112 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



animals were once common in this country ; that in numbers, they equalled the other 

 beasts of the forest ; such as the bear, the wolf, the panther, &c. &c. In the proportion 

 which larger animals bear to the smaller, in the order of nature. Should my opinion be 

 reasonable, and founded in fact, it leads the mind to a variety of astonishing and curious 

 results. 



Why, in the dispensations of an overruling providence, should these animals once 

 have been created, and existed in vast numbers, now be extinct ? Or, at all events, ex- 

 pelled from any known region in our country 1 This becomes a question still more interest- 

 ing if we suppose the animals to have been carnivorous. That they were so, as well as 

 graminivorous, is pretty well authenticated, by the formation of their grinders. Perhaps, 

 to say they were omnivorous, would not be hazarding too much. Indeed, my worthy and 

 learned friend, Dr James G. Graham, who examined the fossils, went still further ; for 

 the formation of the bones, near, and belonging to the foot, warranted him, as a profes- 

 sional man, in the belief that this animal had claws. 



I am aware, that an opinion so singular as this, entertained by my learned friend, Dr. 

 Graham, forms an anomaly in nature ; but from a careful examination of the bones of the 

 foot, the metatarsal bones (as they are termed in anatomy) were so constituted, that the 

 Doctor drew his conclusions of their appertaining to a clunfooted race of beasts. Nor is 

 this opinion more strange than their actual existence. For, whether they are of a genus 

 of animals now unknown — whether of the elephantine family — of the Asiatic or Siberian 

 species, the solution of their existence, upon any certain knowledge, is equally difficult 

 and inexplicable. 



From this narrative, you will be enabled to possess yourself of some information on an 

 interesting subject, which could not be well or accurately obtained, except by viewing 

 the topography of the country, and witnessing the taking out of the skeletons ; this not 

 being practicable for you in your various literary and official pursuits, I have thought a cir- 

 cumstantial narrative worthy of your enlightened consideration. 



This subject has been a source of conversation and inquiry amongst men of information, 

 and has led to different speculative opinions. My friend, the erudite Dr. Mitchill, ap- 

 pears to have struck upon a philosophical explanation, which is at once bold, and will ex- 

 plain the phenomena. By his reflections he places these curiosities amongst elephantine 

 relics, occasioned by the change of the axis of the globe ninety degrees, at some very 

 remote period. By this hypothesis may be explained the existence of these bones and 

 bodies of animals, belonging to low and warm latitudes, being found in the cold and frozen 

 climates of the earth. That gentleman supposes the ancient equator to have extended, 

 in the northern hemisphere, from the bay of Bengal, near where the mouths of the Ganges 



