26o NICOLAUS STENO 



ing packs perished in the marshy places from the excessive 

 floods.i 



5. It is certain that the place whence are dug the bones 

 under discussion, was heaped up from various strata which are 

 full of stones rolled down by the force of torrents from the 

 surrounding mountains ; so that the manifest agreement in all 

 details can no longer remain hidden from one who compares the 

 character of the place and of the bones with the historical 

 record. 



PLANTS 



What has been said regarding animals and their parts holds 

 equally true of plants and the parts of plants, whether they are 

 dug from earthy strata or lie hidden within rocky substance; 

 for they either completely resemble actual plants and parts of 

 plants (this kind is found rather rarely), or they differ from ac- 

 tual plants only in color and in weight (this kind occurs more 

 frequently, sometimes burnt in charcoal, sometimes impregnated 

 in a petrifying fluid), or they correspond to actual plants in 



1 Cuvier (^Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles, 4th edition, Vol. 11, Paris, 1834, p. 17) 

 states that the skeleton of an elephant was found at Arezzo in 1663 : 



" Cest dans le val de Chiana, au territoire d'Arezzo, que le grand-due Ferdinand II, ce 

 g^ndreux protecteur des sciences, fit ddterrer un squelette entier en 1663, dont proviennent 

 encore, selon Targioni (Tozzeti), une partie des os conserves k Florence, et dont paraissent 

 avoir parM Stenon et Boccone." 



Steno's explanation is a naive attempt to account for the presence, in very great numbers, 

 of the fossil remains of elephants belonging to the Pleistocene period. Says Cuvier (op. cit., 

 p. 16) : "Quand on passe de I'Etat de I'Eglise en Toscane, en suivant le Tibre, le Clanis ou 

 Chiana et I'Arno, les os dMl^phans deviennent de plus en plus nombreux. Le val de Chiana, 

 le val d'Arno et les valines particuli^res qui y aboutissent, en contiennent d'^tonnantes 

 quantit^s." 



Further references are : Forsyth Major, Considerazioni sulla Fauna del Mammiferi 

 pliocenici e post-pliocenici della Toscana in AM di Societa Toscana di Scienze Naturale in 

 Pisa, Vol. I (1875), pp. 7-40, 223-245; III (1877), pp. 207-227; Mammalian Fauna of the 

 Val d''Arno in The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, Vol. XLI (1885), 

 pp. 1-8 ; Dep^ret, Evolution of Tertiary Mammals, and the Importance of Their Migrations 

 in The American Naturalist, \^1. XLII (1908), pp. 109-114, 166-170, 303-307. 



It may be interesting to note, apropos of Steno's " historical record," that both Livy and 

 Polybius agree that Hannibal had only one elephant by the time he reached Arezzo. According 

 to Eutropius (III. 8) and Polybius (III. 42), Hannibal entered Italy vi'ith thirty-seven 

 elephants. Polybius states (III. 74) that all except one perished from the extreme cold im- 

 mediately after the battle of the Trebia (218 B.C.), and Livy (XXI. 56) remarks that almost 

 all {prope omnis) wtrtt overcome. In the attempt to cross the Apennines, a detail of the 

 campaign which is not mentioned by Polybius and is a source of confusion in Livy, seven of 

 these succumbed (Livy, XXI. 58). And when Hannibal reached Arezzo in the early spring of 

 217 B.C. (XXII. 2), Livy represents him as riding the sole survivor. 



