I. INTRODUCTORY. 



Ei>KlMIAN'l'S MOW iiiluihil only [\w wnniicr r('<;i()iis ol' llic Old World. 

 'IMic Indian KK^plianl is nalixc lo sonllicaslcrn Asia, I lie AlVican 

 Klc|)lianl lo ccnlral AlVica. l5otli arc forest and jnn^lc duellers, 

 axoidinii the plains and deserts and unknown in cold or tenii)erate rej^ions. 



Mannnoths and mastodons, extinct relati\'es or ancestors of the exist- 

 ing" ele{)hants ha\e been found in nearly all i)arts of the hahitahle world, 

 except in Australia. Durin*^' the Pleistocene or (dacial epoch they ranged 

 in the Old World from the Arctic Ocean to South Africa, from Japan in the 

 east to England in the west, and in the New World from Alaska to Pata- 

 gonia. They were of many different s})ecies; .some nearly related to the 

 living Indian or African elephant, others more distant cousins. In the 

 Tertiary formations of the Age of Mammals, which preceded the great Ice 

 Age, remains are found in the Old W\)rld and in North America of more 

 ancient and primitive kinds, and their evolutionary history has been 

 traced back step by step to an ancestry of primitive mammals of com- 

 paratively small size with no trunk and very unlike a modern elephant in 

 both teeth and tusks. 



Fossil teeth, tusks and bones of the skeleton are very commonly found 

 in the surface soils, clays and gravels, and especially in peat-bogs or drained 

 lands and in river valleys. On account of their size they have always 

 attracted attention. In olden days they were often attributed to giants,* 

 and it is not unlikely that many of the circumstantial stories and myths 

 of mediaeval giants were suggested by discoveries of this sort. 



Early in the eighteenth century the discoveries of fossil teeth and bones 

 recognized as belonging to elephants, in France, Italy, Germany and 

 England were currently explained as relics of those brought by Pyrrhus or 

 Hannibal or Julius Caesar. x\bout the end of the century, however, 

 Cuvier demonstrated to the world not only that these relics w ere found in 

 many regions never invaded by these warriors of antiquity, but that they 

 belonged to distinct species from those now living. He was not indeed 

 the first to make this discovery; various learned men of his time or earlier 

 had come to the same conclusion, but its general acceptance was largely 

 due to the great influence of Cuvier. 



Besides the true elephants of extinct species Cuvier distinguished the 

 mastodons (^<a'5'ro'5'=nipple, o (J 01;?^= tooth) with grinding teeth very 

 different from those of elephants, although much like them in skull and 

 skeleton. 



In this country early discoveries of mastodon or elephant bones were 

 also thought to be the remains of giants. Doctor AYarren in his memoir 



*This is not so absurd as it might seem, for most of the. bones of an elephant skeleton are 

 more like human bones, except as to size and massive proportions, than they are to most other 

 large quadrupeds. 



5 



