of American Elephant. 169 



Museum National, this learned traveller informs us, that 

 he saw an immense quantity of the fossil bones of this 

 species of elephant, and also of the Ohio species, in 

 the Campo de Gigante, near Santa-Fe*. I hope you 

 will, before this note reaches you, have completely sa- 

 tisfied your mind on this interesting question. Mean- 

 while, at a distance from the theatre of your obser- 

 vations, I venture to say, that the teeth, &c, in ques- 

 tion, were not those of the African elephant. The dis- 

 covery of such teeth in America would greatly favour 

 the hypothesis of those writers (the Abbe Clavigero 

 among others), who suppose that there was once an 

 equinoctial junction between the continents of America 

 and Africa. But a thousand circumstances render this 

 hypothesis extremely improbable ; while, on the contra- 

 ry, innumerable facts tend to show, that between the nor- 

 thern parts of America and the north-eastern parts of 

 Asia, there was once a much closer and more extensive 

 surface of connexion, or vicinity, than there is at present. 



Having often alluded to the discovery, in America, 

 of molares, &c, very similar to, if not the same with, 

 those of the Asiatic mammoth, I take this opportunity 

 of mentioning an enormous defense, or tusk, of this kind, 

 that was discovered, some years since, in a branch of the 

 river Susquehanna, near the northern boundary of the 

 state of Pennsylvania. 



The entire defense was not found ; but a portion that 

 was six feet nine inches long, twenty. one inches in cir- 

 cumference at the large end, and fifteen inches in cir- 



* Annates, Sec, dixieme cahier, p. 887. 



