Yad ‘ tH pAlisie t , ye : = Sey i » . ie ae mer a “(PART 6. G. | _PRICE Is. & <— | : sey : a be ee te ' hart | FOSSIL BONES, hls Sie | IN WHICH ARE ESTABLISHED | THE Rene OF VARIOUS ANIMALS “WHOSE SPECIES HAVE BEEN DESTROYED BY THE REVOLUTIONS OF URS ERS S * REI RR ‘ ‘be Globe; : : BY ; BARON CUVIER, 4 ; |. Great Officer of the Legion of Honour, Counsellor of State, and Member of the ams Royal Councilof Public Tnstruction, One of the Forty of the Freach Academy, ; 5 Perpetual Secretary to the Academy of Sciences, Member of the Aca- @ demies and Royal Societies of London, Berlin, Petersburgh, . . Stockholm, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Gottingen, Turin, 2 | Bavaria, Modena, The Netherlands, Calcutta, and of . the Linnean Society of London, &c. &e. &c. &e. ; FOURTH EDITION, eee ) Rebisey anv Complete : BY ADDITIONAL NOTES, AND A SUPPLEMENT LEFT BY THE AUTHOR. Triomphante des eaux, du trépas, et du temps, La terre a cru revoir ses premiers habitans. DELILLE. IN FOUR VOLUMES. nh. LONDON: G. HENDERSON, 2, OLD BAILEY, LUDGATE-HILL, Ts AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. ‘ ay f t * a 1834, ri * om 3 f i ET oe 2% 3, wanvaaeon,) > ~~ fe: Se a ae ee so see tuviers Researches on Fossil BONES. Fig. 1. % —_—s oy r 7 ILI IP ELAS IS - Londons Hemitersin, 2.0 Bailey Apony py '7 uosiapuary gpuoy i, tip Wy UW } Y YN) Hip 4) Mi Yj LOT UY f BLAME W“ittrysypyyyy \\y mi \ S i) 7 Me, ep LZ ) Gi \ i i( La 7, tory, vol. v, p. 515. + Travels in Tuscany, vol. vii, p. 413. + Thid., vol. viii, p. 401. -§ Description of the Cospian Museum, by Lorenzo Legati, p. 6. || On Solids within Solids, p. 64. § Natural Observations and Researches, p. 327. ** Cesalpin on Metals, Book ii. p. 141. ++ Observations on the Fossil Teeth of Elephants found in Tuscany and Florence, 5v0. '+* Travels in Tusca ny. &§ Memoirs of the [Mperial Museum at Florence. VOL. I. ( Y 230 ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF FACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS,. Museum which the Valdarnasian academy, established at Figlini, has formed in an old convent of that town. We may there behold several hundred fragments which fill two rooms, and which have all been found in the neighbourhood. They are so common in the hills that skirt that part of the valley, that the peasants were wont to use them indiscriminately with stones in the construction of the little walls that surround their habitations. Now that they have learned to appreciate their value, they lay them aside to sell to travellers. It was in this way that I became pos- sessed of an at/as of very large dimensions. It was brought to my carriage window while I was changing horses. Happening to take a walk with Prosessor Nesti, I myself perceived and picked up a molar tooth, which had been laid bare by a rivulet, close to that same Viesca where Targioni had found so many of those relics. In the lower valley of the Arno they are also found in greatabundance. According to the Novelle Literarie of Florence, several bones and tusks were discovered in 1753, on the hills adjoining the castle of Cereto Guidi, between the lake Fucecchio and the Arno. Four of these pieces were picked up by the Chevalier Buontulenti *. Fortis speaks of a tusk found in the same place by Professor Nenci t. According to the account of John Targioni Tozzetti, Nenci had found the fragments of no less than four skeletons, which Targioni pre- served in his museum, and which he enumerates in his collection f. But a short time previous, a skeleton, almost quite perfect, was dis- covered in the same place on the estate of the Messrs. Gaddi, and many of the bones were deposited in their museum. The bones found at Cereto Guidi form the chief subject of the letter addressed by Dr. John Targioni Tozzetti to Buffon in 1754 §. In that letter the author mentions that they had belonged to animals differing very much in age, many of them having been very young, and that they were found intermixed with the bones of many other animals, such as oxen, stags, and horses. His son, Octavian Targioni Tozzetti, whose acquirements in natural science were equally extensive and pro- found, has presented me with the model of a very small under jaw, belonging to one of the youngest subjects, which | have placed in the King’s Museum. That entire section of the valley of Nievolo and its vicinity is very rich in the spoils of the elephant. In 1744, a tusk was exhumed near Ponte a Coppiano, quite close to the lake of Fucecchio, towards the south ||. And Dr. Venturini has described some bones found on the hill of Lamporecchio, on the northern declivity of the little chain run- ning between Pistoia and the lake §. They are found intermixed with marine productions much more frequently in the lower than in the upper valley of the Arno. For instance, those alluded to by Tar- * Alcon du Lac, Essays on Nat. Hist., vol. ii, p. 402. + Fortis. t Travels in Tuscany, book v, p. 264. § The letter has been translated into French, and printed in the foreign Journal of December, 1755. Itis alsoto be found in the Melanges of Alcon du Lac. || Fortis’ Memoirs on the Natural History of Italy. §] Idem, Conchil. Subapenn. vol. i, p. 184. ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT OF THE RUSSIANS. 231 gioni were found in sand, intermixed with shells. According to the account of Fortis, Scali had succeeded in clearing out a tusk from a bed of stone, studded with shells, in the village of St. Jiacomo near Leghorn *. ; They are likewise to be found in the mountainous country which rises towards the south on the left of the Arno. Mr. Brocchi mentions some from the neighbourhood of Sienna and Volterra; in short, they are to be found along the entire line reaching as far as the Apennines of Liguria +. Considering this abundance, it is not astonishing that the museums of Tuscany should be filled with these spoils. The museum of the Grand Duke at Florence contained, some years since, two lower jaws, © almost entire, two half jaws, a great number of tusks, and molar teeth ; a demi-atlas, three vertebre, connected together, and one sepa- rate, a shoulder, part of a thigh, two tibia, and divers other fragments; and IJ have been told that great additions have been made _to it since I had the opportunity of seeing it. In the museum belonging to the late Fontana, besides the head ex- humed by Fabrini, described by Mesnig, and subsequently transferred to the Count Valsamachi of Cephalonia, I observed a very large thigh and two portions of jaws. In that of the University of Pisa, where Thomas Bartholin had noticed some as early as 1643+, I counted twelve tusks or portions of tusks of different sizes; one of them was ten inches in diameter and three feet in length; in addition to these I observed six jaws, some with narrow, and others with broader rows. There is also a collection in. the museum of Dr. Branchi, professor of chemistry at Pisa. That of the abbey of Vallambrosa was cele-: brated for its large collection, as was also the museum of the Academy of the Fusiocritici at Sienna. . As Hannibal, after the battle of Trebbia, crossed the Apennines §, . * Fortis, Conchil. Subapenn., vol. i, 185. + Conchil. Subapenn., p. 183. + Treatise on the Unicorn, p. 388. § On the route pursued by Hannibal from Trebbia to the lake of Thrasimene.— - The learned of every nation have occupied themselves with profound investigations in order to ascertain the precise spot where Hannibal crossed the immense chain of the Alps and descended into Italy. The same laborious examination has not been be- - stowed with a view to ascertain the point where he crossed the Apennines after the - battle of Trebbia, on his road to Tuscany and to the plain where he gained the no less celebrated victory of Thrasimene. Nay, I am induced to think that not one of the opinions that have been promulgated on this subject is entirely in accordance with the testimony of the ancient writers, or the presumptions suggested by the localities - themselves. I shall attempt to prove this in the following observations :— Polybius in the seventy-fourth chapter of his third book, after giving the details of the battle of Trebbia, goes on to say, ‘‘ The showers of sleet fell in such abundance that the army of Hannibal suffered severely : all the elephants of the Carthaginians perished, with the exception of a solitary individual; nuinbers of men and horses died of the intense cold, so that the Consul Tiberius thought himself justified in writing to © the Senate, that the inclemency of the weather had suatched the victory from his hands.”’ Thus the battle was fought at the close of autumn. ‘ “ On the approach of spring,’’ continues he a little further on, “ the new Consul Flaminius put his legions in motion; and. having traversed Etruria, he halted at 232 ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. ° and traversed the whole extent of the valley of the Arno, on his march against the Consul Flaminius, who was posted at Arezzo, as he halted Arezzo, while his colleague, Servilius, marched through Umbria, to take up his po- sition at Rimini.’’ The unfriendly disposition of the Gauls having induced Reaegioal to quit his winter quarters at the earliest period possible, he made the most diligent inquiries concern- ing the roads that might conduct him into the enemy’s country. He learned “ that they were long, and well known to the Romans, with the exception of one leading into Etruria, across some marshes. The passage, indeed, was difficult, but short, and well calculated to strike Flaminius with astonishment on account of the singularity of the enterprize.’’?’ He determined upon taking it. This resolution alarmed his followers, ‘‘ who shrunk in dismay from the gulphs of the swamps and lakes that lay before them.”’ Polybius then proceeds to describe, in his seventy-ninth chapter, the order in which Hannibal effected this passage, and the sufferings that both he and his army had to endure during its continuance. ‘‘ At length,’’ continues he, ‘‘ having in defiance of all calculations succeeded in traversing the marshes, Hannibal received information that Flaminius was posted at Arezzo. He encamped on the first dry spot that pre- sented itself, in order to rest his troops and to reconnoitre the plans of the enemy. Observing that the country around him was rich, and, being informed of the weak character and mean capacity of Flaminius, he judged that if he passed him by, as if he were bent on some more distant enterprise, the Consul would find himself unable to resist the railleries and reproaches of his soldiers, and that, without waiting for the junction of his colleague, he would determine upon pursuing the Carthaginians * into some position to which it was their object to attract him. In fact,’’ continues Polybius in his eighty-third chapter, ‘‘as soon as Hannibal had left his camp near Fe- sule, and had passed by the Roman army, Flaminius, fancying himself despised by the Carthaginians, began to exhibit symptoms of irritation: when he beheld the de- solation they were causing by ravaging and burning every thing in their path, he could no longer restrain himself; and heedless of the remonstrances of his cfficers, that he should wait for the junction of his colleague, he hurried forward against Han- nibal. The latter had his left covered by Cortona, and his right hy the lake of Thrasi- mene, and the more to infiame the anger of Bieanine: he carried his devastations to the extreme. At length, observing the approach of the Consul, he suddenly wheeled about to receive him.” It was there, between the lake and the hills that run almost down to it, that he gained that sanguinary victory. It is clear then, that, after the battle of Trebbia, Hannibal entered Etruria, by tra- versing a very swampy country. That, on his emerging from the marshes, he en- camped near ‘Fesule. That he then passed by the Romans, who were stationed near Arezzo, and took up his position between Cortona and Thrasimene. . These last two portions of his route are clear beyond all doubt. From Fesule to Arezzo he must necessarily have passed along the upper valley of the Arno; and from the neighbourhood of Arezzo to that of Cortona, he must have followed the vailey of the Chiana. But by what road did he reach Fesule ? Where are the marshes he traversed, and in what quarter did he cross the Apennines ? These are questions upon which people have not as yet been able to agree, and for which I think I have found a satisfactory solution. In fact, to arrive at this result, I think it is only necessary to fill the chasms left in the narrative of Polybius by the additional matter furnished by Livy and Corne- lius Nepos. Livy has been accused of being nothing more than a copyist of Polybius ; true it is that almost throughout he translates him word for word; but he must assuredly have consulted other chronicles, for he fillsup the outline Of. the Greek historian with many important circumstances evidently true, as their connexion with the whole proves beyond all doubt. After giving an account, in the fifty-seventh chapter of his twenty-first book, of : 922 _ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT OF THE RUSSIANS. 233 a moment near Fesule, and must then have passed ‘beneath Arezzo, and followed the valley of Chiana on his way to his position between the capture of Placenza, which took place in the winter subsequent to the battle of Trebbia, he speaks of a first attempt to cross the Apennines made by Hannibal, when he was deceived by a false spring; and he eloquently describes the storms that obliged him to renounce that enterprise and fall back upon Placenza. He even states ex- pressly, that it was on this precise occasion that the Carthaginians lost seven of the elephants which had survived the battle of Trebbia, and that they had but one re- maining. Near Placenza, moreover, they had a fresh encounter with the Consul Sempronius, in which they were again successful. After this Hannibal entered Li- guria, while Sempronius fell back upon Lucca. Nevertheless, in the commencement of the spring, Hannibal, whose first attempt to cross the Apennines had proved abortive, abandoned his winter-quarters, (book xxii. chap. i.) and having learned that Flaminius was already at Arezzo, although he was shown a longer but a more convenient road, he decided in favour of one tra- versing the marshes, rendered more than usuaily deep by the inundations of the Arno. Livy then describes the march of the Carthaginian general in terms similar to those of Polybius, and likewise conducts him to Fesule. Heremarks that he was in one of the most fertile countries in Italy, the part of Etruria situated between Fesulz and Arezzo, or, in other terms, the upper valley of the Arna: then having, like Polybius, stated the estimate formed by Hannibal of the character of Flaminius, he adds (chap. iii.), that, leaving the enemy on his left, and proceeding towards Fe- sule (Fesulas petens), he did his utmost to devastate Etruria. He then speaks of the irritation of Flaminius, and suddenly mentions (chap. iv.) that Hannibal ravaged the country between Cortona and Thrasimenc. The remainder of the narrative of Livy is identical with that of Polybius. It is the expression, Fesulas petens, that has thrown all the difficulty round the sub- ject : it is either the mistake of Livy or of his copyists. It is very clear that Han- nibal, who is represented as occupying the country between Fesule and Arezzo, and as anxious to entice Flaminius from Arezzo towards Cortona, could not have taken a road in an opposite direction, and at the same time return towards Fe- sule. Hence Livy, like Polybius, should have made him leave Fesule, and not have made him proceed towards it; perhaps, too, the original expression was Iesulas linguens, instead of Fesulas pefens. In that case, his narrative would correspond with that cf Polybius in this particular, as it does in every other mentioned by them both. Livy’s addition would then be confined to the single circumstance, that the marshes in question were those of the Arno, marshes which are in point of fact as dangerous as any in Italy, and a great part of which are remaining to this day, not only in the delta of this river, and farther on to the north, in the direction of Liguria, but in the entire extent of the lower valley of the Arno, and more particularly near Fucec- chio, and within a few leagues of Fesule. It only remains for us then to fix upon the precise point where the Apennines were crossed. Now Cornelius Nepos tells us (Hannib. ch. iv.), per Ligures Apenninum transit, petens Etruriam. He crossed the Apennines in Liguria, on his way to Etruria; and he adds, that it was on this occasion that he lost his eye. This fact, thus attested by Cornelius Nepos and Livy, must have suggested itself to every person of common sense. For where is it natural to suppose that Hannibal, setting out from Placenza after the battle of Trebbia, and not choosing to pursue the road that was convenient, but too long, and too well known to the Romans—that is, the road by way of Modena and Bologna—where is it natural to suppose, I say, that he would cross the Apennines ? The answer is simple—At the spot where he then was, near the sources of the Trebbia and the Taro, thence he must have descended towards those of the Magra— ° in a word, he must have followed the road of Pontremoli. It is from thence he must have descended on the marshes of the Arno, then much more extensive, and less confined by dykes than they are at present. He must have passed up the valley of the Arno until he reached the firmer ground at the foot of Fesulz and surrounding Florence ; thence passing along the upper valley of the Arno, he proceeded onwards 234 ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS, Cortona and Thrasimene, it was but natural that the first discoveries of the bones of elephants should have given rise to the supposition beneath Arezzo, braving Flaminius, whom he left on his left: he then followed the yalley of Chiana, and awaited or rather attracted the Consul beyond Cortona, and near to Thrasimene, at the point where the road begins-to rise towards Perugia. This entire route is so simple, it corresponds so accurately with the testimony of the historians, and the nature of the ground, that it is difficult to explain how ano- ther could have been imagined. And yet this is what has come to pass. The causes of these errors have been, Ist. The fault in the editing or copying of the passage we have cited from Livy; 2ndly. A serious mistake of Strabo; srdly. The ignorance of many authors with regard to the variations which have occurred at divers periods in the boundaries of Liguria and Etruria. Cluvier (Ital. Ant. 1, 580) remarks and demonstrates very successfully that the words of Livy should be, & Fesulis profectus, instead of Fesulas petens ; and he grounds this reading, as I have done, on the authority of Polybius. Hence it appears that he had got at part of the truth ; but he suddenly takes it into his head to make Hanni- bal approach Fesule by way of Bologna, and accuses Cornelius Nepos of error, for making him approach it through Liguria. The other road, mentioned as being longer, more convenient, and better known, he supposes to be that of Rimini and Umbria: he does not perceive that the road by Bologna was quite as well known, and that there could not have been any marshes between Bologna and Fesule, for the whole route lies along the mountains. By his own fiat he creates marshes near Florence : but in coming by that route Hannibal would have found them not before but behind Fesule, and their passage could not have occupied much time. The same objections hold good against Cini, Villani, and Scala, who make Han- nibal march through Prato and Pistoia, and thus make him cross the Apennines above Modena ; as also against Luc Holstenius, who makes him come by Forli and descend into Tuscany by the Cazentin: and against Guazzesi, who makes him enter by the same province, and by the neighbourhood of Bagno. We must certainly admit, that selecting the road of Cazentin would allow us to retain the reading of Livy, Leva relicto hoste, Fesulas petens (having left the enemy on his left, marching on Fesulz); but this is in itself an objection against this opinion, since this reading is evidently spurious for other reasons, and since, from whatever direction Hannibal had come, the word petens (marching on) will not be admissible: besides, he could have found no marshes in the Cazentin: the Arno does not form any there—it is too hilly a country. There is also an objection drawn from the military art against this route, as well as that of Pistoia. By proceeding in that direction, Hannibal. would not only have prolonged his march, and would have been obliged to traverse an immense extent of difficult country, but he would have exposed himself to the. danger of being attacked in flank or rear by Servilius, who was at Rimini, and whom nothing could have prevented from overtaking the Carthaginians in a day or two. Unquestionably the reason why this variety of authors have not hit upon the short and natural road, corresponding so exactly with the passages of Polybius, Livy, and Nepos, which we have cited, is, that Hannibal was said to have crossed the marshes, on his way into Etruria. They have thence concluded that these marshes must have been outside Etruria, and that consequently they could not be the marshes of the Arno; hence they have sought them in Lombardy and on the Po. It appears that this was the opinion adopted by Strabo, for he says that in former times there were marshes near Placentium and along the Po, which greatly em- barrassed Hannibal on his road to Etruria.—Geography, book v. g. 217. Guazzesi was so much attached to this idea, that he was anxious at all hazards to change the word Arvnus, in Livy, into that of Hridanus or Padus, or even to suppress it altogether, although he acknowledges that all the manuscripts he had examined, or caused to be examined, agreed in giving Arnus.—Mem. of the Academy of Cor- tona, n. vi. pp. 29, 30. But the solution of the difficulty was to be found in Polybius himself. We see by his testimony that, at the epoch of which he speaks, Etruria only began at the Arno. Polybius says expressly, that the Ligurians were in possession of the country as far as Pisa, the first city of Etruria towards the West, and as far as the territory ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT OF THE RUSSIANS. 235 that they were the remains of those brought thither by that general : thisis what Steno, the Danish philosopher, has laboured to establish in of the Aretini. Lucca, at that period and long after, was a city of Liguria. Fron- tinus calls it in express terms a Ligurian city.—(bk. iii. chap. xi.) ‘‘ Domitius Cal- vinus besieged Lucca, a Ligurian town.’’ Ceesar had Lucca under his command, as Sue- tonius informs us in his twenty-fourth chapter, because that command comprehended Liguria and not Etruria. Hence, if we afterwards find in Strabo and Pliny the Magra assigned as the boundary between Etruria and Liguria, we must suppose it was the result of the new division of Italy completed by Augustus. Cluvier has’ very successfully illustrated these successive boundaries. After this observation, we can understand that as long as Hannibal remained on the right bank of the Arno, above the boundary of the country of the Aretini, he was not yet within Etruria—he advanced towards it ; Etruriam petebat, Now, according to my view of the subject, either he did not pass the Arno at all, and so passed between that river and Arezzo, or else he only passed it at the time he left Fesule. In either case he left that town, and Flaminius who was posted there, to his left, and proceeded towards Cortona and the lake, by the diagonal of the triangle. Why, it will be asked, did not Flaminius attempt to impede such an advance as this? For the same reason that he afterwards allowed himself to be enticed into pursuing Hannibal—be- cause he was a bad general. But an opinion which was without excuse, because it at once contradicted both common sense and the spurious and corrected texts, and because it led to the still greater fault of assigning the marshes to Etruria, whatever might be the boundary of that country ; such an opinion owes its origin to Sanleolino and Dini, renewed by Folard, and adopted by Rollin, the latter of whom supposes that the marshes in question were those of Chinsi, that is to say, those of the Chiana. Folard, in particular, presents us with a model of the false reasoning in which a man of talents may be entangled when his premises are unsound. How could Hannibal have advanced behind Rimini and Arezzo, so-as at once to avoid Servilius and Flaminius? Where could he have passed the Apennines so as to strike first upon Clusium? He must then have passed them in Umbria, and not in Liguria. He must even have traversed the upper valley of the Tiber, from whence it were easy for him to advance upon Rome, without having recourse to so much artifice. But this is not all. Let us admit that he might have gone as far as Clu- sium, why then, finding himself in the rear of Flaminius, instead of going direct to- wards Perugia and Rome, did he return towards Fesule, passing under Arezzo, and this too again to repass it on his way towards Perugia and the lake? How can it be said that he traversed the marshes of Clusium in order to reach Etruria, when those marshes are precisely in the centre of what was then Etruria? There is not a species. of improbability or of formal contradiction to the authority of the writers on the subject, which does not meet in this hypothesis. After this, mark the reflections of that military genius upon this masterly march of Hannibal, and on the necessity of his making it ! _ Nevertheless, there are some objections to my system, which require explana- tion. The first is, How did it happen that Hannibal, having advanced from the Magra towards the Arno, did not approach the sea? and how does: Polybius come to say, that it was not till after the battle of Thrasimene, and only at the port of Ha- dria, that he found the means of despatching a ship to Carthage? _ I fancy that, being eager to come up with Flaminius, having been already retarded by his first attempt at crossing the mountains, and having as yet nothing decisive to announce to his countrymen, he hurried over the route I have specified, without wasting time on possessing himself of a port, or on despatching a ship. - The second objection is, How did it occur, supposing him to have followed this route, that he was not obliged to take the towns of Lucca and Pisa, or, at least, why the historians do not mention the manner in which he made himself master of them, or how he managed to avoid them. But whatever route he may be made to pursue, a similar objection will present itself in the shape of other towns no less considera- ble. The historians could not mention every thing. - We can easily understand that 236 +. ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. his treatise *‘ On Solids contained within Solids.” Nevertheless, an attentive examination of the writers who have described the march of Hannibal should have dissipated this erroneous impression, even before the circumstances in which the bones were found were suf- ficiently made known. The fact is, that Hannibal did not bring more than fifty-seven ele- phants into Italy, (Eutropius, chap. vil.), and Polybius tells us they all died of the cold immediately after the battle of Trebbia, with the ex- ception of a single one: Livy, who deals more in details, leaves him eight still, seven of which died soon alter, in the abortive attempt at crossing the Apennines in the winter; but both authors agree in stating that in the spring, when Hannibal descended into the marshes - of the lower Arno, he had no more than a single elephant, upon which the general himself was mounted, during that terrible passage in which he lost an eye. Hence it is very evident, as has already been remarked by Messrs. Targioni and Nesti, that a solitary ele- phant could not have furnished this innumerable quantity of bones which are scatterea over all Tuscany; and now that we know that there are almost as many belonging to the rhinoceros and hippopo- tamus as to the elephant, and that they are all three found inter- mixed in the same beds, there is no longer the slightest foundation for supposing that they are the remains of animals used in war. Dolomieu has observed these bones of elephants in their beds. He agrees with Mr. Santi in saying that they are found at the bases of hills of clay, which fill the intervals of the calcareous chains; that the beds that contain them likewise contain woods, some petrified and some bituminous, which he judged to be oak, and which are themselves covered with beds of marine shells, mixed with common plants, and by immense-banks of potter's clay. As for those that came under my own observation, they were all in clay hills, rising at least fifty or sixty feet above the level of the plain. That part of Italy which lies to the north of the Apennines is not less rich in those productions than the centre of the Peninsula. James Blancanus has published an account of some fragments of ivory found at Monte Blancano, near Bologna. The jaw described by Aldrovandus *, under the vague denomi- nation of Dens Bellue, the monster’s tooth, was most probably found in- the neizhbourhood of Bologna. It is still preserved in the museum of the Institute, with several other fragments which I noticed there, par- ticularly two anterior extremities of jaw bones and several under jaws, some with very diminutive, others with larger, rows; but a part of these was brought from Hungary by Marsigli, It is the more singular that Aldrovandus did not recognize the real character of this tooth ; that, in his work on the antique statues of Rome, he very properly de- fines a fossil jaw bone. If there be any of those remains of fossil elephants which carries Sempronius, being recalled by Flaminius, had abandoned Lucca, and that Hannibal, wishing to ascend the Arno, did not think it necessary to take Pisa, which very pro- bably was without a Roman garrison. * Treatise on Metals, p. 832. ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE KLEPHANT OF THE RUSSIANS. 237 with it a supposition of having-been one of those which Hannibal brought into Italy, it is undoubtedly that discovered by Mr. Cortes ; for it was found ata short distance from the Trebbia, where Han- nibal lost several, and close to the road which he must have pur- sued with the few that remained, and which perished in his first at- tempt at cressing the Apennines, during the winter, when he was obliged to fall back upen Placenza. It was found on Mount Pulg- nasco, in the district of Diolo, nine miles below Placenza, and two from the Trebbia. The bones were almost in the vegetabie soil, for they were pene- trated by roots. They were in quantity sufficient to load six mules, and amongst them were portions of the head, almost entire, with the corresponding jaws which were formed of large plates. Mr. Cortesi has had drawings made of them. He likewise mentions a tusk, nine inches in dameter, a mutilated thigh, three feet eight inches, and a shoulder bone three feet nine inches in length. All these fragments have been deposited in the Museum of the Board of Mines at Milan. The head of a rhinoceros was found hard by, as if fer the purpose of falsifying the conjectures likely to arise as to the Carthaginian origin of this depot. 5 In another species of lair and at a greater depth frem the surface, they found the lead of a cetus, and the skeleton of a species of dolphin almost perfect *. A remarkable depot, in which the bones of elephants were heaped along with those of many other animals, was found at Mount Serbaro, in the district of Remagnano, in the valley of Pantena, three leagues from Verona. Fortis has devoted a particular memoir to their description. They were found in a trench at the summit of the hill. Among the bones of elephants was a tusk more than nine inches in diameter, and which Fortis conjectures to have: been twelve feet in length. The Count de Gazola has sent to our museum from the same place, half of a lower jaw and a bone of the metacarpus, which serve to indicate an animal at least fifteen feet in height. Piedmont has furnished them in considerable quantities ; some years since I had an account from the late Mr. Giorna, of two large portions of jaws which are in the Museum of Natural History at Turin. He afterwards acquainted me that there is also an elephant’s thigh in the same place. We have in our museum fragments of ivory found at Butigliano, in tlhe province of Asti. M. Maximilien Spinole, a Genoese nobleman, and author of an ex- cellent work on the insects cf Liguria, has pressed upon my acceptance the lower part of the head of a peronea, discovered at Annona, quite close to Asti on the road to Alexandria: it belonged to an animal at least fifteen feet in height. ‘The name Annona being, according to some etymologists, derived from Castrum Hannonis, (the camp of Hanno) has not failed to suggest in its turn an allusion to the Carthaginians. According to Allioni, a skeleton almost entire was found in another quarter of the district of Asti +, and Mr. Amoretti speaks of another * See the Memoirs of M. Joseph Cortesi on the bones of great animals found on the hills of Placenza, reprinted in his Geological Essays at Placenza, 1819. tT Brocchi on Fossil Shells of the Apennines, vol. i, p. 181. VOL. 1. Z 938 ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. skeleton equally perfect found at Butigliera in the same neighbour- hood *. The bones preserved in the museums of Turin, are in general those found at Montferrat. This is a province almost entirely formed of those sandy mountains skirting the Apennines. They are almost of the same nature as those that skirt them on the side of ‘Tuscany. The plain of Lombardy and even the banks of the Po, are not un- provided with them. _Wehave in the King’s Museum, a lumbar ver- tebrie, a cubitus, and an ischion, which have been contributed by the late Mr. Faujas. The museums of natural history at Pavia and Milan, contain several other fragments, as I can testify. Mr. Brocchi mentions some from the vicinity of Pavia, of Sanco- lombano, and even from the river Po +. - They have been found even in the higher vallies of the Alps, if we are to credit the testimony of the ! Marquis of St. Simon, who states in his history of the war of the Alps i in 1744 +, that all the bones of an elephant were dug up at the foot of the lesser St. Bernard. Nor is the opposite extre mity of Italy without its share. Fortis mentions bones dug up near Montefusco, in the country anciently occupied by the Hirpini, not far from Beneventum §. -There were also the supposed bones of giants found near Puzzuolo ||, and Avellino which ajoins it 4. Jerome Magius speaks of a skeleton five arms length long, found near eggio, while excavating a reservoir. It is probable that it was also at Reggio that the skeleton was discovered, of which a tooth more than a foot in length was brought to Tiberius. But the passage of Phlegonus, which alludes to this occurrence, is rather equivocal, as far as regards the precise locality **. Kircher mentions a giant’s tomb discovered near Cosenza in Ca- labria tt. The Journal of the Abbe Nazari speaks of a skeleton which was declared to be eighteen feet long, exhumed in 1665 at Tiriolo in Upper Calabria}{. it is stated, indeed, that these bones bore a decided resemblance to those of a man, but at the present day we have learned to estimate the meaning of those comparisons. The smallness of the teeth, however, which only weighed from three- quarters of an ounce to an ounce and a third, may lead us to doubt of its having belonged to an elephant, Thomas “Bartholin instances real fossil ivory found in Calabria, and near Palermo in Sicily, and bones “of elephants found near Mes- sina §§. ¥ Amoretti on a Tooth and part of the Mandibola of a Mastodonte, page 5. _} Treatise on the Shells of the Appennines, vol. i. p. 181. + Preface, p. 22, and in Deluc. Pass. of Hannibal, p. 171. § Fortis’ Memoirs of the Natural History of i: aig vol. ii, p. 328. || Scipio Mozella’s Antiquity of Puzzuoli in Fab. Colum, { fabius Columella de Glossapet, p. 34. ** Phlegon. Trall. de Mirah. chap. xiv. +t Kircher’s Subterranean World, book viii, sect. ii, chap. iv. tt Academical Collection, p. 178. 8§ De Peregrin. Medic., p. 35. ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT OF THE RUSSIANS. 239 Fallopius mentions some from Puzzuolo*, and Bonani relates that in 1698 an inundation laid bare a tusk twelve palms long, in the same province +. Micheli brought away from Pouille, some pieces of ivory exhumed in 1715, near San Vetterrini {. To the same place may be referred the two supposed giants whose history is repeated in all the gigantologies, namely, that discovered in the fourteenth century at Trapani in Sicily, of which Boccassio speaks, and which was of course supposed to be Polyphemus §, and that found in the neighbourhood of Palermo in the sixteenth cen- tury, mentioned by Fasellus ||, but the size of the former is greatly exaggerated, for they ascribe to it a length of three hundred feet ; and Kircher, who visited the cavern where it was supposed to have _been found, asserts in positive terms, that it was not more than thirty feet in height. --This same Fasellus points out several other places in Sicily, where bones of giants were exhumed, as for instance at Melilli, between Leontium and Syracuse, at Petralia, &c. Mongitorei gives similar accounts 4], as does also Valguarnera **, but we cannot with safety refer them all to elephants, as these writers do not furnish us with exact measurements, and we know from personal inspection, that the lairs that yield those bones in Sicily contain a quantity of those of other animals. - A circumstance, however, which makes it more than probable that a part of these pretended giants have owed their origin to the bones of elephants is this, that the latter are found, according to the testi- mony of the Marquis of Vintimille, the historian of Sicily, cited by Kircher +}, near the sea, between Palermo and Trapani, and in the territory of the ancient Solois, which as well as Palermo was a Car- thaginian colony. Kircher, moreover, notices the accounts of two others, Sicilian giants, almost all whose bones, as is invariably the case, had been consumed, except the teeth ff. - Targioni quotes an ancient letter of the Chevalier Folchi, written in 1589 §§, which makes mention of the tooth of a supposed giant found with petrified sharks’ teeth near Syracuse |||]. As for Greece, the miserable thraldom under which she groans has not afforded an oppor- tunity of acquiring correct information on the fossils she produces ; but the latter have given rise to accounts of giants, both in ancient * De Metallic, last chapter. Mus. Kircher, p. 199. Targioni Tozzetti’s Travels in Tuscany, vol. viii, p. 413. De Genealogia Deorum, lib iv, ¢. Ixviii, Fasellus, Decad, i, book i, chap. iv. § Mongitore on the Memorabilia of Sicily, 12 Brocchi’s Subapennine Shells, vol. i, p. 186. ** Valguarnera on the Origin and Antiquity of Panormo, in Fabius Columella, De Glossopetris, p. 34. +f Kircher on the Subterranean World, book Vili, Cc. iv. tt Idem. Ihid. §§ Travels in Vuseany, vol. viii, p. 434. i||| About three years ago, they discovered in the caverns in the veighbourhond of Palermo, bones of elephants mixed with those of a species of half hippopotamus, of ruminants, bears, &c. (Laur.) = mt 940 ON THS FOSSIL BONES OF THE PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. and modern times. It is not then improbable that there were bores of elephants among those alluded to. In 1691, serve bones were found within six leagues of Thessalo- nica, one of which admitted a man’s arm into ts cavity; a lower jaw was seven inches anda half in breadth, and weighed fifteen pounds. The other teeth weighed from two to three pounds each ; but accordiug to other accounts the heaviest did not exceed four pounds six ounces. ‘The knee or shoulder bone was two feet eight inches in circumference. There is a minute description of them in the form of an affidavit, bearing the signatures of several witnesses, in a disser- tation of an Abbe Commiers inserted in the Mercury of 1692, and quoted by the Abbé d’Artigny, in his Memoirs of History, Criticism, and Literature, vol. i, p. 186. Don Calmet was mistaken when he fixed the period of this event in 1701*. Suidas speaks of the bones of giants found in large quantities be- neath the church of St. Mena at Constantinople, which the Emperor Anastasius caused to be deposited in his palace f. Our journals have very recently announced a similar discovery to have been made at Demoticat, near Adrianople, a place rendered famous by its having been the prison of Charles XI, and which is si-_ tuated at a short distance from the Mariza, the Hebrus of the ancients. Fortis mentions a molar tooth, most unquestiona bly that of an ele- phant, found in the isle of Cerigo, and deposited in the museum of Morosini at Venice §. Itis more than probable, too, that to the elephant remains we are to refer, if not the giant forty-six arms long, mentioned by Pliny }f, which was thrown up in an earthquake at Crete, and which some fancied was Orion, and others Otus, at least the supposed body of Orestes, seven arms or twelve feet three inches in length, discovered at Tegea by the Spartans 4, as well as that of Astericus, the son of Ajax, found in the isle of Lade, opposite Miletum, and which according to Pausanius, was seven arms in length, and that of Ajax, son of Tela- mon, which the same author tells us was at Salaminum, the knee ball of which equalled in size the quoits used at the Olympic games ** ; and lastly, the great bones of Rhodes, mentioned by Phlegonus of Tralles tf. Spain has its legends of the discovery of the bones of giants. Such is the pretended tooth of St. Christopher, shown to Louis Vivés, in the church of that name at Valentia, which he tells us was of the thick- ness of his fist {t But a more positive conclusion may be drawn from the fact, that * Dictionary of the Bible, ii, 160. + Suidus, voce «nvis. * Journal de Paris, June 9, 1806. § Fortis, Ibidem. || Pliny, book xvi, chap. xvi. h q Asilus Gillius, book xvi, chap, x. Herodian, book i, chap. Ixvii. Solin, book i, Pliny, Ibidem. ‘ ** Pausanius, Attic., chap. Xxxv, ++ Phlegonus, de Mirabil. chap. xvi. +? Vives on the Civitas Dei of Augustin, book xv, chap. ix. ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT OF THE RUSSIANS. 24] there is at present in the Royal Museum at Madrid, ivory and bones of elephants found while digging the foundation of the bridge over the Mang¢anarez. This fact has been communicated to us by Mr. Proust, in a letter to the late Lametherie, inserted in the Journal de Physique of March, 1806. Mr. Dumeril observed in the same museum several fragments of tusks two feet long, portions of thighs, and other bones found near the bridge of Toledo. But again, Spain. is another of those countries to which the Car- thaginians must have conveyed numerous elephants; let us then pro- ceed to France, which, as every body knows, received fewer of them than any other country, during the historical ages. In fact, whatever might have been the attention bestowed by the Gauls on the elephants that traversed the southern provinces of their country, at the period of Hannibal’s passage, they were not the less terrified by those which Domitius Atnobarbus led thither against the Allobrogians and Auvergnians *. But what may nevertheless appear somewhat singular is, that the places where these bones were most anciently found are in the neigh- bourhood of the Rhone, and, consequently, in the country through which Hannibal and Domitius must have passed. Hence it would have been easy to attribute these bones to them, but they were at first better pleased with the idea of attributing them to giants. In the reign of Charles VII., in 1456, the Rhone laid bare some of these pretended bones of giants at Vivarais, in the barony of Crussal, near the hamlet of Saint Peirat, opposite the town of Valencet. Louis X1, then dauphin, happening to reside at Valence at the time, investigated the authenticity of the fact, and part of the bones were carried to Bourges, by order of René, titular king of Naples, and hung up in the church of the Santa Cappella in that city, where they re- mained for a considerable period. Jean Lemaire, in his Tiiceaettions of Gaul, with the logic of his day, draws from these bones a convincing proof that the house of Tournon is descended from the Trojans. John Cassanio, in his Treatise on Giants §, mentions a discovery made in the same place, a short time previous to the second Religious War, consequently, about the year 1564. ‘Two peasants perceived some large bones protruding from the earth, on the side of a declivity; they carried them to the neighbouring village, where they were examined by Cassanir, who was then residing at Valence. He was also of opinion that they were the remains of giants; but the description he gives of one of the teeth is alone sufficient to prove that they were the bones of elephants. Jt weighed eight pounds, and wasa foot long. Its thick- ness was much less, and it retained some roots. The masticating surface was concave, and four fingers broad; there were but twoo thein found, and the second was preserved in the neighbouring castle of Charmes. Orosius, bock v, c. xiii; and Florus, book iii, c. ii Fulgosius de dict. factisque Memor. book i,-c. vi- Tilustrations of Gaul, and SPH as of Troyes, p. 289. Treatise on Giants, p. 61. tmAte > 242 ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. It was also near the Rhone, but farther on in Dauphiné, that during the reign of Louis XIII. the far-famed Teutobochus was discovered. This skeleton has given rise to more disputes than any other of the fossil remains, and formed the subject of a long contest between Ha- bicot and Riolan. ‘The numberless pamphlets which it called forth are filled with acrimonious invective, but contain little that may serve to throw a light on the subject. The rivalship existing between the. physicians aud surgeons stimulated the combatants much more than the interests of science or the love of truth. And yet Riolan has de- monstrated with considerable ability, considering that he had never seen the skeleton of an elephant, that those bones must have belonged to that animal*. : As far as we can judge at the present day, the following is the real state of the case, It appears that on the 11th of January, 1613, some bones were found near the castle of Chaumont, vr of Langon, between the towns of Montricant and Saint Antoine, a part of which were broken by the workmen. A surgeon of Beaurepaire, named Mazurier, exhibited for money such as remained entire, at Paris and other places; and in order the more effectually to stimulate the curiosity of the public, he distributed a little brochure, in which he asserted that they had been © found in a sepulchre thirty feet long, on the slab of which was written, ‘“TrutTopocuts Rex.’”’ This was known to be the name of the king of the Cimbri, who contended with Marius, and hence he took the hint to add, that some fifty medals, bearing the image of that consul, with the initials of his name, had been found in the same placef. But our sur- geon was charged with having procured a Jesuit of Tournon to draw up this document, who had forged the story of the sepulchre and the inscription : his pretended medals were inscribed with Gothic letters, and had nothing Roman about them. It does not appear that he ever offered anything in justification of this imposture. With regard to the bones he exhibited, they consisted of the follow- ing pieces :— Ist. Two portions of the lower jaw; one of which weighed six pounds, and the other, which was larger, twelve pounds, with one tooth entire and three broken. Each tooth had four roots, and was as large as the foot of a youny bull, seemingly petrified, and in colour resembled gunpowder. * See the following pamphlets, which I quote in the order they were published.— A True History of the Giant Teutobochus, &c., 15 pages, by Mazurier. Gigan- tosteology, by N. Habicot, 1613. Discovery of the Imposture of the Human Bones, supposed to be those of a Giant, 1614, (by the same). Monomachia, or Reply of a Surgeon to the calumnious Inventions of the Gigantomachia of Riolan, 1614; (author unknown). A Discourse on the Size of the Giants, by Guillemeau, 1615. Reply to the Apologetic Discourse touching the truth of the existence of Giants, by N. Habicot. Judgment of the Shades of Heraclitus and Democritus, on the Reply of Habicot to the Discourse attributed to Guillemeau. Gigantology, or a History of the greatness of the Giants, by Riolan, 1615; (he herewith reprints his Gigantomachia, and his Imposture Discovered). Antigigantology, or a Counter-discourse on the great- ness of the Giants ; by Habicot, 1618. Fraternal Correction of the Life of Habicot, by Riolan, 1618. 7 Gassendi—Life of Peiresc, book iii., and in his Works, vol. v. page 280. ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT OF THE RUSSIANS. 245 Habicot very properly remarks that the first fragment of the jaw contained two molar teeth, and the cavities for two others ; but Riolan affirms that the teeth were detached. This description is so obscure, that were it not for the other bones, we should be at a loss to know to what we should refer it. 2nd. Two vertebre, one of which was three fingers in thickness, and admitted a man’s fist into its medullary canal; the transverse apophyses were perforated at their bases: it was undoubtedly a cervical, and the delicacy of its form proves at once that it be- longed to an elephant. ‘The other was much larger, but had lost its apophysis. 3rd. A fragment from the middle of one side, six inches in length, four in breadth, and two in thickness. 4th. A fragment of the shoulder blade, the articulating surface of which was twelve inches long and eight broad. Sth. A shoulder joint as large as the head of a middle sized man, and the fissure of which would give admittance to the knob of an ink- stand. 6th. A thigh bone five feet long, three feet in circumference above, two at the prominences of the articulations, and one-and-a-half in the centre: it wanted the trocanters. The neck had neither the length nor the obliquity of that of a man. 7th. A tibia nearly four feet in length, and more than two in cir- cumference at its base. Sth. An astragalus differing from that of animals, (i. e. domestic animals) but which had not the scaphoid, apophysis as large as that of a man. Sth. Lastly, a calcaneum, having at its base articulating surfaces for the scaphoid and cuboid bones, but the posterior apophysis or tuberosity of which was not as prominent as that of aman. This latter extre- mity most unquestionably belonged to an elephant; there is no other animal the astragalus of which so far resembles that of a man, as to be mistaken even by tlie most inexperienced observer*. Riolan states in one of his pamphlets that Dauphiné abounds in those bones. Indeed as early as 1580, Cassanio testifies that they ex- hibited the bones of giants, which had been exhumed several years pre- viously, upon the hill that overlooks the hamlet of Tainf. Another supposed giant was discovered in 1667, in a meadow near the castle of Molard, tn the diocese of Viennef. The teeth weighed ten poundseach. M. de Jussieu has told me that a long time since he saw some bones of elephants hanging in one of the churches. of Valence, and that they were looked upon as those of a giant. Sloane relates that in his time a French merchant had imported some from the same province into England. * All doubts on this subject have been recently removed, by the discovery of the bones which the surgeon had given out to be those of Teutobochus, in the house in which Mazurier died, at Bourdeaux. ‘They have been ascertained to be the bones, not of an elephant, but of a mastodonte, an animal which differs from the elephant merely in the structure of its teeth: (Laur.) + Cassanio, de Gigantibus, p. 64. t Dom. Calmet. Dict. de la Bible, ii, p. 161. ‘ 244 ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF PACHYDERMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. Gradually as we approach our own epoch, we find observations of this description more certain and determined. The drawing of the real jaw of an elephant has been published by M. de la Tourette, in the ninth volume of the Savans Etrangers, of the Academy of Sci- ences, page 747. It was found in 1760, near Saint Vallier, a quarter of a league from the Rhone, in a gravelly soil mixed with shells, eighty feet above the level of that river. M. Guilliermin, mayor of Vienne, has recently sent a jaw, in a high state of preservation, to the Kine’s Museum. It was found ina gravel bed near the town, in I18I4. M. Polonceau, an engineer of roads and bridges, has sent another from the same place. They are found higher up on the Rhone; for as I am informed by Mr. Pictet, we may see in the museum of M. de Saussure, a tusk found near Geneva. They are likewise to be found in Provence. M. Arnaud de Pemois- son, attorney-general at the court of Aix, is in possession of the lower jaw of an elephant, found in the neighbourhocd of Riez, in the de- partment of the lower Alps. I have the fact from himself. Nor is the right bank of the Rhone without its share. Independently - of what we hav e already mentioned on the authority of Jean Lamaire, and Cassanion, M. Soularie tells us of an almost perfect skeleton, dis- covered in the neighbourhood of Lavoute, in the department of Ar- deche, in the banks of deposits, near the Rhone*. M. Faujas describes a tusk found by M. Lavalette, in the commune of Arbres, near Villeneuve de Berg, in the same department, at the foot of Mount Curae: five feet below the surface of the soil, embedded in a volcanic tufot. ‘The proprietor of this tusk has sent a part of it to the King’s Museum. M. Cordier, inspector of mines, who has recently succeeded M. Faujas in the chair of geology at the Museum of Natural History, has favoured me with a note upon the position of this latter tusk, which he examined with attention. It was incrusted in the interior of a solid volcanic lair, which not only forms the summit of the hill of Arbres, but spreads itself in horizontal beds beneath the whole range of the Cairons, forming their chief foundation. Though ina high state of preservation elsewhere, this lair is almost entirely decomposed at - Arbres, and is there reduced toa yellow clay, in which the pyroxenous particles have alone remained entire: the whole of this volcanic soil reposes upon a deep bed of compact calcareous shell, diversely inclined. It were to be wished it had been ascertained with accuracy whether these tusks were enveloped in the body of the volcanic bed itself, or merely in some of its ancient excrementst. However, M. Cordier knows several other places where bones are enveloped in volcanic matter. As we approach the Py rennees, we meet with several other remains * Natural Hist. of Southern France, vol. iii, p. 98. + Annals of the Museum of Natural History, vol. ii, p. 24. { See the map of Coirons, published in the Natural History of Southern France.