44 FAUNA ANTIQUA SIVALEJfSIS. 



from tlie belief of civilized mankind, and reconstructed the 

 true forms of the animals wliich appear, in many instances, 

 to have given rise to them. Palaeontology made, as it were, 

 its first great advance in the exact determination by Cuvier 

 of the mammoth of Siberia, and the mastodon of North 

 America. Since that time several new forms have been dis- 

 covered, and most of the great points connected with the 

 structure of the Proboscidea, fossil and recent, have been ascer- 

 tained. But, notwithstanding the vast amount of observation 

 on the subject diu-ing late years, a great difference of opinion 

 has prevailed among comparative anatomists and palseontolo- 

 gists, down even to the period when we now write, in regard 

 to the degree of affinity and generic relation of the diflFerent 

 species of mastodon and elephant. The majority of late 

 authorities, including Cuvier and Owen, have regarded them 

 as constituting two distinct and well marked, although 

 closely allied, genera ; others have gone the length of break- 

 ing up mastodon into two genera ; while M. de Blainville has 

 reverted to the 0]3inion of some of the earlier observers, that 

 the so-called mastodons and elephants are but modifications 

 of one common type, differing so little from each other that 

 all the species may, with propriety, be included within the 

 limits of a single genus. A still greater and vastly more 

 important difference of opinion has prevailed regarding the 

 number and characters of the species ; for, while the con- 

 flicting views respecting the generic distinctions concern 

 little more than the principles of systematic classification, 

 the accurate determination of the fossil species affects the 

 value of facts, which implicate the accuracy of some of the 

 most weighty arguments in the geology of the later tertiary 

 strata, more especially such as relate to the changes of 

 climate which are supposed to have accompanied their depo- 

 sition, and the extension of the species through a wide range 

 of time and space. Cuvier considered all the elephant remains 

 which have been found in Europe, the north of Asia, and 

 America, whether occurring in the superficial drift of Siberia, 

 or in the tertiary beds of the Yal d'Arno, to belong strictly to 

 a single species, Elephas primigenius. Professor Owen, with 

 all the lights, and wielding every arm of an advanced science, 

 holds the same opinion. M. de Blainville does not think 

 that there are sufficient characters even for separating the 

 mammoth from the existing Indian elephant, both of which 

 he appears to regard as varieties of the same species.^ On the 

 other hand, Nesti, after a careful study of the elephant re- 

 mains of Italy, during a period of nearly twenty years, upon 



' De Blainville, Osteographie ; Elephants, p. 222. 



