54 FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 



The south of Asia is very far from having furnished these 

 remains in a similar degree of abundance. The most southern 

 regions of this continent in which the fossil bones of the 

 elephant are said to have been found, are the neighbourhood 

 of the sea of Aral, and the banks of the Jaxartes. Pallas tells 

 us that the Bucharians sometimes fetch ivory from the borders 

 of this river. 



But, in fact, every thing relative to those fossil remains in the 

 south of Asia, is mere report and conjecture. The ancients talk 

 of the bodies of giants found in Syria and Asia. Pausanias 

 tells us of the body of Geryon, or Hyllus, found in Upper 

 Lydia, and of another, eleven cubits in length, discovered in 

 the bed of the Orontes. These may be referred to elephants. 



It is singular enough that these remains should not be found 

 in climates to which the elephant is native, and has been as far 

 back as historical records extend. Can we suppose that none 

 are buried there, or that the bones have been decomposed by 

 the force of heat ? It is very possible that instances of their 

 discovery have been passed over in those countries, as present- 

 ing nothing unnatural or extraordinary. It is also by no 

 means improbable, that the mammoth was an animal intended 

 to live in the cold climates of the north, from the fact of its 

 having been covered with long hair and a thick wool. Geo- 

 logists who visit the torrid zone would do well to extend their 

 researches on this subject. It appears, however, that some 

 discoveries of this kind have been made in northern Africa, 

 where elephants do not exist at the present day. They did so, 

 however, formerly, and seem to have been native to Mauritania, 

 according to the report of all the ancients ; and we know the 

 Carthaginians had plenty of them. But there are few accounts 

 from this quarter sufficiently authenticated or detailed to iden- 

 tify the species. 



We now proceed to the New World, where the elephant has 

 never been found in a living state, and where the species could 

 never have been destroyed in earlier times by the weak and 



