INTRODUCTION. 



77 



The observation applies with still greater force to the case 

 of Elephas primigenius, to which a scope in space and time, 

 taken together, has been assigned, without a parallel, I 

 believe, within the whole range of the Mammalia, fossil or 

 recent. D'Archiac, in his excellent ' Histoire des Progres,' 

 so late as 1848, gives a brief summary of the localities in 

 which the remains of the ' Mammoth (E. primigenius) have 

 been said to occur, namely, from the British Isles across the 

 whole of the temperate zone of Europe and of Asia, and 

 along all the coasts and islands of the Icy Sea, as far as the 

 frozen cliffs of the east coast of Behring's Strait ; in Esch- 

 scholtz Bay ; in Eussian America as high as 66° of N. lat. ; 

 over most of the United States of North America ; in the great 

 valley of the Mississippi ; and along the coasts of the Gulf 

 of Mexico.' 1 Struck with the extent of this vast area, in- 

 cluding all the emerged lands between the parallels of 40° 

 and 75° N. lat., he puts a query whether the Elephantine 

 remains met with by Humboldt on the plateau of Quito and 

 at Cumanacoa, in Columbia, did not also belong to the same 

 species. 2 De Blainville, going a step beyond most other 

 palaeontologists, doubtingly referred the fossil remains of 

 Elephants found so abundantly in tropical India to the same 

 species, 3 thus assigning at least half of the habitable globe 

 for the pasture ground of the Mammoth. 



The duration allotted to the same species is equally re- 

 markable. Discovered fresh, either in the frozen cliffs or in 

 ice-blocks at the mouth of the Lena, it has been traced, 

 through its osseous remains, in the superficial gravel-beds 

 over nearly the whole of northern and the greater part of 

 central Europe. Here it has consistently been found in 

 company with the Siberian Ehinoceros (JR. antiquitatis, 

 Blum.), the Musk-ox, and the Eeindeer. The same specific 

 form has been carried down into the so-called 'Pleistocene' 

 clay, loam, and mud deposits which are so massively deve- 

 loped on the Norfolk and Suffolk coast, in company with R. 

 leptorhinus, Hippopotamus major, and other extinct forms; 

 thence through the submerged forest and lignite bed of 

 Happisburgh and Mundesley into the Crag in company with 

 Mastodon (Tetralophodori) Arvernensis ; and abroad into the 

 'Older Pliocene' beds of the Sub-Apennines, and of Monte 



1 Bronn enumerates the following lo- 

 calities : Spain, Apulia, and Sicily ; the 

 Islet of Gozo near Malta, Athens, and 

 Odessa ; the whole of Europe except 

 Scandinavia ; from the Caucasus, through 

 the whole of Siberia, north to the Polar 

 Sea, and Kamtschatka ; on the north- 

 west coast of America, as far as Esch- 



seholtz Bay ; on the east side of North 

 America, in Ohio, Kentucky, and South 

 Carolina, including the parallels be- 

 tween 40° and 75° N. lat, (Lethaea Geog- 

 nostica, Band iii. p. 819.) 



2 Opcit. torn. ii. p. 378. , 



3 Osteographio : ' Des Elephants, 

 p. 222. 



