9 



As the enthusiasm, awakened by the first 

 discovery of these stupendous remains, began 

 to subside, and as the effect of this sublime tra- 

 dition must necessarily have yielded to reason 

 and abstract enquiry, it was soon ascertained, 

 that bones and skeletons of vast magnitude had 

 been frequently found in Siberia, Russia, and 

 Germany. Many specimens of them are to be 

 seen in the Imperial Cabinet at Peter sburgh ; 

 in the British, Doctor Hunter's, and the late 

 Sir Ashton Lever's Museums, and in that of the 

 Royal Society. Several eminent naturalists, as 

 Sir Hans Sloane, Gmelin, Daubenton, Buffon, 

 kc, are of opinion, that these prodigious bones 

 and tusks are really the bones and tusks of 

 elephants ; and many modern philosophers 

 have held the mammoth to be as fabulous as 

 the centaur. Tiie great difference in size they 

 endeavour to account for, as arising in diffe- 

 rence in age, sex, and climate ; and the cause 

 of their being found in those northern parts of 

 the world, where elephants are no longer na- 

 tives, nor even long exist, they presume to have 

 arisen from hence, that, in the great revolu- 

 tions which have happened in the earth, the 

 elephants, to avoid destruction, have left their 

 native country, and dispersed themselves where 



