HISTORY OF THE ELEPHANT. 107 



from the ship, and in fifteen minutes more she recovered 

 her upright position. The water now .rapidly spread 

 among the surrounding ice, and finally, the vessel was 

 warped out and floated uninjured on the waves." 



ELEPHANT. 



(Elephas.) 



PLATE XIII. THE ELEPHANT. 



A genus of Pachydermatous or thick-skinned mammalia, 

 belonging to that division of the order to which Cuvier 

 gives the name of Proboscidea, or animals which have 

 the nose or upper lip elongated, and forming a trunk or 

 proboscis, or other prehensile instrument. 



The elephant has but few characters in common with 

 the rest of the order Pachydermata ; and indeed that 

 order is among the most perplexing in all the mammalia, 

 because the mere thickness of the skin is not a good 

 ground of classification. Thus it is impossible to give, 

 under the title of the order, any general account of all the 

 genera ; and therefore it becomes necessary to enter a lit- 

 tle more into detail of the characters of each genus. 



There is perhaps no animal respecting which less apol- 

 ogy is necessary in this respect than the elephant. In 

 point of size and strength, it stands foremost in the whole 

 class of land animals ; and though its sagacity and docility 

 have been greatly overrated, it is to a considerable extent 

 tractable, and in so far a sagacious animal. We use these 

 words in an animal sense of course, and not with any refer- 

 ence to docility and sagacity as predicated of human beings ; 

 and we may mention that the boasted sagacity of the ele- 

 phant is vastly inferior to that of many varieties of the dog. 



Still the elephant is- highly interesting in very many 



