70 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



found only in South America ; and it is a 

 curious fact, that greatly as these animals exceed 

 the sloth and the ant-eater in size, they not only 

 appear to belong to the same family, but their 

 bones are found only in America, the very 

 country inhabited by sloths and ant-eaters. 



" The gigantic fossil elks of Ireland are also 

 an extinct species : they are found under bogs, 

 or in deep marl pits ; and generally in an erect 

 position, as if the herd had been suddenly over- 

 whelmed by the mass in which they are im- 

 bedded, while it was in a fluid state. The dis- 

 tance between the tips of the horns of a skull, 

 now in the museum of the Royal Society of 

 Dublin, is eleven feet and ten inches ; and I have 

 heard that a still larger specimen has been dis- 

 covered in that country. 



" The skull of the fossil ox, or buffalo of 

 Siberia, cannot be identified with any of the 

 known species of this animal ; and it is conjec- 

 tured to have lived at the same time with the 

 fossil elephant and rhinoceros, as it is found in 

 the same alluvial tracts. 



" Two distinct species of elephant are at 

 present known ; the African and the Asiatic ; 

 but only one fossil species has hitherto been 

 discovered, which has been called the mammoth, 

 a name borrowed from the Russians. Though 

 differing from both the existing species, prin- 

 cipally iu the structure of the teeth, it more 



