Oh {he Mammoth. ^SS 



trial creatures. Whether the general denomination of great 

 xubales, fo peculiarlv expreflcd here, extended to the levia- 

 than, the behemoth, and other fpecies of great animals, t 

 am not critic enough to judge: but that there were feveral 

 other great animals in thefe waters is a fa£l. 



On this ground I am difpofed to think that, if any remains 

 of any great animals are found amid the wreck which the 

 parts of this planet have fuffcred in the revolutions of its na- 

 ture, whofe fpecies are not now to be found in living: exift- 

 ence, and to whom the prefent ftatc of the earth couTd nei- 

 ther give an habitation or food, even a cautious naturalift 

 may, on theory founded in a combination of circumftances, 

 fairly fuppofe that thofe great animals had their exiftence 

 under the circumftan«es of the firft period of this planet as 

 an aqueous one, and were deftroyed by the revolution which 

 converted it into a terreltrial one; and that even thofe who 

 were notdclhoyed in that cataftrophe muft have become an- 

 nihilated, as the prefent ftatc of the earth is noi: fuited to 

 thilr exiltence. 



The fkeletons of this fpecies of animal, which is by a Ruf- 

 fian word denominated maniouth or mamoud, as being enor- 

 mous like the elephant, and which might juil as properly have 

 had the name leviathan, or behemoth, given to it, are found 

 in different and diltant parts of the world, and under difterefit 

 climates, as on the banks of the Ohio, in the dominions of the 

 ftateof New Yoik, and on the banks of the Obie in Siberia. 

 This circumftance again points out that thefe animals muft 

 have inhabited fome element wherein the climates did not 

 vary to the degree in which they now do on the earth, and 

 whereby there was a geiiCral free communication from one 

 fide of the globe to the other, which doth not now take 

 place. Moreover, as the earth is now conftiiuted, and as the 

 animals thereon exiii, the indigenous animals of Europe and 

 of America, howfoever fimiur in their external apparent 

 dafll-s, are variations in the one country from what they are 

 in the other. 



Befides the fkeletons of thefe animals called mammoth, 

 there have been found in other regions of the earth parts of 

 other Ikeletons of enoruious anunals. The flceleton of one 

 iuch, which i.-, now in S^.ain, was found in South America. 

 This, from the drawing made of it, appears to differ from 

 the mammoth : but, having been accuftoniod to doubt the 

 vaguenefs of draughts, I cmu (uppofe that thi-^ may, on exa- 

 uiiiution, be found to be uf the lame nature ' . 



There 



W'c l.»ve re»fon to liclicvc. from n correct dnwinj;, •\r\A fome p.mi- 



tM'.At. wliicli Ji«vc rcacht J u» of the juiinjl tiwc »lludcJ w,, that U h of a 



diricrcnt 



