322 ON THE FOSSIL HONES OF PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. 



teeth similar to those of the hijDpopotamus *." He expatiated at still 

 greater length, on the reasons Avhich he supposed were conclusive 

 against the existence of such an animal, in a Memoir read to the Aca- 

 demy on the Sth of August, 1762. 



Nevertheless, the contrary opinion was already entertained by many 

 learned men. Another French officer, named Fabry, communicated to 

 BufFon, in 1748, that the savages looked upon these bones, which are 

 found scattered over various districts of Canada and Louisiana, as be- 

 longing to a particular animal, which they called the Father of the 

 oxen. 



The massy teeth, with from eight to ten denticuli, which could not 

 reasonably be confounded with those of the hippopotamus, were well 

 known at that period. Guttard published an engraving of one of them 

 in the Memoirs of the Academy for 1752. It was found witli several 

 ■other bones in a morass, forming the bottom of a gorge between two 

 mountains, and doubtless it is one of those brought home by Longueil 

 and his companions. It is the first drawing of a tooth belonging to 

 that species which has been published. 



The English having been declared masters of Canada by the treaty 

 of 1763, were not slow in giving a new impulse to the prosecution of 

 these discoveries. In 1765, George Croghan, the geographer, found 

 ii quantity of these bones in the country now called Kentucky, four 

 miles to the south-east of the banks of the Ohio. They were on an 

 elevated bank, also bordering on an extensive salt marsh, probably the 

 same visited by the companions of Longueil ; the tuberous teeth and 

 the tusks were there intermixed without a single elephant's jaw, which 

 served as an additional confirmation of the existence of a peculiar 

 animal. 



In 1767, Mr. Croghan sent several cases of these remains to London, 

 ilirected to Lord Shelbourne, Franklin, and others ; and Collinsou sent 

 one of the large teeth to BuiFonf, and published an account of the 

 whole collection in the fifty-seventh volume of the Transactions. He 

 too attributed these tusks to the elephant. 



Among the pieces sent by Mr. Croghan, was the half of a lower jaw, 

 at present deposited in the British Museum. It is the same described 

 by William Hunter, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1768| . 



He made use of it to demonstrate that the animal in question, while 

 palpably differing from the elephant, had nothing in common with 

 the hippopotamus, and he stated in direct terms, his conviction that 

 the tusks found with these teeth belonged to that animal. But Buffoon 

 does not appear to have been aware of the existence of that memoir, 

 and does not make the slightest allusion to it in the edition of his 

 Epochs of Nature, printed in 1/75. 



In this latter work, BufFon was the first to advance the assertion that 

 these teeth with from eight to ten denticuli were also to be found on the 

 old Continent. He published engravings of one of them given him by 



* Natural History, vol. xi, Description of tbe King's Museum, mxxxv. 

 •f- Epochs of Nature, pi. iv and v. 

 ;|: Vol. Iviii, quoted as above. 



