Annan's Account of a SJccldon. 



1G3 



it lay above 



suppose; that 



try was cove 

 monstrous 



hundred miles fr 



the 



unless we can 



many centuries ago, that part of 



d by 



sea. 



From the appearance 



f its 



)us grinders, it would seem as if it had been of the 

 carnivorous kind. A gentleman who came to see the re- 

 mains of it, told me, he had seen the skeleton of an elephant ; 



the biggest joint in it was much inferiour to what I 

 have described as the loin joint; though it is probable, it 



hut 



had lost much of its magnitude 



cian general of the H 



Doctor Michealis, phv 



troops, w^ho, with some other 



gentlemen, came to my house, after the peace, and before 

 New- York was evacuated, in order to make further search 

 in which however, he was frustrated, by heavy rains hav- 

 ing fallen) said he could not think it had been an elephant, 

 as being in his opinion, much larger. lie carried some of 

 the bones to Germany with him. And others were sent to 

 the museum in Philadelphia, kept by Mr.* Semittien ; and 



some were destroyed by careless country people, whilst I was 

 abroad. Shall we, sir, suppose the species to be extinct over 

 the face of the globe ? If so, what could be the cause? It is 

 next to incredible, that the remains of this animal could 

 have lain there since the flood. May there not be some 

 of the kind yet surviving, in some of the interiour parts of 

 the continent ? Comparatively little of it has yet been explor- 

 ed. Some gentlemen, wdth w^hom I have conversed, have 

 supposed that their extinction (as it is probable they are ex- 

 tinct) is owing to some amazing convulsion, concussion, or 



catastrophe, endured by -the globe. But T know of none 

 that could produce such an effect, except the flood. Earth- 

 quakes 



