to die in the midst of pisnt}'. 

 But, in fact, the serpent tribe inhabit every climate more or 

 less : hence it is probable that the rapacity of the mammoth, 

 no longer to be satisfied with the sparing diffusion of the 

 serpent class in the tropical countries, which for a lapse of 

 time had supplied them with their, perhaps, only diet, re- 

 duced by their ravages to almost perfect extinction, induced 

 the mammoth to visit regions unfavourable to his constitu- 

 tion, or at least to that of his prey : hence, in process 

 of time, the class would be, perhaps, wholly annihilated 

 through want of food, and the ills of an inhospitable cli- 

 mate. But such as have lately been found on the banks of 

 the Ohio must indubitably have perished there through 

 some sudden and unnatural cause, perhaps a partial deluge 

 or hurricane ; for, if an animal dies by natural causes, the 

 carcase remaining on the surface of the earth putrefies and 

 disappears, the skeleton only remaining, which in its turit 

 also moulders awav, leaving the teeth, as the portions which 

 longest resist the action of air and moisture : but so small 

 a substance as a tooth of the mammoth, especially if lying 

 in swamps and morasses, may long escape detection, even 

 till such time as the decomposition of its constituent parts 

 leaves no further trace of its original form. 



Thus, the mammoth may have existed in the old world as 

 well as the new, although its remains should never have been 

 found in the former: a circumstance, as above affirmed, de- 

 pendent on the nature of the soil and situation of the place 

 wherein the same may have perished, conjointly with the 

 manner in which its destruction may have happened. Thus, 

 if the period of the mammoth be referred to some centuries 

 back, we cannot expect to find its remains except in situ- 

 ations unfavourable to the process of decay j that is, totally 

 defended from the action ol external agents ; of course such 

 only must be expected to be met with as have perished in 

 warmer climates by some convulsion of nature, or in those 

 frigid regions where putrefaction is unknown. 



But now that naturalists are perfectly convinced of the 

 existence of the mammoth, the remains of huge animals 

 will not, as formerly, be referred to the elephant tribe with- 

 out more accurate exanunation; the result of which will, 

 in my humble opinion, prove that the mammoth has existed 

 in most climates of the woild ; holding a scale in the crea- 

 tion not less beneficial to the animal \vorld at large, than il- 

 lustrative of those wise dispositions of the Creator which at 

 once draw forth our s^Jmlratiou and gratitude. 



Konningion Crolsy 

 June itth, I bo J. 



XXVI. Cff- 



