512 MAMMOTH, OR FOSSIL ELEPHANT. 



fresh water shells. The resemblance, in this latter res- 

 pect, as well as with regard to the nature of the soil, be- 

 tween the three places, of which we have the most de- 

 tailed accounts, viz. Tonna, Cantstadt, and the Forest 

 of Bondi, is very remarkable. Every thing, there- 

 fore, seems to announce that the cause which has buried 

 them, is one of the most recent of those that have con- 

 tributed to change the surface of the globe. It is never- 

 theless a physical and general cause ; the bones of fos- 

 sil elephants are so numerous, and have been found 

 in places so desert and even uninhabitable, that we 

 cannot suppose that they had been conducted there 

 by man. The strata which contain them and those 

 which are above them, shew, that this cause was aque- 

 ous, or that it was water that covered them ; and in 

 many places these waters were nearly the same as those 

 of our present sea, since they supported animals nearly 

 the same. But, it was not by these waters that they 

 were transported to the places. where they now are. 

 Bones of this description have been found in almost 

 every country that has been examined by naturalists. 

 An irruption of the sea that might have brought them 

 from places which the Indian elephant now inhabits, 

 could not have scattered them so far, nor dispersed 

 them so equably. Besides, the inundation which buried 

 them has not risen above the great chains of mountains, 

 since the strata which it has deposited, and which cover 

 the bones, are only found in plains of little elevation. 

 It is not, therefore, seen how the carcases of elephants 

 could have been transported into the north, across the 

 mountains of Thibet, and the Altaic and Uralian 

 chains. 



