THE ELEPHANT. 8? 



the extenfive knowledge he has acquired in the 

 fcience of comparative anatomy. 



SUP- 



produced the notion, that the mammouth is an animal which 

 Jives in Siberia below the ground, where it fometimes dies, 

 and is buried under the rubbifh. Ail this has been in- 

 vented with the view to account for the blood pretended to be 

 found on thefe bones. Muller gives a defcription of the mam- 

 mouth. This animal, fays he, is four or five yards high, and 

 about thirty feet long. His colour is grayiih ; his head is very- 

 long, and his front very broad. On each fide, precifely under 

 the eyes, there are two horns, which he can move and crofs 

 at pleafure. In walking, he has the power of extending and 

 contracting his body to a great degree. His paws, in thick- 

 nefs, refemble thofe of the bear. Iibrandes-Ides is candid 

 enough to acknowledge, that he never knew any perfon who 



had feen the mammouth alive The heads and 



other bones, which correfpond with thofe of the elephant, un- 

 queftionably once conftituted real parts of that animal. To 

 this abundance of elephants bones we cannot refufe our af- 

 fent ; and I prefume, that the elephants, to avoid deilrucuon 

 in the great revolutions which have happened in the earth, 

 have been driven from their native country, and difperfed 

 themfelves wherever they could rind lafety. Their lot has 

 been different. Some longer, and others lhorter after their 

 death, have been tranfported to great diftances by fome vaft in- 

 undation. Thofe, on the contrary, who furvived, and wan- 

 dered far to the North, muft neceffarily have fallen victims to 

 the rigours of the climate. Others, without reaching fo great 

 a difiance, might be drowned, or perifn with fatigue. . . . .• 

 The largenefs of thefe bones ought not to aftonilh us. The 

 tufks are fometimes four arfchincs long, and fix inches in diame- 

 ter, (M. de Strahlenberg fays they have been £esn nine inches 

 in diameter,) and the largeii. weigh from fix to feven puds. I 

 mentioned, in another place, that frefh tuiks have been taken 

 from the elephant, which were ten feet long, and weighed a 

 hundred, a hundred and forty-fix, a hundred and fixty, and a 

 hundred and fixty eight pounds. , . . . . There are pieces 

 of fofiil ivory which are yellowifh, or grow yellow in the 



courfe 



