ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THR ELEPHANT. 317 



It would further appear that this cause is physical and general : the 

 bones of fossil elephants are found in too great quantities, and in too 

 many deserted and almost uninhabited countries, to allow us to give a 

 moment's credit to the presumption that they could have been brought 

 thither by the instrumentality of man. 



Both the layers containing them, and those lying above them, show 

 us at once that this cause was aqueous, or that it was the waters that 

 covered them ; and in several places these waters were almost the same 

 as those of our sea, as they gave nourishment to living creatures, 

 resembling in almost every particular those which inhabit it at present. 



But it was not these waters which have transported them to the 

 places where they are found at present. These bones have been dis- 

 covered in almost every country which has been visited and examined 

 by naturalists. An irruption of the sea, which would have merely 

 carried them from those places which are at present inhabited by the 

 Indian elephant, could not have borne them to quarters so remote, or 

 have dispersed them so evenly; 



Again, the inundation which buried them did not rise above the 

 great chains of mountains, as its layers of deposits which cover these 

 bones are only found in plains of very inconsiderable elevation. 

 Hence it is difficult to form an idea of the manner in which these 

 skeletons of elephants could have been transported to the north, over 

 the mountains of Thibet, and the chains of the Altai, and the Ourals. 



Moreover, these bones have not been worn ; they still preserve their 

 edges and apophyses. They had not been worn by friction : very 

 frequently the epiphyses of those which had not attained their full 

 growth were still adhering to them, although the slightest violence 

 was sufficient to remove them ; the only remarkable alteration which 

 has taken place in them arises from the decomposition which they 

 have undergone by remaining in the earth. 



Nor have we a greater show of reason in favour of the presumption 

 that these entire skeletons could [lave been transported by violence. 

 For it is indeed true, that if that were the case, the bones would have 

 remained unimpaired, but they would have remained heaped together, 

 and could not have been scattered. 



In addition to this, the shells, the millepord, and other marine pro- 

 ductions which have become attached to some of these bones, are a 

 sufficient proof that they must have remained for at least a certain 

 time at the bottom of the liquid substance which covered them. 



It is clear, then, that the bones of elephants were in those places 

 where they are at present found, when they were overtaken and 

 covered by the liquid. They were scattered about there, as we may 

 observe is the case with the bones of horses and of the other animals 

 inhabiting our own country, whose skeletons are lying here and there 

 in the fields. 



Everything, then, tends to favour the extreme probability of the 

 supposition, that the elephants which have furnished these fossil 

 bones were natives and inhabitants of the countries in which their 

 bones are found at the present day. 



Hence, they could not have disappeared but by a revolution which 

 at once destroyed all the animals existing at the period, or by a 



