158 THE TIME OF THE MAMMOTHS. 
diffieulty the extinction of any species of large animal, but if 
it fails to cross his path is disposed to assign it a home in the 
region least known to him. 
So far as is known to the author no remains, either of 
elephants or mastodons, have been found north of the parallel 
of forty-eight degrees east of the Rocky Mountains. South 
of this line the remains are found in tolerable abundance 
over the whole surface of the eastern United States as 
far south as middle Alabama. We have not sufficient evi- 
dence of the distribution of the remains of these animals to 
determine just what range they had. New England has 
given us the fewest remains, only rare traces of the presence 
of this species having been found. In the valley of the 
Hudson they are tolerably abundant. In New Jersey, where 
the conditions favorable for their preservation are frequently 
found, some of the most perfect skeletons have been disin- 
terred. All over the middle states we come across traces of 
this species ; and in the West, they are the most abundant of 
mammal remains. On the Pacific coast, the fossil elephants 
were as numerous as in the Mississippi Valley ; on this side 
of the continent they seem to have a greater northern range. 
The explorations of Mr. Dall revealed the existence of these 
remains as far north as Alaska; so that on the west coast 
at least, we have the remains of American elephants as far 
north as those of Siberia. The existence of these remains 
in Alaska makes it exceedingly probable that we shall find 
the similar fossils throughout British America, and that our 
mammoth is specifically identical with that of Asia. It is re- 
markable that the buffalo, which once ranged far east, and 
covered the whole of the plain region of the Ohio basin with 
innumerable herds, has not left as many traces of his pres- 
ence as the elephants. The remains of the mastodon seem 
even more plentiful than those of the red deer. Something 
must, no doubt, be attributed to the greater size and solidity 
of the bones of these pachyderms over those of bison and 
deer. Still the remarkable abundance of the elephant re- 
