Note 24 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 5)

The bones and tusks of Elephants are not only found in Russia, but also in the canton of Basel in Swisserland, in the dominions of the Marquis of Bareith in Franconia, and more instances are found in the Protogæa of the celebrated Leibnitz. Lately near the river Ohio have been discovered, a great number of skeletons of Elephants with their tusks, and very remarkable grinders still sticking in their jaw bones were sent to the British Museum; the late Dr. Littleton Bishop of Carlisle, also lodged some teeth sticking in their jawbones in the Museum of the Royal Society, which were brought from Peru. The rivers Chatunga and Indighirka in Siberia, are remarkable for affording on their banks great quantities of bones and tusks of Elephants, which being preserved there by the great frost, and in the short summer of a few weeks, the rain being rare, these tusks are commonly so fresh that they are employed in Russia, as common ivory, on account of the great quantity brought from these places to Russia; some of them were eight feet long, and of three hundred pounds weight. There have been found grinders of nine inches diameter. But the American grinders of Elephants from near the Ohio are yet more remarkable, on account of their being provided with crowns on their tops, such as are only found in the carnivorous animals, and such as feed on hard bones or nuts. Whilst on the contrary, Elephants at present feeding on grasses and soft vegetables have no such crowns at the tops of their grinders. Livy, it is true, makes a distinction between the Asiatic or Indian Elephants, and the African ones; and remarks the latter to be inferior to the former in size and vigour; but whether the teeth in these animals are so much different from those of the other variety, has never been attended to. This circumstance of the difference in the fossil grinders of Elephants, from those in the living ones, and the place where these skeletons were found in, viz. Siberia, Germany and America, where at present no Elephants are to be met with, opens a wide field to conjectures in regard to the way, by which these animals were carried to those spots. The flood in the deluge perhaps has carried them thither; nor is it contrary to reason, history or revelation, to believe, these skeletons to be the remainders of animals, which lived on the surface of this globe, anterior to the Mosaic creation, which may be considered only as a new modification of the creatures living on this globe, adapted to its present state, under which it will remain till circumstances will make a new change necessary, and then our globe will by a new creation of revolution appear more adapted to its state, and be stocked with a set of animals more suitable to that state. Every man used to philosophy and reasoning will find, that this plan gives a grand idea of the Creator, his œconomy and management of the universe: and moreover, it is conformable to the meaning of the words of a sacred writer, who says: Ps. civ. 29. 30. Thou bidest thy face and they (small and great beasts) are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the fact of the earth. See Dr. Hunter’s remarks on the above-mentioned teeth, in the Philosophical Trans. Vol. lviii. F. ↑