78 THE ELEPHANT. 



and the tusks are larger. Some of the latter have been known 

 to weigh four hundred pounds ; and grinders of the weight of 

 twenty-four pounds, have not unfrequently been discovered. One 

 of them was taken from a skeleton of the same head in which 

 the tusks were found : and as the ivory was in every respect the 

 same as that now generally known, and used for the same pur- 

 poses, it appears evident that they belonged to the elephant. 

 But as this quadruped does not seem ever to have existed in Si- 

 beria, and as the climate itself is contradictory to the supposi- 

 tion, it will perhaps for ever puzzle philosophy to account for the 

 circumstance. The only probable conjecture is, that these ani- 

 mals must have been brought from India for the use of the Tar- 

 tar princes, successors of Ginghis Khan, during the flourishing 

 state of that dynasty. 



A similar phenomenon has been discovered in America, on 

 the banks of the Ohio. Tusks, teeth, jaw-bones, thigh-bones, 

 and vertebrae, all of prodigious size, have been found five or six 

 feet below the surface. Some of these tusks are near seven feet 

 long, one foot nine inches round at the base, and one foot near 

 the point. They differ from those of the elephant, in having a 

 larger twist, or spiral curve, towards the smaller end. In the 

 form of the grinders, there is a still greater difference ; for they 

 are made like those of a carnivorous animal, not flat and ribbed 

 transversely on their surface, like those of the elephant, but fur- 

 nished with a high and double row of conic projections, as if 

 intended to masticate, rather than grind their food. These fossil 

 bones have also been found in some parts of South America, 

 particularly Peru and Brazil ; but the living animal has hitherto 

 evaded the search of the naturalist and the traveller. 



Although elephants are more numerous in Africa, those of 

 India are generally superior in strength, as well as size ; and 

 those of Ceylon, in particular, surpass all others in courage and 

 sagacity. In those oriental countries, some of them are milk- 

 white, and valued at an exorbitant price, as constituting one of 

 the most pompous appendages of eastern magnificence. 



As the elephant never propagates in a domestic state, the 

 precise time of its gestation is but imperfectly known. Aristotle, 

 however, assigns two years to this period. This extraordinary 

 quadruped is thirty years in arriving at its full growth, and lives 

 even in a state of captivity a hundred and twenty years : in a 

 state of natural freedom, the duration of its life is supposed to 

 be much further extended. 



In regard to the elephant's discernment and sagacity, stories 

 have been related that might seem incredible, and of which some 

 are undoubtedly fictitious. Of such, however, as are so well 

 authenticated as not to admit of a possibility of doubt, we have 



