320 



CHAPTER II. 



ON' THE BONES OF THE MASTODON. 



The mastodon is not only the largest, and the most enormous in 

 appearance of all the fossil elephants, but it is moreover the first which 

 has served to convince naturalists of the possibility of there being 

 extinct species : the monstrous size of the jaw-teeth, the formidable 

 tuberosities with which they are bristling, could not in effect have 

 failed to excite attention ; and it was very easy to ascertain with cer- 

 tainty that none of the large animals known to us have teeth of the 

 same form and size. Thus, although Daubenton was for some time 

 of opinion that part of them might have belonged to the hippopotamus*, 

 he was not slow^ in recurring to a more enlightened view of the sub- 

 ject ; and BufFon declared soon after, " that every thing induces us to 

 think that that ancient species, which must be regarded as the first 

 and the largest of all terrestrial animals, only existed in the first ages of 

 the world, and has never come down to our timest." However, he 

 did not extend his assertion beyond the large lower teeth, and con- 

 tinued to consider the intermediate teeth, and those half Avorn, as 

 belonging to the hippopotamus];. He also persevered in attributing to 

 the elephant the large tliigh found in the same place with those teeth, 

 as Daubenton had done in 1762§, although William Hunter had 

 shown, as early as 1767||, that this thigh, as well as the teeth and 

 lower jaw, presented palpable dilFerences from those of the corres- 

 jDonding parts of the elephant. 



The last mentioned naturalist has on his part fallen into a twofold 

 mistake, which has led to the improper denominations since applied 

 to that animal. He imagined that the mammoth of Siberia, whose 

 bones he had never seen, was identical -with the mammoth of North 

 America^ ; and although he was afterwards refuted by Pallas, who' 

 proved clearlj', as w'e have already seen, that the mammoth is a real 

 elephant, the English and .Americans have persevered in perverting 

 the meaning of the word mammoth, by applying it to the mastodon — a 

 practice in which they have been followed by all who have spoken 

 about the latter animal. 



The next error introduced by Hunter is, that the pretended mam- 

 moth must have been, from the structure of its teeth, a carnivorous 

 animal of a species unknown ; although Camper had already rejected 

 that idea. As it rendered this animal still more wonderful, it has 



* Natural History, vol. xii, in 4to, page 73, No. mcvi. 



f Epochs of Nature, note 9. 



J Ibid. idem. 



§ Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, 1762. 



II Philosohhical Transactions, vol. Iviii, page 42. 



^ Philosophical Transactions, page 3S. 



