This account is only worth preserving, as it fixes the time at which these extraordinary remains of antiquity were first discovered in America, previous to their being found in Siberia. The supposition that they were the bones of a giant was scarcely less probable than that they should have belonged to a quadruped of which not the smallest vestige could be traced.—Prepossessed, therefore, with the certainty of their being human bones, a calculation was made of the height of the supposed giant, very probably from a broken piece of thigh-bone, and a length of seventeen feet was calculated in proportion to the thickness of that which was subject to their examination; for take either half of these thigh-bones, and nothing can more resemble that of the human leg, until the whole is seen together, when, from its thickness, it is evidently that of a quadruped, the human thigh being very long and slender. The seventy-five feet of black earth, which they calculated to be the length of a man whose thigh-bone was supposed seventeen feet, could have been nothing but a small morass divested of its water; and hence the decayed state of the bones.
It appears that about the year 1740, great numbers of bones, of a similar kind, were found in Kentucky on the Ohio; but they were collected with such eagerness, and forwarded to Europe so hastily, that it shortly became impossible to distinguish one set of bones from another, so as to ascertain their number, proportion, and kind; parts of the same animal having been scattered over England, France, and Germany, and there compared with similar ones from Siberia. Buffon[[1]] speaking of one of these thigh-bones brought from the Ohio by the way of Canada, which he describes as being the tenth of an inch shorter than one from Siberia, and yet an inch thicker, says; “This disproportion is so great as hitherto to deceive me with respect to this bone, though it otherwise resembles, both in the external figure and internal structure, the femur of the elephant (he should have said, the femur found in Siberia), mentioned under the number DCDLXXXVII. The difference in thickness, which appeared excessive, seemed sufficient to attribute this bone to another animal which must have been larger than the elephant; but as no such animal is known, recourse must be had to the pretended MAMMOTH, a fabulous animal supposed to inhabit the regions of the north, where are frequently found bones, teeth, and tusks of the elephant.” Here again the word elephant is improperly introduced; Messrs. Buffon and Daubenton having conceived an idea that all the Siberian and some of the American bones belonged unquestionably to elephants, render their observations almost unintelligible, from the confident use of the term elephant in cases where it was at least doubtful, especially as it is now evident, that the same animal was native in the north of both countries; with one probable difference, that the bones of the American animal are comparatively thicker than the Siberian; and with this striking difference between them both and the elephant, that the thigh-bones of the latter are round as well as slender, whereas those of the Mammoth are much flattened, so as to stand obliquely in the animal. After reciting the account given by Mr. Fabry, who states the place and manner in which Mr. le Baron de Longueuil, Mr. de Bienville, and Mr. de Lignery (lieutenant in Canada), found some of these bones and teeth on the Ohio in 1740, he proceeds; “Mr. du Hamel, of the Royal Academy of Sciences, informs us that Mr. de Longueuil had likewise brought, in 1740, some very large grinders found in Canada, and perhaps with the tusk and femur which I shall mention. These teeth have no characters in common with those of the elephant, but greatly resemble the teeth of the hippopotamus, so that there is reason to believe they may be part of that animal; for it can never be supposed that these teeth could have been taken from the same head with the tusks, or that it could have made part of the same skeleton with the femur above-mentioned: In supposing this, it would be necessary to suppose an UNKNOWN ANIMAL, which had tusks similar to those of the elephant, and grinders resembling those of the hippopotamus. (Voyez les Memoires de l’Academie Royale des Sciences, Année 1762).”
[1]. Vol. XI. Page 169, No. MXXXV. Autre Femur d’Elephante.
Here M. de Buffon, however unwillingly, has drawn a true picture of the Mammoth, with some little variation, inasmuch as the tusks do resemble those of the elephant, except in having a greater curve and spiral twist, and as the teeth do resemble those of the hippopotamus, except that in the latter there are never more than three prongs, or blunt-pointed protuberances, on the grinding surface; whereas in this animal the large teeth have five and six, and the small teeth three and four prongs, very differently arranged from those of the former.
The elephant, which is a graminivorous animal, is armed with tusks, more properly called by the French defences; but to me it appears nothing inconsistent with the nature of a carnivorous animal that it should be furnished with a similar weapon of offence and defence, and indeed from their form somewhat better calculated to answer those objects; therefore the number of instances in which these tusks and those carnivorous teeth were found with bones resembling the bones of the elephant, though larger, should have been taken as the strongest presumption that they were the fragments of one animal, which, from its fossil remains (accompanied with the most terrific and fabulous accounts), has been distinguished, both in Russia and America, by the name of Mammoth.
Mr. Collinson, Member of the Royal Society, in a letter on this subject to M. Buffon[[2]], after describing the situation of the salt lick on the Ohio, where an amazing number of bones of the elephant, as he imagined them to be, were found, together with teeth totally unlike those of the elephant, concludes thus: “But the large teeth which I send you, Sir, were found with those tusks or defences; others yet larger than these shew, nay demonstrate, that they did not belong to elephants. How shall we reconcile this paradox? May we not suppose that there existed formerly a large animal with the tusks of the elephant and the grinders of the hippopotamus? For these large grinders are very different from those of the elephant. Mr. Croghan thinks, from the great number of this kind of teeth, that is, the tusks and grinders which he saw in that place, that there had been at least thirty of these animals; yet the elephant never was known in America, and probably could not have been carried there from Asia: the impossibility that they could have lived there, owing to the severity of the winters, and where, notwithstanding such a quantity of their bones is found, is a paradox which we leave to your eminent wisdom to solve.” This determination M. Buffon gives us in the following terms, although in direct contradiction to those passages in which he labours to prove that the bones found in Siberia and America were bones of the elephant: “Thus every thing leads us to believe that this ancient species, which must be regarded as the first and largest of terrestrial animals, has not existed since the earliest times, and is totally unknown to us; for an animal whose species was larger than that of the elephant, could hide itself in no part of the earth so as to remain unknown; besides, it is evident from the form of these teeth alone, from their enamel and the disposition of their roots, that they bear no resemblance to the cachelots, or other cetaceous animals, and that they really belonged to a terrestrial animal whose species approached that of the hippopotamus more than any other.”
[2]. Buffon, Tome XIII. Notes justificative, Page 224.