Buffon's Natural History. Volume 07 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &cBuffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
History
Buffon's Natural History. Volume 07 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
Natural history
and bones we have already noticed for their prodigious size, actually
belonged to the elephant. Sir Hans Sloane was of that opinion, but
he did not prove it. M. Gmelin said it still more affirmatively, and
gave on this subject several curious facts[AI]; but M. Daubenton is
the first who has proved them unquestionably by exact measures and
comparisons, and reasons founded on the great knowledge that he has
acquired in the Science of Anatomy.
[Footnote AH: Mr. Eden says, that several elephant's tusks which he
measured, were no less than nine feet long, and as big as a man's thigh
in circumference, some of them weighing more than nine pounds; and that
he saw a head in the possession of a Mr. Jude, which had been brought
from Guinea by some English ships, of which the mere bones, without the
tusks, weighed upwards of 200lbs. and it was supposed that when the
head was entire it could not weigh less than 500lbs. Lopes affirms he
met with several tusks that weighed 200lbs. _Hist. Gen. des Voyages._
This magnitude of the tusks is also confirmed by Drake, Holbe, and the
Dutch travellers.]
[Footnote AI: The Czar, Peter, being curious in Natural History, issued
orders in the year 1722, that wherever any bones of the mammoth should
be found, search should be made after the remainder, and the whole of
them sent to Petersburg, and which orders were made public in all the
towns of Siberia. In consequence of this several persons applied to the
Woywode of Jakutzk to be sent off to two different places, where they
affirmed they had seen these bones; their demands were complied with,
and many of them returned with heads and various bones, which were
transmitted to Petersburg, and placed in the imperial cabinet; but it
will be found upon examination that all the bones placed there, under
the denomination of the Mammoth bones, are perfectly similar with the
elephant's. And as to their being found under the earth and in Siberia,
it may fairly be presumed that in the great revolutions which have
happened to the earth, a great number of elephants might be driven from
their native climates; many have been destroyed by the inundations, and
those who wandered so far into the North must necessarily have perished
from the rigours of the climate. _Voyage a Kamtschatka par M. Gmelin._]
SUPPLEMENT.
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