262 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSAC'I lONa. [aNNO 1728. 



highe than the time of the Romans, and their expeditions into those countries, 

 particularly under Galien and Posthumus. Count Marsili is of the same opi- 

 nion, with regard to the bones and teeth found by him in Transylvania. He 

 takes notice, that whoever is acquainted with the great use the Romans made 

 of elephants in their military expeditions, ought not to be surprised that bones 

 and teeth of them are found in those northern countries, where otherwise 

 there cannot have been any ; and he urges, as a further proof of this assertion, 

 that they are found in pools and lakes, it having been the custom of the 

 Romans, to throw the carcases of dead elephants into the water, as it is still 

 practised to this day with tlie carcases of horses and other beasts, to prevent 

 the distempers and other inconveniencies, which their putrefaction might other- 

 wise occasion. On the other hand, there are many arguments, taken from the 

 size of the beasts, whose skeletons are thus found under ground, which some- 

 times far exceeds any that was, or could have been brought alive into Europe, 

 from the condition they are found in, and from the particular disposition of 

 the strata above the places where they are found; by which it appears, almost 

 to a demonstration, that they must be of much greater antiquity, and that they 

 cannot have been buried at the places where they are found, or brought thither 

 any otherwise, than by the force of the waters of a universal deluge. To 

 insist only on one of these arguments: if the skeletons of elephants, which 

 are thus found under ground, and at considerable depths too, had been buried 

 there, either by the Romans, or any other nation, the strata above them must 

 necessarily have been broken through and altered ; whereas, on the contrary, 

 several observations inform us, that they were found entire; whence it appears, 

 that what is found underneath, must have been lodged there, if not before, at 

 least at the very time when these strata were formed; consequently long before 

 the Romans. 



But there is another argument, which seems to bear very hard against the 

 conjectures of Goropius and Count Marsili. Tentzelius has already mentioned 

 it, and it is urged from the great value of ivory at all times, and particularly 

 among the Romans, which appears by many passages in antient authors; as for 

 instance, by a very remarkable one in Pliny, lib. 12, c. 4, who takes notice, 

 that among the valuable presents, which the Ethiopians were obliged to make 

 to the kings of Persia, by way of a tribute, there were 20 large teeth (doubt- 

 less the denies exerti) of elephants, and then adds, Tanta ebori auctoritas erat. 

 Now it is to be presumed, that the Romans would not have neglected to take 

 away the teeth, and particularly the dentes exerti of dead elephants, before they 

 flung their carcases into the water, whereas there has scarcely been any skele- 

 ton, or any part of the skeleton of an elephant dug up any where, but the 



