CASTOROLOGIA. I9 



and which skull is still preserved in the Philadelphia Museum, in 

 my mind belonged, beyond all doubt, to this animal, which is still 

 in existence in our remote lakes and rivers in the interior." 



Surely the essayist could not have known of the accomplish- 

 ments of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the discoverer of the Mackenzie 

 River, in 1789 ; and of David Thompson the geographer of the North 

 West Company, whose knowledge of the further north-west became 

 the basis of all later surveying. It is easily possible to conjecture 

 the fate of such a scheme, in discussion before the members of the 

 " Beaver Club," for among them could be counted those who were 

 personally acquainted with the greater part of the "fur-country," 

 and their accumulated experience may be said to have exhausted the 

 barest possibility of the existence in the flesh of the Great Beaver. 



A close relationship may, however, be traced through the Euro- 

 pean fossil which was first discovered by M. Gothelf de Fischer, in 

 the sandy borders of the Sea of Azof ; and which has since been 

 found at Ostend, Belgium ; and at Cromer, and Walker's Cliff in 

 Norfolk, England, together with the bones of the Mammoth and 

 the Rhinoceros. The animal was named after Cuvier, the eminent 

 Palaeontologist ; Trogontherium Cuvieri, or Cuvier' s Gigantic 

 Beaver. A figure of the fossil was sent to Cuvier, who claimed for 

 it so close an afiinity with the beavers as to rank in the same genus, 

 and he proposed the name Castor Trogontherium. He says that 

 "the teeth and all the forms of the head bear the character of the 

 beaver ; and it could not be distinguished from the head of the adult 

 beaver of Canada if the fossil were not one-fourth larger. How- 

 ever, as it is not certain that we possess the skulls of these existing 

 beavers which attain the largest size ; and since the beaver formerly 

 inhabited, and still, perhaps, inhabits the shores of Euxine ; since, 

 also, nearly all the borders of the Sea of Azof, are but vast alluvial 

 formations, — I think one ought to know precisely the matrix of the 

 skull in question before deciding it belonged to an extinct animal." 

 These remarks appeared in 1812, and again in a second edition in 

 1823 ; and may possibly have been the inspiration under which Mr. 

 Fothergill set out to discover the American representative. 



