FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 61 



been transported across the Thibetian, the Altaic, and the 

 Oural mountains. Moreover, these bones exhibit no marks of 

 detrition: their ridges, their apophyses, are in perfect pre- 

 servation. Even the epiphyses of those not yet arrived at per- 

 fect growth still adhere, though the slightest effort would be 

 sufficient to detach them. The only alterations that are visible 

 are the result of that decomposition which they have undergone 

 in the bosom of the earth ; nor can we say that entire carcasses 

 have been violently removed. On such a supposition, it is 

 true that the bones would have remained perfect, but it is 

 also true that they would have been found together, not scat- 

 tered. Besides, the marine productions attached to many of 

 them prove that they must have remained some time stripped 

 of their exuviae and separated at the bottom of the fluid by 

 which they were covered. When this fluid overwhelmed them, 

 they were in the places where we now find them ; they were 

 scattered far and wide, as we frequently find the bones of our 

 own animals scattered on their native soil. 



It is, then, much more than probable that the fossil elephants 

 inhabited the countries where their remains are found at present, 

 and that they must have perished by some simultaneous revo- 

 lution, or a change of climate, which put a stop to their propa- 

 gation. 



Let the cause be what it may, it must have been sudden. 

 The bones and ivory in such fine preservation in the plains of 

 Siberia, are only so because they are congealed by the cold, 

 which suddenly arrested the decomposing action of the ele- 

 ments. Had this cold taken place gradually and slowly, the 

 bones, and still more the soft parts, would have had time for 

 decomposition, as has been the case in warm and temperate 

 climates. Above all, it is impossible that an entire carcass 

 could have been found, with the skin and flesh uncorrupted, 

 had it not been instantly enveloped by the ice which continued 

 to preserve it. 



Thus we see that every hypothesis, founded on a gradual 



