If the present _elephants_ of _India_ were the descendants of these ancient elephants, which have been preserved in that climate to the present day, from their being there placed beyond the reach of the catastrophe which destroyed them in the others, it would be impossible to explain why their species has been destroyed in America, where remains are still found, which prove that they had formerly existed there. The vast empire of Mexico presented to them heights enough to escape from an inundation so little elevated as that which we must suppose to have taken place, and the climate there is warmer than is requisite for their temperament. The various _mastodons_, the _hippopotamus_ and the _fossil rhinoceros_ lived in the same countries, and in the same districts, as the _elephants_, since their bones are found in the same strata and in the same state. Yet these animals very assuredly no longer exist. Every thing therefore, Cuvier maintains, concurs to induce a belief that the _fossil elephant_ is, like them, an extinct species, although it resembles more than they one of the species at present existing, and that its extinction has been produced by a sudden cause, by the same great catastrophe which destroyed the species of the same epoch. 3. _On the Great Mastodon, or Animal of the Ohio._ It appears that the _Great Mastodon_ or _Animal of the Ohio_, was very like the elephant in its tusks and whole skeleton, the grinders excepted; that it very probably had a proboscis; that its height did not exceed that of the elephant, but that it was a little more elongated, and had limbs somewhat thicker, with a more slender belly. Notwithstanding all these points of resemblance, the peculiar structure of its grinders is sufficient to constitute it of a different genus from the elephant. It further appears, that it fed much in the same manner as the hippopotamus and boar, choosing by preference the roots and other fleshy parts of vegetables; that this sort of food must have drawn it towards the soft and marshy places; that, nevertheless, it was not formed for swimming, and living often in the water like the hippopotamus, but that it was a true land animal. Its bones are much more common in North America than any where else. They are even perhaps exclusively confined to that country. They are better preserved, and fresher, than any other fossil bones known; and, nevertheless, there is not the slightest proof, the smallest authentic testimony, calculated to impress a belief that either in America, or any where else, there is still any living individual, for the various accounts which we have from time to time read in the journals respecting living mastodons, which had been observed in the forests or plains of that vast continent, have never been confirmed, and can only pass for fables. NOTE ON THE CAVES IN WHICH BONES OF CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS OCCUR IN GREAT QUANTITIES.