256 PEOCEEDIKGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETT. 



and that their range in time is consonant with what is known of 

 other well-determined species of Mammalia, namely, that they have 

 been restricted within definite eras. In order to give any weight to 

 the specific distinctions among the fossil Elephants which I shall 

 endeavour to point out, it will he necessary to explain the grounds 

 upon which they are founded in greater detail than is set forth in 

 the remarks introductory to the preceding part of this essay, when 

 treating specially of the Mastodons ; and, at the risk of being charge- 

 able in some measure with repetition, I must solicit the indulgence 

 of the Society on the subject. 



The specific name of Eleplias primigenius, adopted from the eminent 

 German naturalist, Blumenbach, was applied by Cuvier to all the 

 fossil Elephantine remains occurring in Europe, Northern Asia, and 

 America, up to the date of his last edition of the ' Ossemens Fossiles.' 

 De BlaiuAT-lle, swayed by his adherence to the dogma of a single and 

 simultaneous creation of living beings, subject to incessant extinc- 

 tions, but never repeated, in admitting Eleplias primigenius, extended 

 its area for the reception of the living Indian Elephant, as 

 he held the opinion that there were not sufficient grounds for re- 

 garding them as specifically distinct*. Owen adopted Cuvier's 

 limitation of the Mammoth ; but, struck with the wide differences 

 presented by molars from various British strata, he endeavoured to 

 account for them on the hypothesis of a gradation between thick- 

 and thin-plated varieties f . GervaisJ, while fully admitting the 

 a priori improbability that the same species of Elephant ranged 

 from the Pliocene up, through the Pleistocene, to the Postplioeene 

 period, adheres to the specific unity of Elephas primigenius ; and he 

 endeavours to escape from the difficulty by assuming that the so- 

 called Pliocene remains of Elephants have been wrongly determined, 

 and ought to be referred to the genus Mastodon. To avoid cumber- 

 ing the present communication by a tedious citation of other au- 

 thorities, I may refer to the two latest compilations on palaeonto- 

 logy, respectively by Bronn and Pictet, for the existing state of 

 knowledge and opinion upon the subject. Bronn, after an exhaus- 

 tive exposition of the literature on fossil Elephants, sums up by 

 stating that the number of fossil species, exclusive of two or three 

 Indian forms and of E. priscus (upon which he does not venture to 

 decide), is limited to a single, or, at the utmost, two fossil species ; 

 and he ranges all the European forms, with the exception of E. 



* " En sorte que le resultat definitif auquel on est conduit par une logique 

 rigoureuse, c'est que dans I'etat actuel de nos collections du moins au Museum de 

 Paris, il est encore a peu pres impossible de demontrer que I'Elephant fossile, 

 dont on trouve tant de debris dans la terre, differe specifiquement de I'Elephant 

 de rinde encore vivant aujourd'hui." — De Blainville, ' Osteographie : Des Ele- 

 phants,' p. 222. 



t "If these varieties " {i. e. thick- and thin-plated) " actually belonged to dis- 

 tinct species of Mammoth, those species must have merged into one another, so 

 far as the character of the grinding-teeth is concerned, to a degree to which the 

 two existing species of Elephant, the Indian and African, when compared to- 

 gether, oifer no analogy." 



I Paleontologie Fran9aise (1848-52), p. 35. 



