366 GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



discovered in the Post-Pliocene deposits of Algeria, Sicily, and 

 Spain. 



The extinct species of elephants are numerous, and their re- 

 mains are largely distributed over the continents of North America 

 (Alaska to Mexico) and Eurasia. None date back in time beyond 

 the Pliocene period, if we except the. forms from the Siwalik de- 

 posits of the peninsula of India and the island of Perim, whose 

 horizon is somewhat doubtfully placed by geologists as Mio-Plio- 

 cene. The best-known species is the mammoth (Elephas primi- 

 genius), which was very closely related to the Indian elephant, and 

 whose range covered the greater part of Northern Eurasia (extend- 

 ing as far south as Santander in Spain and Rome in Italy) and 

 Northwest America. Its remains are found most abundantly along 

 almost the entire Arctic shore of Siberia. The species belongs ex- 

 clusively to the Post-Pliocene period, and was doubtless contempo- 

 raneous with man in many of the regions inhabited by it. Other 

 well-known and somewhat earlier species are the European E. 

 antiqims and E. meridionalis, and the American E. Americanus. 

 Elephas Melitensis, from the island of Malta, is the smallest known 

 species, barely exceeding three feet in height when adult ; by 

 Pohlig it is considered to represent only a diminutive variety of 

 E. antiquus. 



The closely related genus Mastodon antedates the true elephants 

 by one period, appearing in Europe in the Middle Miocene (Plio- 

 cene in America).* Its extinction in the Old World appears to have 

 been effected in the Pliocene period, although in America several 

 species, and more particularly the commonest form, M. Ohioticus 

 or M. giganteus, survived into the late Post-Pliocene. 



Remains of true elephants have been found in China and Japan,t 

 and it appears not unlikely, from a fragment of tusk recently de- 

 scribed by Professor Owen as Notelephas, that a proboscidean, 



* The Loup Fork beds, in ■which several of the American species occur, 

 are by Professor Cope considered to be of Upper Miocene age. This author- 

 ity recognises nine species of North American mastodon, to which a tenth 

 one, M. noridanus, has recently been added by Dr. Leidy. 



t At least two of the Indian forms — E. Cliftii and E. insignis — referred to 

 the group Stegodon, which in dental characters stands intermediate between 

 the mastodons and true elephants, have been identified by Koken as ooeurring 

 in the Pliocene deposits of China, and by Naumauu in the nearly equivalent 

 series of Japan. 



