136 September 1748. 



feems that all which we have hitherto men- 

 tioned, may have been the effect of differ- 

 ent caufes. To thofe belong the univerfal 

 deluge, the increafe of land which is mere- 



iy 



being preferred there by the great froft, and in the fhort 

 fummerofafew weeks, the rain being rare, thefe tulks are 

 commonly fo frefh that they are employed in RuJJia, as com- 

 mon ivory, on account of the great quantity brought from 

 thefe places to Raffia ; fome of them were eight feet long, and 

 of three hundred pounds weight. There have been found 

 grinders of nine inches diameter. But the American grinders 

 of Elephants from near the Ohio are yet more remarkable, 

 on account of their being provided with crowns on their 

 tops, fuch as are only found in the carnivorous animals, and 

 fuch as feed on hard bones or nuts. Whilft on the contrary, 

 Elephants at prefent feeding on grafTes and foft vegetables 

 have no fuch crowns at the tops of their grinders. Liiy, it 

 is true, makes a diftindlion between the AJiatic or Indian 

 Elephants, and the African ones; and remarks the latter to 

 be inferior to the former in fize and vigour ; but whether 

 the teeth in thefe animals are fo much different from thofe 

 of the other variety, has never been attended to. This cir- 

 cumftance of the difference in the foffil grinders of Ele- 

 phants, from thofe in the living ones, and the place where 

 thefe fkeletons were found in, viz. Siberia, Germany and 

 A'merica, where at prefent no Elephants are to be met with, 

 opens a wide field to conjectures in regard to the way, by 

 which thefe animals were carried to thofe fpots. The flood 

 in the deluge perhaps has carried them thither : nor is it 

 contrary to reafon, hifcory or revelation, to believe, thefe 

 fkeletons to be the remainders of animals, which lived on 

 the furface of this globe, anterior to the Mofaic creation, 

 which may be confidered only as a new modification of the 

 creatures living on this globe, adapted to its prefent ftate, 

 tinder which it will remain till circumftances will make a new 

 change neceffary, and then our globe will by a new creation 

 or revolution appear more adapted to its ftate, and be flock- 

 ed with a fet of animals more fuitabje to that ftate. Every 



man 



