ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT. 283 



M. Charles Ernest de Bsehr, director of the Museum of Zoology, 

 and professor at the University of Koenigsberg, in a dissertation en- 

 titled " De Fossilibus Mammalium Reliquiis in Prussia adjacenti- 

 busque Regionibus Repertis," printed at Koenigsberg in 1823, has fur- 

 nished a rich catalogue of those discoveries. 



He instances, 1st. The tooth of an elephant found in 1780, eight 

 miles from Koenigsberg, in a sandy hill on the banks of the Pregel, 

 which has been previously noticed by Bock * and Hagen \. 



2dly. A molar, drawn from the bed of the Dreventz, one of the tri- . 

 butaries of the Vistule, in 1811, has been described and analyzed by 

 Hagen. It is at present in the Museum of Koenigsberg. 



3dly. Two teeth, formerly in the possession of the late Professor 

 Baczko, one of which had been exhumed from a sandy hill near 

 the gate of Koenigsberg, called the Brandlebourg Gate, and the other 

 at Graudentz on the Vistule. 



4thly. A number of bones and tusks found beneath nine feet of 

 peat, and amongst several trunks of trees, the bark of which was 

 still in a high state of preservation, near the canal of Bromberg. 



Sthly. A molar very much worn, exhumed near Dantzick, oppo- 

 site the gate of Oliva. 



Russia. — Whole volumes might be filled with the bare statement of 

 the places where the bones and teeth of elephants have been, and 

 are daily being discovered in this country. The newspapers, for 

 instance, contain the following paragraph : — 



" Petersburg, Dec. 13, 1821. 



" Intelligence has been received from Woronesch, that a most sin- 

 gular discovery has just been made in a village of that district, called 

 Krinta. The thawing of the snow having formed a deep ravine, a large 

 collection of the bones of elephants was discovered in it ; some are 

 twelve or thirteen pounds in weight, although (hey are somewhat in- 

 jured by time. 



" On digging a little deeper, two entire skeletons of these enormous 

 animals were discovered ; the tusks, though not entire, are several feet 

 in length. It is supposed that these elephants may have been brought 

 into that country by Mamay, at the period of the invasion of the 

 Tartars +." 



But what is still more singular than this discovery is the fact, that 

 in December, 1821, they were either totally ignorant or forgetful at 

 Petersburg, that the empire of Russia is full of these bones ; that the 

 environs of Woronesch are peculiarly celebrated for yielding them in 

 great abundance; that vast quantities had been discovered there in the 

 time of Peter the Great; and that no expedition, either of the Mongols 

 or any other people, can explain that phenomenon. 



England. —At Atwick, near Hornsea in Yorkshire, they discovered 

 a portion of a tusk of very fine ivory, thirty-eight inches in length, and 

 twenty in circumference, of English measurement §. 



• * Natural History of Prussia (in German), vol. ii, p. 402. 



T Materials for the Knowledge of Prussia (German), vol. i, p. 56. 



+ Journal de l'Etoile, 4th of January, 1S22. 



§ Philosophical Magazine of Tilloch, August, 1822, p. 154. 



