ELK. 
*' seventeen spans high.'* Lo you now Sirs> 
of the gibing crue, if you have any skill in 
mensuration^ tell me what difFerence there is 
between seventeen spans, and twelve foot?" 
Dr. Goldsmith says — " That such an animal 
:asJosselyn describes, has actually existed, we 
can make no manner of doubt; since there 
are horns common enough to be seen among 
iis, twelve feet from one tip to the other.'* 
These horns, the doctor observes, are some- 
times fortuitously dug up in many parts of Ire- 
land ; where he has himself seen them " ten 
feet nine inches from one tip to the other." 
Those enormous fossil horns, found at a 
considerable depth in the bogs of Ireland, as 
well as in America, and other parts of the 
world, are in general much longer, and nar- 
rower in proportion, than those of the Elk ; 
and are, also, furnished with brow-antlers, 
which those of the Elk are not known to pos- 
sess. Modern naturalists, therefore, incline to 
an opinion, that they belonged to some species 
of animal now extinct. BulFon, who has 
so strangely mistaken the horns of the Elk, 
supposes that these magoitudinous productions 
