mTKODUCTOEY EEMARKS. 213 



fossil and recent. This determination I communicated to 

 Mr. Lyell, who, naturally swayed in his decision by the opi- 

 nions then prevailing, and his estimate of the turning weight 

 of authority, adopted for the Brunswick Canal form the 

 name of E. primigenius, with the comment that the species 

 ranged from the Alatamaha in Georgia, to the polar regions, 

 and thence through Siberia to the South of Europe ; while I 

 applied to it, in my notes of a systematic classification of the 

 Proboscidea, the designation of E. Colwmbi, after the great 

 discoverer ; purposely avoiding a geographical name, which 

 subsequent research, or more extended materials, might 

 prove to be restrictively vicious. 



I was fully impressed with the importance of the result, in 

 proving the co-existence of a distinct species of Elephant 

 with the extinct Edentate Fauna of the Southern States of the 

 Union, and as furnishing a probable explanation of the state- 

 ments made by Humboldt, Cuvier, 1 Yon Meyer, 2 De Blain- 

 ville, and others, of Elephant remains occurring in Mexico, 

 Texas, and other of the Southern States of North America. 

 Early in the following year I became acquainted with a re- 

 markable series of Elephantine remains, added to the collec- 

 tion of the British Museum, by purchase, in the spring of 

 1847. They professed to be principally from the vicinity of 

 San Eelipe, on the Brazos river in Texas ; and I identified a 

 portion of them as being of E. Columbi. But I was prevented 

 from following up the subject by my departure to India at 

 the end of 1847, and I reserved it for future research. 



Soon after my return to Europe in 1855, Sir Charles Lyell, 

 at my request, placed the Brunswick Canal specimens at my 

 disposal, and I resumed the investigation of the fossil Ele- 

 phant of the Gulf of Mexico. During the same year I had 

 an opportunity, on the indication of my friend M. Lartet, of 

 examining, in the Pakeontological Gallery of the Jardin des 

 Plantes at Paris, a small molar referred to by De Blainville, 3 

 as having been brought by M. Le Clerc from Texas, which I 

 determined to be a milk molar of the same form. In 1856 

 I was enabled, through the courtesy of M. Humbert, to 

 examine in the Natural History collection of the Musee 

 Academique of Geneva, a series of molars of the same fossil 

 Elephant, brought from Mexico by M. H. de Saussure, a 

 grandson of the celebrated Swiss explorer of the Alps ; and 

 by the kindness of my friends Mr. Charles Norton and Mr. 

 Guild of Boston, I was supplied with an excellent cast of the 

 Alabama molar, figured and described by Dr. Warren. 4 Early 



1 ' Oss. Foss.' 4to edit. torn. i. p. 157. 



2 Leonhard and Bronn, ' Neues Jahr- 

 buch' 1838, p. 414; Idem. 1840, p. 581. 



3 ' Osteographio : Elephants,' p. 190. 

 1 ' The Mastodon giganteus of North 

 America,' 1855, p. 162. 



