FALCONER ON THE AMERICAN FOSSIL ELEPHANT. 
Ill 
appeared to fit it for sustaining a greater degree of cold than that 
which the Indian Elephant now hears. Nearly a century ago, Pallas 
threw out the same conjecture regarding Rhinoceros tichorkinus, upon 
the hair with which it was covered; while Cuvier expressed his 
opinion on the subject with characteristic precision ; after describing 
the nature of the hair of the Mammoth, he adds: “ par consequent, 
“ il n’est pas douteux que 1’elephant fossile, tel qu’il se trouve en Si- 
“ herie, avait une fourrure d’animal de pays foids.” # Again : 
“ Ainsi non seulement il n’y a rien d’impossible a ce qu’elle ait pu 
“ supporter un climat que feroit perir celle des Indes, il est meme 
“ probable, qu’elle ’etoit constitute de mamere a preferer les climats 
“ froids.’’f Here it will be observed that Cuvier, with philosophic 
caution, limits his argument to the extinct animal, such as it occurs in 
Siberia, believing, as he did, that the species had also existed in 
more temperate regions. But we now know that the Mammoth 
roamed over Europe before the Glacial period. Take the cases where 
its remains have been found in the ‘ Forest-bed ’ of the Norfolk coast, 
and in the volcanic gravels around Borne. In the former, the vege¬ 
tation, arboreous and herbaceous, according to the determinations of 
Heer, closely resembled that of the existing period, and the pre¬ 
glacial Mammoth subsisted upon it, in association with Elephas anti- 
quus , Hippopotamus major , and Rhinoceros Etruscus. The valley of 
the Tiber, between the Seven Hills, was formerly a great lake,J 
more than 130 feet above the present level of the river, receiving the 
volcanic ashes and other ejecta of the surrounding active craters, and 
forming enormous beds of travertine, and gravels in which remains 
of the true Mammoth occur, associated with Elephas antiquus, Rhi¬ 
noceros leptorhinus ('megarhinus , Christo!), and a species of extinct 
Hippopotamus. No one, at the present day, will be hardy enough 
to maintain that the Flora of Central Italy was at that time identical 
with, or as limited in the number of Arctic species as, that of 
Siberia, where the wool-clad variety of the north lived and pastured; 
for we have distinct proof that the glacial refrigeration, which cha¬ 
racterised the Alpine valleys and plains of Europe north of the Alps, 
was greatly modified in intensity on the southern side of the chain. 
The enormous glacier of the valley of the Adige, after emerging from 
the ‘Lago di Garda,’ melted away, leaving on the margin of the 
valley of the Po a vast mass of moraine. On the southern side of 
the Apennines, glacial phenomena have nowhere as yet been traced 
down upon the plains on their flanks. Yet the Mammoth existed in 
Central Italy, either before that period of refrigeration began, or when 
its effects told, but inconsiderably, in that southern latitude. It 
would therefore be as legitimate to detect a special relation between 
the composite structure of the teeth, and the vegetation upon which 
* Oss. Foss. 4to Edit. tom. i. p. 196. 
•J- Idem. p. 200. 
% Hoffmann, Edinb. New Philos. Journ., 1829, Yol. viii. pp. 85 and 96. 
