198 
EXTINCT MONSTERS. 
Near the city of Constadt, in the year 1700, a great quantity of 
bones and tusks of elephants were discovered, after excavations 
had been made by order of the reigning duke, who had been 
informed by a soldier of Wiirtemberg of the presence of bones in 
the soil. In this way some sixty tusks were unearthed. The 
whole ones were preserved, but those which were broken were 
given to the Court physician, who made use of them for medicinal 
purposes. After this the “ Ebur fossile,” or “ Unicornu fossile,” 
was freely used by the German doctors, until the discovery of the 
bone-caves of the Hartz, when it became too abundant to pass 
for true unicorn, and consequently lost much of its repute. 
In our own country elephantine remains have also given rise to 
strange tales. The village of Walton, near Harwich, is famous 
for the abundance of Mammoth remains, which lie along the base 
of the sea-cliffs, mixed with the bones of horses, oxen, and deer. 
“ The more bulky of these fossils,” says Professor Owen, “appear 
to have early attracted the notice of the curious. Lambard, in 
his Dictionary^ says that ‘ in Queen Elizabeth’s time bones were 
found, at Walton, of a man whose skull would contain five pecks, 
and one of his teeth as big as a man’s fist, and weighed ten 
ounces. These bones had sometimes bodies, not of beasts, but 
of men, for the difference is manifest’ ” 
According to the same authority, there is reason to believe 
that instances have occurred in Great Britain in which, with due 
care and attention, a more or less entire skeleton of the Mammoth 
might have been secured. He mentions the case of the discovery 
of a number of Mammoth bones by some workmen in a brick- 
ground, near the village of Grays, in Essex. But most unfor- 
tunately, in their ignorance, they broke up these valuable relics, 
and sold the fragments, for three half-pence a pound, to a dealer 
in old bones ! This somewhat lucrative traffic went on for over 
half a year before the matter came to the notice of Mr. R. Ball, 
F.G.S., who recovered some fine bones from the men, and thus 
rescued them from the destruction that awaited them. 
