ox THIO FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT. 31] 



iible in its semicircular cut between the two condyles, which is re- 

 duced to a narrow line (see fig. 12), instead of being a wide hollow, as 

 may be seen in the two living species (see figs. 9, and 10). Two other 

 inferior extremities, which may be seenin our Museum (figs. 11 and 13) 

 have precisely the same peculiarity. As soon as I had perceived this 

 marked difference, I felt a curiosity to ascertain if it was common 

 to all the fossil thighs, M. Jteger has demonstrated that it is also 

 found in those of Canstadt, and has sent me the engraving (plate 14, 

 fig. 5), reduced to a sixth. The other engravings of the same part are 

 reduced to a sixth. 



I have since discovered this character again in a lower extremity of 

 n thigh kept in the Museum of the Grand Buke of Florence (plate 16, 

 fig. 5) : in another kept in the Museum of M. Targioni Tozzetti, in the 

 same city (ib. fig. 6) : in a third, in the Museum of the Roman College 

 («6. fig. 4), and finally, very recently in the great remnant drawn out 

 of the bog, which fell into the hands of M. Raynaud (ib. fig. 7). There 

 is then no doubt of the constancy of this characteristic, and of its form- 

 ing one of those furnished by the skull, for distinguishing the fossil 

 elephant. 



Daubenton, who had only compared the femur he described with 

 that of the African elephant, and had found no other difference between 

 them, but a somewhat greater proportional- breadth, attributed this 

 breadth to the age of the animal. And yet this femur formed part of 

 a young elephant, for its lower epiphyses is still distinct, and the upper 

 has been separated and lost. 



This bone is 1,11 in length, and indicates an animal about nine feet 

 and a half high. Our Indian elephant is eight feet high, and his femur 

 is 0,92 ; but fossil femora have been found much larger in size. Jacob, 

 and Oliger Jacobseus, mention some four feet English in length. The 

 longest of those that have been measured with exactness, is that spoken 

 of by Camper, which was fifty-two inches of the measurement of 

 the Rhine in length, which is equal to four feet two inches French. 

 This would indicate an animal about eleven feet eight inches in height. 



The femur of an Indian elephant that died of old age, which was in 

 tlie possession of the same anatomist, v/as, as he tells us, thirteen 

 inches less than the foiTtier. 



Nevertheless, if any reliance is to be placed on the measurements 

 .stated in the Gigantomachia, the femur of the pretended teutobochus 

 must have been much larger, as it was five feet in length ; and yet this 

 dimension w^ould only indicate an animal fourteen feet high, which 

 does not surpass the accounts of the size of living elephants in India. 



We have in the Museum, the upper head of a femur found at the 

 foot of the Pyrenees, the diameter of which being 0,218, indicates an 

 animal fourteen feet high. 



The loiver extremity of the femur found in the bog (plate 16, figs. 7, 

 S, 9, 10), marks an animal between fourteen and fifteen feet in height. 



The lower head (plate 11, fig. 11). belonged to an animal but ten 

 feet in height. 



6th. The Leg. — The drawings of a fossil tibia (plate 13, fig. 7, 8, 9) 

 liave been sent to me by M. Jceger, and are taken from some of the 

 specimens of the Museum of Stvittgart. This bone indicates an animal 



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