The fossil elephant, or mammoth, is the most remarkable of the ancient herbivorous quadrupeds, both from its vast size, and the amazing number of bones of this genus, which are found in the northern parts of Europe, and in America. The mammoth must have existed in herds of hundreds and thousands. According to Pallas, there is scarcely a river, from the Don or the Tanais, to the extremity of the promontory Tchuskoinosa, in the banks of which the bones of the mammoth are not abundant. There are two large islands near the mouth of the river Indigerska, which are said to be entirely composed of the bones of the mammoth, intermixed with ice and sand the tusks are so perfect, that they are dug out for ivory. With the bones of the mammoth are intermixed those of the elk, the rhinoceros, and other large quadrupeds. The body of a fossil elephant has been found entire, with the flesh preserved, buried in ice it had a mane along its back, and was covered with coarse red wool, protected by hair of a coarser kind, indicating that it was an inhabitant of cold or temperate climates; indeed, the circumstance of the body being preserved in ice, is a further proof of this; for had it been conveyed from distant regions, the flesh must have been speedily decomposed, before it could have been enveloped in ice. The height of this animal was from fifteen to eighteen feet. Bones and teeth of the mammoth are not unfrequently found in England in beds of diluvial gravel and clay, and in caverns: they are chiefly found in low situations, such as the vale of the Thames, and the vale of the Severn. The mammoth bears a near resemblance to the Indian elephant, but Cuvier regards it as a distinct species.

The rhinoceros, of which there are three large species, and one smaller, appears to have lived with the fossil elephant: their bones. are found together; but it is in Siberia that the bones of the rhinoceros are most numerous, and best preserved. In the year 1771, the entire body of one of these animals, was found in the frozen sands of that country.

Bones and teeth of the hippopotamus, are found both in England, France, Germany and Italy: there are two species, the largest resembles the African hippopotamus, the smaller is of the size of the wild

boar. Bones and teeth of the large animal, called the mastodon, are found both in Europe and America. The great mastodon had pointed grinders; it was a native of North America, and equalled in size the elephant, which in many particulars, it resembled. Entire skeletons of the mastodon have been found in salt marshes; but what is more extraordinary, parts of the flesh and the stomach have been found with them. Among the vegetable substances in the stomach, were distinguished the remains of some plants known in Virginia. The Indians believe that this animal is still living north of the Missouri, and the above circumstances render it probable, that this species of mastodon has not been long extinct. Bones of other species of the mastodon are found in Europe and South America; these are probably more ancient. Teeth of a gigantic species of tapir, equal in size to the rhinoceros have been found in France and Germany: the bones of horses are also found in great abundance, with the bones of the above mentioned animals. Bones and horns of the elk, the stag, and of various species of deer, and of oxen, some of which closely resemble existing species, are often intermixed with the bones of elephants, and other ancient animals. With these animal remains, are also found the bones of carnivorous animals, of the size of the lion, the tiger and the hyena; the bones of bears are numerous particularly in caverns.

The number of bones belonging both to the order of pachydermata, and of ruminant and carnivorous quadrupeds, is so great in various parts of Europe, as to leave no doubt that the animals were inhabitants of northern or temperate climates. In America have been found the bones of two large animals, of extraordinary form. The megatherium is of the size of the rhinoceros; it unites part of the structure of the armadillo with that of the sloth; its claws are of vast length and size. The megalonyx was nearly similar in form but smaller.

Bones of the camel have been occasionally found in some parts of Europe, but they are of rare occurrence. For a knowledge of nearly all the above species of fossil mammiferous quadrupeds, we are indebted to the researches of Cuvier. "Their bones," he observes, are found in that mass of earth, sand and mud, that diluvium which covers our large plains, fills our caverns, and chokes up the fissures in many of our rocks. They incontestably formed the population of the continents, at the epoch of the great catastrophe which has destroyed their races, and has prepared the soil on which the animals

The most perfect tooth of this animal, which is at present known, was found near Grenoble; the enamel is as fresh as that of a recent tooth. This tooth, of which there are models in the principal museums in Europe, is in the author's collection it was purchased by him, at the sale of the late M. Faujas St. Fond, together with the tooth of a South American mastodon, found in the volcano of Imbabura in the Cordilleras, and the tooth of a European mastodon, found with that of the gigantic tapir near Grenoble,

of the present day subsist. Whatever resemblance certain of these species bear to those of existing species, the general mass of this population had a different character; the greater part of the races which composed it have been utterly destroyed. Among all these mammiferous animals, the greater number of which have their congeners living at the present day, there has not been found a single bone or tooth of any species of ape or monkey. Nor is there any trace of man all the human bones which have been found, along with those of which we have been speaking, have occurred accidentally; and their number besides is exceedingly small, which assuredly would not have been the case, if men had been then settled in the countries which these animals inhabited."* When Cuvier published the first edition of his Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles, he too hastily concluded, that we were already acquainted with all the existing species of large land quadrupeds; and he hence inferred, that it was highly improbable that any of the species of unknown quadrupeds, whose bones are found in diluvial soils, should be still living. Since that time a large species of living tapir has been found in the East Indies; and other discoveries of new quadrupeds have been made: hence we cannot conclude with absolute certainty, that all the species of unknown fossil quadrupeds are extinct, though it seems highly probable that the greater number of the races have perished. The animals whose bones are found in peat bogs and marshes, such as the elk in Ireland, and the great mastodon in Kentucky, may, I conceive be referred with much probability to a more recent epoch, than that in which the diluvial beds were deposited.

Skeletons, both of the Irish elk and the great American mastodon, have been fouud erect in peat bogs and marshes, which proves that the surface of the ground has undergone little change since the animals perished; and the further circumstance of the flesh and stomach of the mastodon being found near the surface, not protected, like the bodies of the elephant and rhinoceros found in Siberia, by ice, seems opposed to the general belief in the high antiquity of these animal remains; and it is admitted by Cuvier, that they are in better preservation than any other fossil bones. The quadrupeds whose bones are buried in beds of clay, sand or gravel, or accumulated in caverns, undoubtedly lived in a very remote period, and under a different condition of our planet to the present one. The northern parts of Europe seem now incapable of supporting the immense number of elephants, which have formerly spread over all the valleys bordering the Frozen Ocean. Were we to admit that the temperature of the earth was then higher than at present, which the remains of palms and other tropical plants found in the northern lati

For an account of human bones, found in caverns mixed with the bones of extinct species, see the preceding Chapter.

tudes render highly probable, this would not remove the difficulty; for the fact that entire bodies of elephants have been preserved in ice and that their skins were covered with a thick coat of wool and hair, proves that these animals were constituted for living in cold climates, and that their remains have not been transported to any great distance from the countries which they inhabited.*

The remains of these large quadrupeds occur in different states of preservation. In the frozen regions of the north the ivory of the tusks is perfect. In beds of clay, the bones and teeth are frequently impregnated with mineral matter; but in gravel they are generally in a loose or friable state, or at least they soon become so, after exposure to the air. In the Phil. Journal of Edinburgh, January, 1828, an account is given of numerous bones of the mastodon, rhinoceros, and other animals, having been found on the surface of the ground, near Irrawady River, in Ava. These bones, though exposed to the atmosphere, are stated to be extremely hard; they were mixed with silicified wood, in a deposition of sand or gravel. With the remains of the broad-toothed mastodon, were also found teeth of a new species of mastodon of enormous size, which appears to be intermediate in form, between that of the elephant and of the mastodon it has hence received the name Mastodon elephantoides. Specimens of these teeth are in the museum of the Geological Society of London.

* A friend has suggested, that the Siberian elephants were probably migratory, and passed the winter months in more temperate latitudes. If this were the case, individuals that from lameness or disease were unable to travel, may have been incrusted with ice immediately after death,

CHAPTER XXII.

ON THE ELEVATION OF MOUNTAINS AND CONTINENTS.

The Elevation of the Beds of Granite and Slate in England proved by the Author, in 1823, to have taken place at a much earlier Epoch, than the Elevation of the Granite of Mont Blanc.-The Facts on which this conclusion was founded described and explained.-Application of similar Conclusions to the other Mountain Ranges by M. Elie de Beaumont.-The Elevation of Rocks of Granite and Slate, proved to have taken place by a distinct Operation from that which upheaved Continents from the Ocean, and at a different Epoch.-Elevation of the Mountains and Table Land in Central Asia.-Depression of the Surface round the Caspian Sea.-Instances of the Elevation and Submergence of the Earth's Surface in various Parts of the Globe.

THAT granite, or some modification of granite, forms the foundation rock of the present continents, is admitted by geologists. It is also ascertained, that specimens of granite, gneiss, and mica-slate, from the most distant parts of the globe, appear to be identical. It is, therefore, probable that the crust of granite which environs the globe, was all formed or consolidated at the same epoch, though local protrusions of granite have taken place at much later epochs.

If granite be the lowest and most extensive formation of known rocks, yet, in many countries, it is raised in immense ridges, forming the basis of mountain ranges: sometimes the beds of granite are nearly vertical, and constitute the summit as well as the central base of mountains. An enquiry suggests itself; was the elevation of these mountain ranges cotemporaneous in different countries? The followers of Werner maintained, that granite mountains were crystalline masses, precipitated in a universal ocean impregnated with mineral matter; and that their elevation was coeval with their origin. In the year 1819, M. Daubuisson, who was regarded by the French as an oracle in Géognosie, published his Traité de Géognosie, in which, following the steps of Werner on most points, he asserted, that the granite of the Alps attained its present elevation soon after the epoch of its formation. In the years 1820, 1821, and 1822, I had frequent opportunities of ascertaining the error of this opinion; and that the beds of granite were not elevated, till after the deposition of the calcareous beds that rest upon them. I farther ascertained, that many of these calcareous beds were identical with the upper secondary strata in England; hence it followed, that the granite beds in the Alps were not elevated till a late geological epoch, after the deposition of the oolites and chalk. This discovery I published in 1823, in my Travels in the Tarentaise, vol. ii. pp. 17, 18; and I there distinctly stated, that the elevation of the granite of the Alps, was more recent, than the elevation of the beds of granite and slate in England. Neither the importance of the discovery, nor its now