GREAT MASTODON. 5] 5 



the fossil elephant is, like them, an extinct species, al- 

 though it resembles more than they one of the species at 

 present existing, and that its extinction has been pro- 

 duced by a sudden cause, by the same great catastrophe 

 which destroyed the species of the same epoch. 



3. On the Great Mastodon, or Animal of the Ohio. 



It appears that the Great Mastodon or Animal of the 

 Ohio, was very like the elephant in its tusks and whole 

 skeleton, the grinders excepted ; that it very probably had 

 a proboscis ; that its height did not exceed that of the ele- 

 phant, but that it was a little more elongated, and had 

 limbs somewhat thicker, with a more slender belly. Not- 

 withstanding all these points of resemblance, the peculiar 

 structure of its grinders is sufficient to constitute it of a 

 different genus from the elephant. It further appears, 

 that it fed much in the same manner as the hippopotamus 

 and boar, choosing by preference the roots and other fleshy 

 parts of vegetables ; that this sort of food must have 

 drawn it towards the soft and marshy places ; that, never- 

 theless, it was not formed for swimming, and living often 

 in the water like the hippopotamus, but that it was a true 

 land animal. Its bones are much more common in North 

 America than any where else. They are even perhaps 

 exclusively confined to that country. They are better pre- 

 served, and fresher, than any other fossil bones known ; 

 and, nevertheless, there is not the slightest proof, the small- 

 est authentic testimony, calculated to impress a belief that 

 either in America, or any where else, there is still any 

 living individual, for the various accounts which we have 

 from time to time read in the journals respecting living 

 mastodons, which had been observed in the forests or 



