It was only by means of minute anatomical differences that he was able to show that the bones and teeth of these elephants must have belonged to a species unlike those now living. But these differences proved too subtle for even scientific men to appreciate, so slight was their knowledge of anatomy compared with his; so that they were either disallowed or explained away.
But he was not to be beaten, and appealed to the fact that similar remains occurred in Great Britain, whither neither Romans nor others could have introduced such animals. These are his words: “If, passing across the German Ocean, we transport ourselves into Britain, which in ancient history by its position could not have received many living elephants besides that one which Cæsar brought thither, according to Polycenus; we shall, nevertheless, find these fossils in as great abundance as on the Continent.”
Another crushing answer to the absurd explanations of Cuvier’s countrymen was added by the sagacious Dean Buckland, who pointed out that in England, as on the Continent, the remains of elephants are accompanied by the bones of the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, animals which not even Roman armies could have subdued or tamed! Owen also adds that the bones of fossil elephants are found in Ireland, where Cæsar’s army never set foot.
It was in 1796 that Cuvier announced that the teeth and bones of the European fossil elephants were distinct in species from both the African and the Indian elephant, the only two living species (El. africanus and El. indicus). This fundamental fact opened out to him new views about the creation of the world and its inhabitants, and a rapid glance over other fossil bones in his collection showed him the truth and the value of this great idea (namely, the existence of extinct types), to which he consecrated the rest of his life. Thus palæontology may be said to have been founded on the Mammoth.
The fossil remains of elephants have, on account of their common occurrence in various parts of the world, attracted a great deal of attention, both from the learned and the unlearned. In the North of Europe they have been found in Ireland, in Germany; in Central Europe, in Poland, Middle and South Russia, Greece, Spain, Italy; also in Africa, and over a large part of Asia. In the New World they have been found abundantly in North America. But in the frozen regions of Siberia its tusks, teeth, and bones are met with in very great abundance. According to Pallas, the great Russian savant, there is not in the whole of Asiatic Russia, from the Don to the extremity of the Tchutchian promontory, any brook or river on the banks of which some bones of elephants and other animals foreign to these regions have not been found. The primæval elephants (Mammoth, Mastodon, etc.) appear to have formerly ranged over the whole northern hemisphere of the globe, from the fortieth parallel to the sixtieth, and possibly to near the seventieth degree of latitude.
Just as the North American Indian regards the great bones of Professor Marsh’s extinct Eocene mammals that peep out from the sides of buttes and cañons, as belonging to his ancestors, so we find that in all parts of the world the bones of extinct elephants have, on account of their great size (and partly from a certain resemblance, in some, to bones of the human skeleton), been regarded as testifying to the former existence of giants, heroes, and demigods. To the present day the Hindoos consider such remains as belonging to the Rakshas, or Titans,—beings that figure largely in their ancient writings. Theophrastus, of Lesbos, a pupil of Aristotle, appears to have been the first to record the discovery of fossil ivory and bones. These were probably obtained by the country people from certain deposits in the neighbourhood, and are mentioned five hundred years later by Pausanias. Several Greek legends and traditions appear to be founded on such discoveries.
Thus the Greeks mistook the knee-bone of an elephant for that of Ajax. In like manner the supposed body of Orestes, thirteen feet in length, discovered by the Spartans at Tegea, doubtless was the skeleton of some elephant. In the isle of Rhodes, in Sicily, and near Palmero, Syracuse, and at many other places, similar remains have afforded a basis for stories of giants. In fact, so much has been said by old writers on this subject, that whole volumes might be filled with such matter. Let one or two examples suffice.
In the year 1613 some workmen in a sand-pit near the castle of Chaumont, not far from St. Antoine, found some bones (probably of the Mammoth or Mastodon) of the nature of which they were entirely ignorant, and many of them they broke up. But a certain surgeon named Mazuyer, hearing of the discovery, bought the bones, and announced that he had himself discovered them in a tomb thirty feet long, bearing in Gothic characters the inscription, “Teutobochus Rex.” This was a barbarian king who invaded Gaul at the head of the Cimbri, and was defeated near Aix, in Provence, by Marius, who brought him to Rome to grace his triumphal procession. Mazuyer reminded his credulous readers that, according to the testimony of Roman authors, the head of this king was larger than any of the trophies borne upon the lances in triumph, and for a time his marvellous story was accepted. The skeleton of this pretended giant-king was exhibited in many cities of France and Germany, and also before Louis XII., who took great interest in it. The imposture was detected and exposed by Riolan, and thus a great controversy arose, and numerous pamphlets were written on both sides. The skeleton remained at Bordeaux till the year 1832, when it was sent to the Museum of Natural History at Paris, where it may still be seen. It is needless to say that, on its arrival there, M. Blainville at once recognised it as being that of an elephant—a Mastodon, in fact.
Another giant-story may be narrated as follows. In the year 1577 some large bones were discovered, through the uprooting of an oak by a storm, in the Canton of Lucerne, in Switzerland. These bones were afterwards declared by the celebrated physician and professor at Basle, Felix Plater, to be those of a giant. This learned man estimated the height of the giant at nineteen feet! and made a drawing thereof, which he sent to Lucerne. The bones have since nearly all vanished, but Blumenbach, at the beginning of this century, saw enough of them to prove their elephantine nature. The good people of Lucerne, however, being reluctant to abandon their giant, have, since the sixteenth century, made him the supporter of their city arms.