THE ELEPHANT. 6y 



only (is. and a half feet in height ; and, as the 

 rate of growth always diminishes as animals ad- 

 vance in years, it cannot be fuppoied, that, if he 

 had lived thirty years, the common period when, 

 the growth of elephants is completed, he would 

 have acquired more than eight feet in height. 

 Hence the domeftic flate reduces the growth of 

 the elephant one third, not only in height, but 

 in all other dimenfions. The length of his body, 

 from the eye to the origin of the tail, is nearly 

 equal to his height at the withers. An Indian 

 elephant, therefore, of fourteen feet high, is more 

 than feven times larger and heavier than the 

 Verfailles elephant. By comparing the growth 

 of this animal to that of man, we fhall find, that 

 an infant, being commonly thirty-one inches 

 high, that is, one half of its height, at the age of 

 two years, and taking its full growth at twenty 

 years, the elephant, which grows till thirty, cugh: 

 to acquire the half of his height in three years,, 

 In the fame manner, if we would form a judg- 

 ment of the enormous rnais of the elephant, we 

 fhall find, that, the volume of a man's body being 

 fuppofed to be two cubic feet and a half, the 

 body of an elephant of fourteen feet long, three 

 feet thick, and a proportional breadth, would be 

 fifty times as large ; and, confequently, that an 

 eleohant ought to weigh as much as fiity men *\ 



E 2 «I 



* Peirere, in his life of GaiTendi, fays, that an elephant, 

 which he caufed to be weighed, was three thoufand five hun- 

 dred pounds. This elephant {ecms to have been very fmali i 



