BARON CUVIER. 51 



menbaclij who recognised the latter as belonging to an ele- 

 phant. 



But the champions of human fossils were not contented 

 witii making them out of the bones of elephants ; and hav- 

 ing found some animal remains imbedded in slate, a few 

 leagues from the Lake of Constance, a learned physician 

 wrote a particular dissertation on them, entitled, "L'Homme 

 Temoin du Deluge." — " It is not to be refuted," said 

 he, " here is the half, or nearl\^ the whole of the skeleton 

 of a man, even the substance of the bones, and, what is 

 more, the flesh, and parts still softer than the flesh, are in- 

 corporated with the stone. In short, it is one of the rarest 

 rehcs we possess of that cursed race which was buried un- 

 der the waters." The assertions of the learned Doctor^ 

 however, vanished before the penetrating eye of M. Cuvier, 

 who, judging from the relative form and proportion of the 

 bones, decided that this fossil was no other than that of an 

 aquatic salamander, of a gigantic size and unknown spe- 

 cies. In 1811, having the power of examining the stone 

 which contained this " witness of the deluge," he, in pre- 

 sence of several distinguished savans, and with the draw- 

 ing of a salamander before him, at every stroke of the chi- 

 sel verified his assertion. 



But to return to the elephants : Asiatic Russia swarms 

 with these monstrous remains, and the inhabitants explain 

 the phenomenon by supposing that they belong to some 

 living subterraneous animal partaking of the nature of the 

 mole, and which they call Mammout, or Mammoth. This 

 fable also extends to China. Besides the relics of true ele- 

 phants, found in America, there have been yet two other 

 gigantic animals discovered ; the Mastodon and the Mega- 

 therium, the former bearing great affinity to the elephant. 

 These animals have also formed a foundation for many ab- 

 surd stories, all of which have been refuted by M. Cu- 

 vier's luminous researches : he states, " that the great ani- 

 mal of Ohio was very similar to the elephant in its tusks 

 and its osteology, with the exception of its jaws ; that it 

 very probably had a trunk, but that in height it did not ex- 

 ceed the elephant. It was, however, longer than that quad- 

 ruped, its limbs thicker, its belly of less volume ; but, not- 

 withstanding the httle importance of these differences, the 



