On Elephantine Bones. 29 



possible, but not, I think, very probable, that a few so- 

 litary Mammoths may have trod the country to the east 

 of the Missisippi, since the first discovery of the conti- 

 nent of North-America. Perhaps, those of which the 

 proboscides, the stomachs, #nd other soft parts, have 

 been preserved, were some of the last- surviving indivi- 

 duals of this stupendous species, which Nature (for pur- 

 poses unknown to us) has removed from the number of 

 living existences. 



The chief value of the recent discovery, in Virginia, 

 seems to consist in the ascertaining of this fact, that the 

 Mammoth was an herbivorous, and not a carnivorous, 

 animal. The discovery " has summoned (to use Bishop 

 Madison's words) the discordant opinions of philosophers 

 before a tribunal, from which there is no appeal." 



As to myself, I have always leaned to the opinion, 

 that the Mammoth was an herbivorous animal. I have 

 even, for at least six years, defended this opinion, in my 

 public lectures ; as I have, also, the opinion, that the 

 Mammoth was a species of Elephas*. In respect to the 

 first opinion, I was well aware, that I had not a few re- 

 spectable authorities to oppose. Among these, there 

 were some ingenious countrymen of my own ; and 

 among the foreigners, not to mention others, the late 

 Mr. John Hunter. In a conversation which I had with 

 that truly ingenious man, in the year 1787, on the sub- 

 ject of the Mammoth, he observed to me, in a style 



* See my letter to Mons. Lacepede, in Mr. Tilloch's Philoso- 

 phical Magazine, for July, 1805. 



