424 Additional Note^. 



E. Americanus, molarihus multi-cuspidihus, lamdlis post dc- 

 tritionem quadrilohatis .** 



C. Cuvier, since the publication of his Memoir, has disco- 

 vered several new species of elephants, differing not only from 

 the fossil ones hitherto described, but from all living animah 

 with which we are acquainted. One of them is found in Peru, 

 and other countries, and comes nearest to the elephant of the 

 Ohio : another has been discovered in the strata of the Black 

 Mountain, in the department of IHerault : a third is found at 

 Comminges ; and fragments of the fourth abound in the vicinity 

 of Paris. — Mem. de V List. torn, ii, p. 22, 



The origin of these fossil hones, especially of some, found in 

 peculiar circumstances, has employed the ingenuity of many emi- 

 nent naturalists, and been made the subject of much specula- 

 tion in later years. On the supposition, which has been 

 adopted by a considerable number of these inquirers^ that the 

 account of the general deluge given in the sacred writings is 

 false, the question is, indeed, of difficult solution. But, ad- 

 mitting the trutli of that account (and every mountain and val- 

 ley lifts up its voice to confirm it), the difficulty, in a- great mea- 

 sure, if not entirely, vanishes. Ix?t us suppose that the animals 

 the fossil exuvice of which are now found were inhabirtants of th« 

 antediluvian world, is it not evident that many of the facts ob- 

 served are precisely such as must necessarily have arisen from this 

 state of the case ? 



The fossil remains of elephants have been discovered in va- 

 rious parts of the North-A7nerican continent, where none of this 

 genus of animals are now to be found in the living state. This 

 has been made a wonder. But how could it have been other- 

 wise ? If the flood destroyed all the inhabitants of the earth, 

 except those \^hich were preseiTcd in the ark ; and if tlie ark 

 rested, after the subsiding of the waters, on the eastern conti- 

 nent, as is generally supposed by biblical commentators j then no 

 animals, excepting those capable of making occasional and con- 

 siderable expeditions by iiater, or of living in frozen regions, 

 and by this means passing from the eastern to the western conti- 

 nent on the ice, could be expected to be found in the latter, ii> 

 any other than the fossil state. It is true, we find animals in 

 South America which appear, at present, only capable of inha- 

 biting warm regions ; but it is well known, that both animals 

 and vegetables have the faculty of accommodating themselves to 

 the climate in which tliey are placed, and of gradually chang- 



