THfe ELEPHANT. 83 



1 



parent, that the prodigious bones and tufks a- 

 bove taken notice of, are really the tufks and 

 bones of the elephant. Sir Hans Sloane * fays 

 the fame thing ; but brings no proof of the fa£t. 

 M. Gmelin affirms it ftill more pofitively 1\ anc * 



F 2 gives 



as thick as a man's thigh ; and that force of them weighed 

 ninety pounds. It is laid, that, in Africa, fome tufks have 

 been found, each of which weighed a hundred and twenty- 

 five pounds The Engliih voyagers brought from 



Guiney the head of an elephant, which Mr Eden faw in the 

 polfeflion of Mr Judde : It was fo large, that the bones and 

 cranium alone, without including the tufks, weighed about 

 two hundred pounds ; from which it was computed, that the 

 whole parts of the head, taken in their entire flate, would have 

 weighed five hundred pounds ; Htji. gen, dei voyages, ion/, i. 

 p. 223. — Lopes amufed himfelf in weighing feveral tufks of 

 the elephant, each of which amounted to about two hundred 

 pounds ; Idem, /;;//. 5. p. 79. — The magnitude of elephants 

 may be eftimated by their tufks, fome of which have been 

 found to weigh two hundred pounds ; Drake* s voyage, p. 104. 



In the kingdom of Loango, I purchafed two tufks, 



which belonged to the fame animal, and each of them weighed 

 a hundred and twenty fix pounds ; Voyage de la Govipagnie des 



hides de Hollande, torn. 4. p. 319. At the Cape of Good 



Fope, the elephant's teeth are very large, and weigh from 

 fixty to a hundred pounds ; Defcript. du Cup. de Bonne-efperatice, 

 par Kobe, torn. 3. p. 12. 



* Kilt del' Acad, des Sciences, annce 1727, p. 1. 



j In Siberia, there are prodigious quantities of bones found 

 in different places under the ground. This part of natural 

 hiftory is both curious and important : I have therefore col* 

 leered ail the facls I could learn upon this fubjecl. Peter the 

 Great, who was a patron of haturalifts, gave orders to his 

 filbjeefs, in the year 1722, that, wherever any bones of the 

 mammoutk were difcovered, the other bones belonging to the 

 animal mould be diligently follght for, and the whole fent to 

 Pcterfburg. Thefe orders were publifhed in all the towns of 



Siberia, 



