63 



name, continued to be distinguished by that 

 originally given to them, whenever they be- 

 came the subject of disquisition. Strahien- 

 burgh, in his Historico-geographical Dic- 

 tionary, derives this v/ord from the Hebrew 

 Behemot, corrupted by the Arabians into Me- 

 hemot, and thence into the Russian Ma7nmout^ 

 or Mammoth. But a short time elapsed, 

 under tlie encouragement of the Emperor, 

 before a considerable number of these bones, 

 and particularly the heads, were discovered 

 and taken to the imperial cabinet at St. Pe- 

 tersburgh. The tusks and several other 

 bones were, before this, by many suspected 

 to have been elephantine 5 but the fact is 

 now sufficiently established — and they are, 

 therefore, classed as an extinct species. — 

 They are elephantine, because the head, from 

 which the whole judgment may be taken, is 

 furnished with graminivorous teeth, in some 

 degree resembling those of the Asiatic Ele- 

 phant \ because the eye is hollowed out of 

 a slender zygomatic process; because the 

 cranium swells out into two full conjoining 

 lobes; because the horizontal line of the 

 teeth is situated, so as to form, with the con- 



