FOSSIL ELEPHANT, OR MAMMOTH. 513 



Further, these bones are not rolled ; they retain their 

 ridges and apophyses ; they have not been worn by fric- 

 tion. Very frequently the epiphyses of those which had 

 not yet attained their full growth, are still attached to 

 them, although the slightest effort would suffice to de- 

 tach them. The only alterations that are remarked, 

 arise from the decomposition which they have undergone 

 during their abode in the earth. Nor can it with more 

 reason be represented that the entire carcases had been 

 violently transported. In this case, the bones would in- 

 deed have remained entire ; but they would also have 

 remained together, and would not have been scattered. 

 The shells, millepores, and other marine pr6ductions 

 which are attached to some of these bones, prove be- 

 sides that they had remained at least some time stripped 

 and separated at the bottom of the fluid which covered 

 them. The elephants 1 bones had therefore already been 

 in the places in which they are found, when the fluid 

 covered them. They were scattered about in the same 

 manner as in our own country the bones of horses and 

 other animals that inhabit it may be, and as the dead bo- 

 dies are spread in the fields. 



Every circumstance, therefore, renders it extremely 

 probable, that the elephants which have furnished the 

 fossil bones, dwelt and lived in the countries where their 

 bones are at present found. They could only, therefore, 

 have disappeared by a revolution, which had destroyed 

 all the individual* then living, o^byti change of climate, 

 which prevented them from propagating. But whatever 

 this cause may have been, it must have been sudden. 

 The bones and ivory which are found in so perfect a 

 state of preservation in the plains of Siberia, are only so 



Kk 



