[213] A grinder of an elephant found in Iceland, is described by Bartholinus, Acta Hafniens. vol. i. p. 83.
[214] The fossil bones on the Ohio are described in two papers by Mr P. Collinson, Phil. Trans. vol. lvii. p. 464 and 468.
408. When the bones in Siberia were first discovered, they were supposed to belong to an animal that lived under ground, to which they gave the name of the mammouth; and the credit bestowed on this absurd fiction, is a proof of the strong desire which all men feel of reconciling extraordinary appearances with the regular course of nature. Much skill, however, in natural history was not required to discover that many of the bones in question resembled those of the elephant, particularly the grinders and the tusks of that animal. Others resembled the bones of the rhinoceros; and a head of that kind, having the hide preserved upon it, was found in Siberia, and is still in the imperial cabinet at Petersburgh.
Pallas has described the fossil bones which he found in the museum at Petersburgh, on his being appointed to the superintendence of it, and enumerates, not only bones that belong, in his opinion, to the elephant and rhinoceros, but others that belong to a kind of buffalo, very different from any now known, and of a size vastly greater.[215] He has also described, in another very curious memoir, the bones of the same kind that he met with in his travels through the north-east parts of Asia.
[215] Novi Comment Petrop. tom. xiii. (1768,) p. 436, and tom. xvii. p. 576, &c.
The fossil bones found on the banks of the Ohio, resemble in many things those of Siberia; like them they are contained in the soil or alluvial earth, and never in the solid strata; like them too they are no otherwise changed from their natural state, than by being sometimes slightly calcined at the surface; they are also of great size, and in great numbers, being probably the remains of several different species.
409. Two inquiries concerning these bones have excited the curiosity of naturalists; first, to discover among the living tribes at present inhabiting the earth, those to which the fossil remains may with the greatest probability be referred; and, secondly, to find out the cause why these remains exist in such quantities, in countries where the animals to which they belong, whatever they be, are at present unknown. The solution of the first of these questions, is much more within our reach than the second, and at any rate must be first sought for.
On the authority of so eminent a naturalist as Pallas, the bones from Siberia may safely be referred to the elephant, the rhinoceros, and buffalo, as mentioned above, though perhaps to varieties of them with which we are not now acquainted. With respect to the bones of North America, the question is more doubtful, for they have this particular circumstance attending them, viz. that along with the thighbones, tusks, &c. which might be supposed to belong to the elephant, grinders are always found of a structure and form entirely different from the grinders of that animal.[216] Some naturalists, particularly M. Daubenton, referred these grinders to the hippopotamus; but Dr W. Hunter appears to have proved, in a very satisfactory manner, that they cannot have belonged to either of the animals just mentioned, but to a carnivorous animal of enormous size, the race of which, fortunately for the present inhabitants of the earth, seems now to be entirely extinct.[217] The foundation of Dr Hunter's opinion is, that in these grinders the enamel is merely an external covering; whereas, in the elephant, and other animals destined to live on vegetable food, the enamel is intermixed with the substance of the tooth.[218]
[216] See Mr Collinson's papers, above referred to. Phil. Trans. vol. lvii.
[217] Phil. Trans. vol. lviii. p. 3, &c.