GREAT ELEPHANT. 219 
phants do not suck by the trunk, but by the 
mouth, as represented on the plate annexed. 
It is a most curious fact, and may well excite 
our astonishment, that skeletons resembling those 
of Elephants are occasionally found in a fossil state, 
and in large quantities, at a great depth under the 
surface, in the most northern parts of Asia *. All 
the Arctic circle (says Mr. Pennant) is a vast 
mossy flat, formed of a bed of nmd or sand, seem- 
ing the effect of the sea, and which gives reason 
to think that that immense tract was in some very 
distant age won from it. With them are mixed an 
infinitely greater number of marine bodies than are 
found in the higlier parts of that portion of Asia. 
I give the fact : let others, more favoured, explain 
the cause how these animals were transported from 
their torrid seats to the Arctic regions : I should 
have recourse to the only one we have authority 
for; and think that phenomenon sufficient: I men- 
tion this, because modern philosophers look out for 
a later cause: I rest convinced: therefore to avoid 
contradicting what can never be proved." 
We must by no means here omit the fossil bones, 
viz. jaws, vertebras, thigh-bones, and tusks, which 
are often found in some parts of North America : 
they are commonly found about five or six feet 
below the surface, on the banks of the river Ohio, 
* A scrupulous anatomical investigation of these bones seems 
to prove, accordi/ig to some late observations of the French natu- 
ralists, that they are in reality different from those of the Ele- 
phant, notwithstanding their general similarity j and are, there- 
fore, to be numbered among the species of lost animals, known 
only from their fossil remains. 
