FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 5$ 



wandering hordes of barbarians that then occupied the country. 

 Still we find the remains of the fossil elephant in very consi- 

 derable abundance, especially in the northern division of that 

 mighty continent. Buffon imagined that they existed in that 

 part only in consequence of being unable to cross the isthmus 

 of Panama, when the gradual cooHng of the earth had im- 

 pelled them southwards. This hypothesis cannot stand a mo- 

 ment's reflection, for many parts of Mexico are sufficiently 

 warm for the elephant to live in ; moreover the theory does not 

 rest on correct facts, as the bones discovered in Buffon's time 

 did not belong to the elephant, but to the mastodon. 



The bones of the true elephant are found in tolerable abun- 

 dance throughout North America. For this we have the tes- 

 timony of many recent writers, who clearly distinguish the 

 teeth and bones thus discovered from those of the mastodon. 

 Respecting the peculiar species to which those elephantine 

 remains belonged, all the accounts are not so clear as might be 

 wished. Catesby mentions an instance in which some African 

 negroes recognised the resemblance of some fossil molars, dis- 

 covered in Carolina, to those of the elephant of their native 

 continent. Mr. Barton talks of teeth and bones dug up in 

 various parts of North America, as resembling those of the 

 Asiatic elephant. But it seems more probable, from the testi- 

 mony of Mr. Rembrandt Peale and others, that these and the 

 Siberian remains belong to one and the same species. This 

 opinion is corroborated by the remains of elephants sent to the 

 Baron Cuvier, by M. de Humboldt, from Spanish America. 

 These our illustrious author discovered exactly to resemble 

 those of the Siberian species. 



A fact worth noticing here is, that the elephantine remains 

 found in Kentucky were far advanced in a state of decomposi- 

 tion : from which Mr. Peale concludes, that the destruction 

 of the elephant in America was considerably anterior to that 

 of the mastodon. 



The Spanish accounts of Mexico and Peru arc filled with 



