230 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



have been discovered in all parts of the West and 

 South, and nearly complete skeletons have been ex- 

 humed in New Jersey and New York. Kindred 

 osseous remains of the larger proboscidians are found 

 in the various latitudes of Europe, showing that ani- 

 mals decidedly elephantine in character were once 

 well distributed through the northern temperate zone; 

 and observations made in latitudes south of the equa- 

 tor demonstrate a general distribution of the elephant- 

 idse over all parts of the habitable earth. 



Remnants of proboscidians in a fossil or pe- 

 trous state have been discovered in Miocene depos- 

 its, yet the larger of the elephant family did not ap- 

 pear till late in the Tertiary epoch of geological his- 

 tory. What is called the Glacial or Drift period was 

 probably quite fatal to huge pachyderms, yet repre- 

 sentatives of various species reached the modern river 

 system, for their bones are found in gravel beds, and 

 the alluvium of bottom lands. In some instances 

 teeth and bones are associated with those of modern 

 deer and bison ; but there exists no positive evidence 

 that the earliest inhabitants of the American continent 

 ever beheld a living mammoth or mastodon. 



