104 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



he believes, that, although no trunk was found, yet that it had one which was carried 

 off by wild beasts ; for it would be inconceivable that it could eat with so small a snout 

 and with such enormous tusks without a proboscis ; and he fully believes that it is quite 

 different from that found in Ulster county in this state. 



M. Humboldt, in his letters dated Lima, 1802, to C. Delambres, one of the perpetual* 

 secretaries of the National Institute, says, " Beside the elephants' teeth which we sent 

 to G. Cuvier, from the land of Santa Fe, one thousand three hundred and fifty toises in 

 height, we have preserved for him others more beautiful: some of the carnivorous ele- 

 phant, and others of a species a little different from those of Africa, brought from the 

 valley of Timaney, the town of Iborra, and from Chili. Here, then, we have confirmed 

 the existence of that carnivorous monster from the river Ohio, from fifty degrees north- 

 ern latitude to thirty-five degrees south latitude." 



" Near Santa Fe there are found, in the Campo de Gigante, at the height of one thou- 

 sand three hundred and seventy toises, an immense number of fossil elephants' bones, 

 both of the African species and of the carnivorous kind, discovered near the Ohio. We 

 caused several to be dug up, and have sent some specimens of them to the National In- 

 stitute. I much doubt whether any of these bones were ever before found at such a 

 <reat height : since that time I have received two from a place of the Andes, situated 

 about two degrees of latitude from Q,uito and Chili ; so that I can prove the existence 

 and destruction of these gigantic elephants, from the Ohio to the country of the Patago- 

 nians." Philoso2)hical Magazine, vol. 16. 



The discoveries of such enormous remains turned the attention of philosophers to the 

 living elephants, and it has been satisfactorily established, that there are two distinct 

 species of them ; whereas before they were considered varieties ; the Asiatic, denomi- 

 nated elephas indicus, and the African, termed elephas capensis. The elephas capensis 

 has the front of the head convex and inclined, the tusks larger, and the perpendicular 

 layers of enamel, which, with the softer osseous matter, compose the grinders, exhibiting 

 on the top or worn surface a number of rhomboidal spaces, and which are equally obser- 

 vable in a transverse section of the tooth. The elephas indicus is larger; the front of 

 the skull, instead of being convex, is deeply concave, and the upper part so dilated as to 

 exhibit two pyramidal elevations ; and the grinders have the enamel layers disposed in 

 the osseous substance, in distinct transverse parallel lines, instead of rhomboidal com- 

 partments. Its height appears to be from ten to fourteen feet, and one of the larger 

 size is generally about sixteen feet long, from the front to the origin of the tail. The 

 circumference of the neck seventeen feet, and of the body, in its most dilated part, about 

 twenty-six feet. The legs are short, and about six feet in circumference; the tail slen- 



