ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT. 279 



the elephant ; and at the same time some other teeth, which appear to 

 belong to a small sized mastodan, 



So closely does the elephant accompany the mastodon, that their 

 remains are found in the same places, even as far as the Gulph of 

 Mexico. M. Mattel, formerly French consul at Louisiana, has 

 transmitted to me an enormous jaw of a real elephant, which he pur- 

 chased at New Orleans, and which had been exhumed with some large 

 jaws of the mastodon, on the banks of the Missisippi, at a little 

 distance from its mouth. It was worn on the sides, which gave it the 

 appearance of having been carried down by the floods. 



By a letter from William Darby, aulhor of a New Map of Loui- 

 siana, to Dr. Mitchell, we find that in 1804, he saw extracted 

 from the earth, in the Apelusian country, in the thirty-first degree 

 of northern latitude, a lower jaw, in which was a tooth formed of 

 transverse plates, some fragments of which are preserved in the Museum 

 of Dr. Wis tar at Philadelphia* . 



In fine, I can point out specimens of fossils which have come 

 from the Spanish possessions in America. I am indebted for them to 

 the friendship with which the illustrious and generous M. de Hum- 

 boldt continues to honour me. During his long travels, that learned 

 man has never neglected an opportunity of procuring the fossil bones 

 of quadrupeds, with a view to aid my inquiries. 



Among several other pieces which he presented to me on his return, 

 and which I shall mention hereafter, are the separated plates of some 

 very large molares, similar in every respect to those of the elephant of 

 Siberia, in the narrowness and the slightness of the wreathings of the 

 plates of enamel, as well as in the slight dilatation of their centre. 

 They were found at Hue-Huetoca near Mexico. 



In addition to this, he has given me a tusk of calcined ivory, but still 

 perfectly distinguishable, found at Villa de Ybarra, a province of 

 Quito in Perou, one hundred and seventeen toises above the level of 

 the plain. This specimen being less compressed than is usual with 

 the tusks of the mastodon, might seem to countenance the idea that the 

 true elephant, whose molar teeth are formed of plates, had also left his 

 remains to the south of the Isthmus of Panama ; but 1 readily admit, 

 that in order to have nothing to be desired in the proof of a fact so 

 hard to be ascertained, and of which this would be the first proof, it 

 were to be wished that this fragment of a tusk had been accompanied 

 by some part of a molar. 



I have carefully deposited in the King's Museum, these two hand- 

 some presents of M. Humboldt, 



To avoid seeming to neglect any notice on the subject, I shall here 

 direct attention to the bones of giants, which are mentioned in almost 

 every page of the Spanish accounts of Mexico and Peru. Extracts 

 from them, accompanied by many new and circumstantial narratives, 

 may be seen in the Spanish Gigantology, forming part of the Apparato 

 para la Historia Natural Espanola, of the Franciscan Torrubia \. 



§ Mitchell's Notes on my Preliminary Discourse, 

 + Introduction to Spanish Natural History, vol. i, pp. 54 and 79. 



c c 2 



