52 MEMOIRS OF 



peculiar structure of its grinders suffices to establish it as a 

 separate genus. It was nourished nearly in the same man- 

 ner as the hippopotamus and wild boar, but it did not oc- 

 casionally live in the water, like the former. It preferred 

 roots, and the fleshy parts of vegetables, which species of 

 food led it to seek an open or marshy country." The bones 

 of the Mastodon Angustidens are much more common in 

 North America than elsewhere, and, perhaps, those of the 

 great Mastodon exclusively belong to that country. They 

 are better preserved and fresher than any other known fos- 

 sils, and, nevertheless, there is not the least authentic testi- 

 mony calculated to make us believe, that there is still in 

 America, or elsewhere, any living individual. Therefore, 

 the accounts published, from time to time, in the American 

 papers, concerning those that have been met with wander- 

 ing through the vast forests, or over the immense plains of 

 this continent, have never been confirmed, and may be con- 

 sequently regarded as mere fables. 



After having acquired vast experience in the connection 

 of organized beings with the soils in which they have been 

 preserved, and having decidedly proved, that the more an- 

 cient the formation, the more distant are its organic remains 

 from those now existing, M. Cuvier determined to observe 

 and describe all those contained in a limited circumference 

 round Paris. Already had he employed an intelligent 

 workman,* whom he himself paid, in the quarries at Mont- 

 martre, to collect the bones for him which were almost daily 

 found in that spot. He spared no expense, rewarded all 

 contributors with the greatest liberality, and joyfully spent 

 considerable sums on that collection, which, when his pub- 

 lications had given it the highest value, he afterwards pre- 

 sented to the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, only re- 

 ceiving in return, duplicates from the public library, of those 

 works which were wanting in his own magnificent assem- 

 blage of books. Before M. Cuvier found an opportunity of 

 publishing his discoveries, by means of the Annales du Mu- 

 seum, and when the expense of employing professed art- 

 ists would have been to much for his means, he not only 

 drew, but engraved the plates himself; which precious proofs 



* Named Varin. 



