302 ox THE FOSSIL BONES OF PACUTDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. 



we can place implicit reliance upon the drawing, we shall further find 

 that, 1st. The zygomatic arch is differently constructed. 



2dly. That the post orbital apophysis of the frontal is longer, 

 more pointed, and more hooked. 



3dly. That the tuberosity of the lachrymal bone is much thicker and 

 more salient. 



Upon examining this drawing of Messerschmidt, and joining the 

 differences it offered to those I had myself observed in the lower 

 jaws and molar teeth, I no longer entertained a doubt of the fossil ele- 

 phants being of a different species from that of India. 



This idea, v.hich I announced at the Institute, in the month of Ja- 

 nuary, 1796, (see the Memoirs of the Institute, Isfc Class, vol. ii, page 

 20), opened to me anew train of reasoning on the theory of the earth; 

 a hasty glance at other fossils led me to form presumptions of all that 

 I have since discovered to be true, and determined me upon devoting 

 myself to the long researches and assiduous labours in which I have 

 now consumed one-and-twentj'' years. 



Here then I feel bound to acknowledge, that it is to this engraving, 

 which had in some measure lain forgotten for sixty years in the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions^ that I am indebted for what 1 look upon as the 

 most valuable of my works. 



But I did not shut my eyes to the fact, that the characters which I 

 had observed required the confirmation of some other Si3ecimen, to 

 take them out of the class of individuals and exceptions ; and spite 

 of their t;arrespondence with those of the lower jaws, I was anxious to 

 meet with the drawing of another skull. I addressed myself to the 

 imperial Academy of Sciences at Petersbourg ; and that illustrious 

 body, of which I have now the honour of being a member^ acceded to 

 my request with a generosity worthy of the company who have proved 

 themselves so instrumental in forwai'ding the progress of the sciences. 

 The Academy submitted to my inspection a superb coloured drav/ing 

 as large as life, of another fossil skull belonging to its collection, which 

 had been found in Siberia. They sent with it the drawing of a lower 

 jaw, and those of the skull of a fossil rhinoceros in two positions. 



This drawing, after long delays, occasioned by the political disputes 

 between the two countries, reached me at the moment when I was 

 giving the finishing stroke to the first edition of this work. 



I should find it difficult to describe the delight I experienced, upon 

 finding in it the confirmation of all that I had learned from the exami- 

 nation of that of Messerschmidt. 



The skull which has been used as a model, is not quite so perfect. 

 Part of the articulating surfaces of the jaws, as well as the centre 

 portion of the zygomatic arch, are wanting. 



But it is not deficient in any of the characteristics ; it has the same 

 length and the same direction of the articulating surfaces ; the same 

 tuberosity in the lachrymal bone, and the same general outline ; every 

 thing, in a word, demonstrates that the fossil skulls, as far as we know 

 anything of them, partake of the same characteristics. 



I have taken pains to have this splendid drawing carefully engraved 

 in plate 14, fig. 2, at a sixth of its real size, and the original is at 

 present exhibited in the King's Museum. 



