106 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



between the Ohio animal and the Asiatic mammoth, than between the latter and the 

 Asiatic elephant ; and that one of these characters consists in the great resemblance of 

 the incisores, tusks, or horns. Dr. Barton is further of opinion that the Asiatic mam- 

 moth has been discovered in different parts of the United States, and that a branch of 

 the Susquehannah receives its name of Chemung from the incisores of one of these ani- 

 mals. Port Folio, vol. 4. Barton's Letter to Jefferson. 



Governor Pownall, in a paper published in the Philosophical Magazine, (vol. 14.) after 

 having viewed a skeleton of the New-York mammoth, exhibited by Mr. Peale in Lon- 

 don, is of opinion that it was a marine animal, from the following circumstances : 



1. Its being carnivorous, and its enormous bulk would, therefore, require a supply of 

 animal food from the earth which it could not get, and which could only be found in the 

 abundance of the waters. 



2. He thinks there are parts in the debris of the skull which have some comparative 

 resemblance to the whale as to the purpose of breathing under water ; that the width of 

 the jaws is similar to that of fish; and that the ribs, more similar to those of fish than 

 to those of terrestrial animals, are, by their construction and position, ordained to resist a 

 more forcible external compression than the atmosphere creates. 



3. That the neck is so short that the animal could not reach the ground with its 

 mouth, the line from the withers to the end of the under jaw being about one third of the 

 line from the withers to the ground. 



Mr. Peale says, that there are many reasons to suppose that he was of an amphibious 

 nature, and is decidedly of opinion that he lived entirely on flesh or fish. 



I fancy that while some may be willing to concur with Mr. Peale as to its amphibious 

 nature, few will agree with Pownall in its being an aquatic animal. The shortness of its 

 neck might have been supplied by a trunk. The points wherein it resembles in its for- 

 mation certain fish, are only indicative of amazing strength; and there is no strong objec- 

 tion to believe that it was also graminivorous, and drew its supplies from the vegetable as 

 well as the animal kingdom. 



Upon the whole we may, with considerable confidence, come to the following con- 

 clusions : 



1. That the Asiatic and African living elephants and Siberian mammoth are specifi- 

 cally distinct. 



2. That the New-York, Ohio, or American mammoth is specifically, if not generically, 

 different from them. 



3. That it was carnivorous, and lived upon the land. 



4. That it may have also been graminivorous or omnivorous, aDd amphibious. 



