150 Natural IJistory. [Chap. Ill 



investigations to particular species, and described 

 them with great accuracy and splendour. The 

 scientific journals and memoirs of learned spci- 

 eties, in every part of the century, exhibit a large 

 and very interesting account of discoveries, and 

 o^ new observations, by these diligent and useful 

 inquirers. 



But among the various investigations in this de- 

 partment of natural history, which distinguish thd 

 eighteenth century, few are more curious than 

 those respecting the Fossil Bones of Animals now 

 no longer known in the living state. These re- 

 mains of animals, chiefly of the quadruped kind, 

 have been discovered at many different periods, 

 from the commencement of the century to its con- 

 clusion, and in almost every part of the world to 

 which naturalists have had free access. It is be- 

 lieved the first writer of any distinction on thii? 

 subject was Dr. Breynius, or Breyne, a German, 

 who, at an early period of the century, published 

 some papers on this branch of zoology in the Phi- 

 losophical Transactions. The next was the abbe 

 Fortis, who, in his Travels in Dahnatia, gave some 

 interestins: and instructive information on the 

 same subject. Among many others who have 

 distinguished themselves by their inquiries respect- 

 ing iht^se fossil hones, sir Hans Sloane, Daubenton, 

 Bufibn, Pallas *, Gmelin, and Dr. W. Hunter, deserve 



* Professor Pallas expresses the fullest conviction, that the 

 fossil bones found in Siberia were carried thither by the Flood, or 

 by somu such great inundation as the sacred history describes. 

 His nisi idea was, that the climate was once warm enough to be 

 the native country ot the tlcphant, and that it had since undergone 



