012 rttlLOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNKO 176^. 



XVII. Dissertatio ephtolaris de Ossibus et Dentibus Elephanlum, aliarumque 

 Belluarum in AmericaSeptentrionali, aliisqne borealibus Regeonibus obviis; qna 

 indigenarum Belluarum esse ostendilur. Auct. R. E. Raspe. p. 136. 



Mr. Raspe in this Latin paper, after observing that the bones of elephants, 

 and other large animals allied to them in general appearance, are found in various 

 parts of the northern world, and that the hypotheses relative to their translation 

 from warmer climates are untenable, concludes by giving it as his own opinion, 

 that such animals were in reality natives of the regions in which their remains 

 are found ; and that they have been gradually extirpated in the earlier ages by 

 the efforts of mankind, as has been the case with several animals now no longer 

 found in countries in which many centuries ago they abounded. Thus the wolf, 

 the bear, and some other animals, mentioned by Caesar as found in particular 

 parts of Germany, have been long ago extirpated. 



With respect to the bones themselves, Mr. Raspe observes, that the hinge of 

 the question turns on their particular nature, viz. whether truly elephantine, 

 or allied to such animals as could not be supposed to have lived in cold climates. 

 The bones from North America undoubtedly are not those of common elephants, 

 as is plain from the form of the grinders. That they were not those of marine 

 animals seems clear from their being never found imbedded among marine 

 substances; and that they were not transported by the waters of the Noachic 

 deluge seems clear for a similar reason. But surely, he adds, we may suppose, 

 that some very large species of elephant of a different kind from those which 

 are natives of warm climates, might have formerly existed in cold climates, and 

 that they have gradually become extinct. As to the question, how it comes to 

 pass that such a number of skeletons should be found in so small a space as the 

 particular swampy spot in which they are discovered near the banks of the Ohio, 

 Mr. R. imagines that, seduced by the delight of licking the salt soil in that 

 spot in considerable numbers, they might have suddenly sunk by their own 

 weight, and have been thus destroyed. 



XVIII. Observations on a Particular Manner of Increase in the Animalcula of 

 Vegetable Infusions, with tlie Discovery of an Indissoluble Salt arising from 

 Hempseed put into Water till it becomes Putrid. By John Ellis, Esq., F.R.S. 



' p. 138. 



Having, at the request of Dr. Linnaeus, made several experiments on the infu- 

 sion of mushrooms in water, in order to prove the theory of Baron Munchau- 

 sen, that their seeds are first animals and then plants ; which he takes notice of 

 in his System of Nature, p. 1326, under the genus of Chaos, by the name of 

 Chaos fungorum seminum : it appeared evidently that the seeds were put into 

 motion by very minute animalcula which proceeded from the putrefaction of the 

 mushroom ; for by pecking at these seeds, which are reddish, light, round 

 bodies, they moved them abput with great agility in a variety of directions, while 



