514 FOSSIL ELEPHANT, OR MAMMOTH. 



preserved by the cold which congeals them there, or which, 

 in general, arrests the action of the elements upon them. 

 If this cold had come on by degrees and slowly, these 

 bones, and still more the soft parts with which they are 

 still sometimes invested, would have had time to decom- 

 pose, like those which occur in warm and temperate coun- 

 tries. It would especially have been impossible that an 

 entire carcase, like that discovered by Mr Adams, could 

 have retained its flesh and skin without corruption, if it 

 had not been immediately enveloped by the ice which 

 preserved it. Thus, all the hypotheses of a gradual 

 cooling of the earth, or of a slow variation, whether in 

 the inclination or in the position of the axis of the globe, 

 fall to be rejected. 



If the present elephants of India were the descend- 

 ants of these ancient elephants, which have been pre- 

 served in that climate to the present day, from their be- 

 ing there placed beyond the reach of the catastrophe 

 which destroyed them in the others, it would be impos- 

 sible to explain why their species has been destroyed in 

 America, where remains are still found, which prove 

 that they had formerly existed there. The vast empire 

 of Mexico presented to them heights enough to escape 

 from an inundation so little elevated as that which we 

 must suppose to have taken place, arid the climate there 

 is warmer than is requisite for their temperament. 



The various mastodons , the hippopotamus and \he fos- 

 sil rhinoceros lived in %? same countries, and in the same 

 districts, as the elephants, since their bones are found in 

 the same strata and in the same state. Yet these ani- 

 mals very assuredly no longer exist. Every thing there- 

 fore, Cuvier maintains, concurs to induce a belief that 





