45& ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE

NOTE XXII. § 123.

FOffil Bones,

402. The remains of organifed bodies, at prefent included in the folid parts of the globe, may be divided into three claffes, The firft coofifts of the Ihells, corals, and even bodies of fifh, and amphibious animals, which are now converted into ftone, and make integrant parts of the folid rock. All thefe are parts of animals that exifted before the formation of the prefent land, or even ofthe rocks whereof it confifts. Thefe remains have been already treated of, and the evidence which they furnifh muft ever be regarded as of the utmoft importance in the theory of the earth. The fecond clafs confifts of remains, which, by the help of ftalaCtitical concretions, are converted into Ilene. Thefe are the cxuvia:: of animals, which exifted on the very fame continents on which we now d well, and are no doubt the moft ancient among their inhabitants, of which any monument is preferved. In comparifon of the firfr clafs, they muft, neverthelefs, be confidered as of very modern origin.

403. The third clafs confifrs of the bones of animals found in the loofe earth or foil; thefe have not acquired a ftony character, and their nature

HUTTONIAN THEORY.

459

ture appears to be but little changed,ex.cept by the progrefs of decompofition and of mouldering into earth. No decided line can be drawn between the antiquity of this and the preceding clafs, as there may be between the preceding and the firft. In fame inftances, the objet1:s of this third clafs may be coeval with thofe of the fecond :

. '

JD general, they muft be accounted of later ori-

gin, as they are certainly not preferved in a manner fa well fitted for long continuance.

404. The animal remains of the fecoad clafs, are generally found in the neighbourhood of limeftone ftrata, and are either enveloped or penetrated by calcareous, or fometimes ferruginous matter. Of this fort are the bones found in the rock of Gibraltar, and on the coaft of Dalmatia. The latter are peculiarly marked for their number, and the extent of the country over which tbey are fcattered, leaving it doubtful whether they are the work of fucceffive ages, or of Iome fudden cataftrophe that has afi'embled in one place, and overwhelmed with immediate deftruCtion, a vail multitude of the inhabitants of the globe. There remains are found in greateft abundance in the iflands of Cherfo and Ofero ; and always in what the Abbe FORTIS calls an ocreo-.Jlalaflitic earth. The bones are often in th.e flate of mere [plioters, the broken and confufed relics of various animals, concreted with fragments of marble

and

460 ILL USTRA TIONS OF THE

and lime, in clefts and chafms of the flrata "'. Sometimes human bones are faid to be found in thefe eonfufed maifes.

405. A very remarkable collection of bones in this ftate is found in the caves of Bayreuth in Franconia. Many ofthefe belong, as is inferred with great certainty from the ftrudure of their teeth, to a carnivorous animal of vaft fize, and having very Iittle affinity to any of thofe that are now known. The bones are found in different frates, fome being without any ftalatlitical concretion, and having the calcareous earth frill united to the phofphoric acid, fo that they belong to the third, ratber than the fecond, of the preceding divifions. In others, the phofphoric acid has wholly difappeared, and given place to the carbonic.

The number of there bones, accumulated in the fame place, is matter of aftonifhment, when it is confidered, that the animals to which they belonged were carnivorous, fo that more than two can never have lived in the fame cavern at the fame time. The caves of Bayreuth feern to have been the den and the tomb of a whole dynafty of unknown monfters, that iffued from this central Ipot to devour the fe~bler inhabitants of the woods, during a long fucceffion of ages, be-

fore

• Travels into Dalmatia, p. 449.

HUTTONIAN THEORY. 4fit

fore man had fubdued the earth, and freed it from all domination but his own.

~o6. The foffil bones of the fecond and third clafs, but chiefly of the third, have now afford. ed matter of conjecture and difcuffion for more than a century. The faCts with refpeCl: to them are very numerous and interefiing, but can be confidered here only very generally.

The remains of this kind, confifl of the bones only of large animals, fo that tbey have generally been compared with thole of the elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, or other animals of great the. The bones of fmaller animals have alfo been found, but much more rarely than the other. It is ufually remarked, that the bones thus difcovered in the earth are larger than thole of the fimilar living animals.

Another general fad: concerning thefe remains, is, that they are found in all countries whatfoever, but always in the loofe or travelled earth, and never in the genuine ftrata. Since the yeae 1696, when the attention of the curious was called to this fubjca, by the ikeleton of an elephant dug up in Thuringia, and defcrib~d by Tent'l.elius., tnere is hardly a country In Europe which has not afforded inftances of

the

• Phil. Tranf. vol. xix. p. 7 S7·

462 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE

the fame kind. Foflil bones, particularly grind .. ers and tufks of elephants, have been found in other places of Germany, in Poland, France, Italy, Britain, Ireland, and even Iceland *. Two countries, however, afford them in greater abundance by far than any other part of the known world; namely, the plains of Siberia in the old continent, and the fiat grounds on the banks of the Ohio in the new t.

407. When the bones in Siberia were firft difcovered, they w.ere fuppofed to belong to an animal that lived under ground, to which they gave the name of the mammoutb ; and the credit beftowed on this abfurd fiction, is-a proof of the flrong defire which all men feel of reconciling extraordinary appearances with the regular courfe of nature. M uch {kill. however, in natural hiftory was not required to difcover that many of the bones in queftion refembled thofe of the elephant, particularly the grinders and the tufks of that animal. Others refembled the bones of the rhinoceros ; and a head of that kind, having the

hide

• A grinder of an elephant found in Iceland, is defcribed by BartholinUl, Actor. Hafniens. vol. i, p. 83'

t The foillI bones on the Ohio are defcribed in two papers by Mr P. Collinfon, Phil. Tranf. vol. Ivii. p. 464- and 468.

HUTTONIAN THEORY. 463

hide preferved upon it, was found in Siberia and is tEll in the imperial cabinet at PeterIbur~h.

Pallas has defcribed the foflil bones which he found in the mufeum at Peterlburgh, on his being appointed to the fuperintendence of it, and enumerates, not only bones that belong, in his opinion, to the elephant and rhinoceros, but others that belong to a kind of buffalo, very different from any now known, and of a fize vaft!y greater". He has alfo defcribed, in another very curious memoir, the bones of the fame kind that he met with in his travels through the north-eaft parts of Afia.

The foffil bones found on the banks of the Ohio, refemble in many things thofe of Siberia; like them they are contained in the foil or alluvial earth, and never in the folid ftrata; like them too tbey are no otherwife changed from their natural Rate, tban by being fometimesilightly calcined at the furface; they are a1fo of great fize, and in great numbers, being probably the remains of feveral different fpecies.

40S., Two inquiries concerning thefe bones have excited the curiofitj' of naturalifts; firU, to difcover among the living tribes at pJefeot inhabiting

• Novi Comment. Petrop. tom. xiii. (1768) p. 436~ and tom, xvii, p. 576~ &~

464 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE

biting the earth, thofe to which the foffil remains may with the greateft probability be referred; and, fecondly, to find out the caufe why thefe remains exifl in fuch quantities, in countries where the animals to whi<:_h they belong, whatever they be, are at prefent unknown. The folution of the firft of 'thefe q ueftions, is much more within our reach than the fecond, and atany rate muil: be firfl fought for.

On the authority of Co eminent a naturalift as Pallas, the bones from Siberia may fafely be referred to the elephant, the rhinoceros, and buffalo, as mentioned above, though perhaps to varieties of them with which we are: not now acquainted. With refpect to the bones of North America, the queftion is more doubtful, for,they have this particular circumftance attending them, viz. that along with the thigh-bones, tuiks, &.c. which might be fuppofed to belong to the elephant,grinders are always found ofa ft rud ure and form entirely different from the grinders of that animal '*'. Some naturalifts, particularly M. D'AulENTON, referred there grinders to the hippopotamus; but Dr W. HUNTER appears to have proved, in ,a very fatisfaClory manner, that they cannot

have

• See. Mr Collinfoll's papers above referred to, Pbil.

Tr~. vol. Ivii.

HUTTON IAN THEORY. 465

ha ve belonged to either of the animals ju n mentioned, but to a cnrniuarous animal of enormous flu, the race of which, fortunately for the prefent inhabitants of the earth, Ieems now to be entire. ly extinc] *. The foundation of Dr Hunter's opinion is, that in there grinders the enamel is merely an external covering; whereas, in the elephant, and other animals deftmed to live on vegetable food, the enamel is intermix-ed with

the fubflance of the tooth t·

409. Though this argument appears to be of

confiderable weight, yet CAMPER, who was greatly {killed in comparative anatomy, and who had ftudied this fubjeCl: with particular attention, was of opinion, that thefe grinders belong to a fpecies of elephant. This opinion he flates in a letter to Pallas, who bad found grinders and other bones of this fame animal, on the weftera

G g declivity

• Phil. Tranf vo1.1viii. P: 3, &.c.

t A foIEI grinder ill the colleaion of JOHN MACGOW-

. r 1 to 1\1 r Collinfon's

AN, Efq; of Edmburgh, an wers near Y

defcriptioD, and is very well reprefented by the figure

. . . Th. . d eighs four pounds

which accompanies It. IS gnner w

. . . _f e of the corena

one-fourth a voirdu pOlS; the ClfCllIlllerenc .. £

. ..' f mel is one fourth 0

IS elghteen inches s the coat 0 eDa· .

d bi t erb: ill Mr Col-

an inch thick; there are five ou e e ,

linfon's fpeciJnen there are only four.

466 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE

declivity of the Oural mountains *. Camper denies that the animal is carnivorous, beoaufe the incifores, Of canine teeth, are wanting; and he argues farther, from the weight of the head, which may be inferred from the weight of the grinders, that the neck muft have been fhort, and the animal muft have been furnifhed with a probofcis, He afterwards abandoned the latter hypothefis, and gave it as his opinion, that the incognitum was neither carnivorous, nor a fpecies of the elephant t.

410. Neverthelefs, CUYlER, in a memoirc read before the National Inftitute of Paris, maintains, tbat thefoffil bones of the new continent, as well as moll ofthofe of the old, belong to certain [pedes of the elephant; of which, at leat1:, two do not now exift, and are only known from remains preferved in the ground. He diftinguHhes them thus :1::

Elepbas mammontcus,-maxilld obtufiore, lamellis molarium tenuibus, redis,

Elepbas America nus ,-molaribus multicuJpidibus, lamellis pofl detritionem quadri-lobatis.

The latter fpecies, which is meant to include the animal incognitum, is [aid to have lived, not only

• ACta Acad. Petrop; tom. i. (J 777) pars poflerior,

p. 213. Stc.

t Ihid. tom. ii. (1784) p. 1.62.

t Memoires de I'Inflitut National, Sciences Phy£ques, tom. ii. p. 19" Stc.

.HUTTONIAN THEORY. 4{)7

only in America, but in many parts of the old continent. Yet forne late inquiries into the ftruCture of the teeth of graminivorous animals, and particularly of the elephant, make it very improbable that [be incognitum has belonged to this genus *. The grinders of the elephant have been found to contift of three fubflances, enamel, bone, and what is called the cnifla petro/a, applied in layers, or folds contiguous to one another; and no veftige of this flrudure appears in the grinders of the unknown animal of the Ohio t.

G g 2 At

.. See Mr Home's obfervations on the teeth of graminivorous animals, Phil, Tranf 1799. Alfo, An EfTayon the fuuaure of the teeth, by Dr Blake.

t In a paper inferred in the fourth volume of.the American Philofophical Tranfa8:ions, an account is given of two different grinder:f that are found at the Salt-Licks near the Ohio. One of them refembles the grinder of the elephant, and may have belonged to the elephas Americanus of Cnvier , the other agrees pretty nearly with the grindu of Dr Hunter's animal incognitum. The author of the paper thinks that the animal incog~itum was

. ifi r canine teeth

not wholly carnivorous, as the mCJ ores, 0 ,

are never found. At the Great Bone-Lick, bones of

. . 1 f th buffalo kind have

Imaller animals partIcular y 0 e· J

. • .' tion of the earth

been difcoveTed. The falme- lmpr.egna

at thefe Licks mufl: no doubt ha ve contributed to t.he pre·

T of A enca.n PhiL Soc.

fervation of the bones. rani, tn

vol, iv. (1799) p. SIO, 8u;.

468 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE

At the fame time, Dr Hunter's alfertion, that this animal was. carnivorous, is rendered doubtful, not only by the want of canine teeth, but alfo from the refemblance between its. grinders. and thofe of the. wild boar, which Mr HOME bas obferved to be confiderable =i. The grinder of the boar is fimilar to that of the elephant, in the extent of the mafticating furface, but not at all in the internal Itrudure , and the lame is true of the tooth of the animal incognitum, fo that a confiderable probability is eftahlifhed, that it and the boar are of the [arne genus, and both deftined to live occafionally either on animal, or vegetable food.

411. Another animal incognitum found in South America has been defcribed by envier. and appears to be of a different genus from the incognitum of the North. Thus, jf we include the two incqgnita of America, the elepbas mammonteus, the unknown buffalo of Pallas, and the great animal of Bayreuth, we have at leaft five dininct genera. or fpecies of the animal kingdom, which e:x.ifted on our continents formerly, but do not exift on them now. The number is probably much greater: Pallas mentions follil horns of a gazelle, of an unknown fpecies; and horns of deer are often found, that cannot be referred to any fpecies now exifting. Thole ex-

tina

". Obfervations on the grinding teeth of the wild boar and animal incognitum. Phil. Tranf. 1801, p. 319,

HUTTONIAN THEORY. 469

tina: races have been remarkable for their fize : [orne of the ancient elephants appear to have been three times as large as any of the prefent '.

412. The inhabitants of the globe, then, like all the other parts of it. are fubjed to change : It is not only the individual that perifhes, but whole jpecies,and even perhapsgenera, are extinguilhed.

It is not unnatural to confider fame part of this change as the operation of man. The extenfion of his power would necelfarily fubvert the balance that had before been eftablillied between the inhabitants of the earth, and the means of'theirfubfiftence. Some of the larger and fiercer animals might indeed difpute with him, for a long time, the empire of the globe; and it may have required the arm of a Hercules to fubdue the monfters which lurked in the caves of Bayreuth, or roamed on tbe banks of the Ohio. But thefe, with others of the fame character, were at length exterminated: the more innocent Ipecies fled to a diflaace from man; and being forced to retire into the moft inacceffible parts, where their food was fcanty, and their migration checked, they may have degenerated fro-m the {he and ftrength of their ancefiors, and fome ipet.:ies may have been

entirely extinguifhed. _.

But befides this, a change in the animal klOg-

dam feems to be a part of the order of naturr

G g 3 and

• Camper, Nov. AfraPetrop. tom.ii. (1784)P' '157-

47Q ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE

and is vifible in inftances to which human power cannot have extended. If we look to the moft ancient inhabitants of the globe, of which the remains are preferved in the Ilrata themfelves, we find in the {hells and corals of a former world hardly any that refembl.e eKa8.1y thofe which exifb in the prefent. The Ipecies, except in a few inflances, are the fame, but fubject to great varieties. The vegetable- impreffions on Ilate, and other argiJla(:eou6 ftones, can feldom be exactly recognifed; and even the infea.s included in amber, are different from thofe oft be countries in-which the ambec is found.

413. Suppofing, then, the chaeges which have taken 'place in the qualities and habits of the animal creation, to be as great as thofe in their ftruCture and external form, we can have no rea .. Ion to wonder if it fhould appear, that [orne have formerly dwelt in countries from which the fl· milar races are now entirely banifhed. The power of living in a different climate, of enduring greater degrees of cold or of heat, or of fubfifting on different kinds of food. may very well have accompanied the other changes. Though one Ipecies of elephant may now be confined to the fouthern parts of Aua, another may have been able to endure the feverer climates of the north; and ehe fame may be true of the buffalo or the rhinoceros. In all this DO phy-

ileal

HUTTONIAN THEORY.

471

fical impoffibility is involved; though whether it is a probable [elution of the difficulty concerning the origin of there animal remains, can only be judged of from other circumftances.

414. If we confider attentively the fads that refpea: the Siberian foilli bones, there will appear infurmountable objections to every theory that fuppofes them to be exotic, and to have been brought into their prefent fituation from a difrant country.

The extent of the trad through which there bones are fcattered, is a circumftance truly wonderful. Pallas aflures us *', that there is not a river of confiderable fize in all the north of Afia, from tbe Tanais, which runs into the Black Sea, to the Anadyr, which falls into the Gulf of Kamtcbatka, in tbe fides or bottom of which bones of elephants and other large animals have not been found. This is efpecially the cafe where the rivers run in plains through gravel, fand, clay, &.c. ; among the mountains, tbe bones are rarely difcovered. The extent of the trad juft mentioned exceeds four thoufand miles ; and how the bones could be dHlributed over all that extent, by any means but by the animals having

G g 4 lived

• De Reliquiis Animalium e%oticotnl1l, per .A.fla~ Borealem repertis.-Nov. Comment. retrop. tom. XVll.

(I77~) p. 516.

472 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE

lived there, it feems impoffible to conceive. No torrent nor inundation could have produced this effect, nor could the bones brought in that way have been laid together fa as to form complete fkeletons,

415. One fall:. recorded by the fame author, feerns calculated to remove all uncertainty. It is that of the carcafe of a rhinoceros, almofl entire, and covered with the hide, found in the earth in the banks of the river Wilui, which falls into the Lena below Jacutik *. Some of the mufcles and tendons were 'actually adhering to tbe bead when Pallas received it. The head, after being dried in an oven, is frill preferved in the mufeum at Peterfburgh, The prefervation of the fkin and mufcles of this natural mummy, as Pallas calls it, was no doubt brought about by its being buried in earth that was in a ftate of perpetual congelation; for the place is in tbe parallel of 640, where the ground is never thawed but to a very fmall depth below the furface.

But by what means can we account for the carcafe ofa rhinoceros being buried in the earth. on the confines of the polar circle? Shall we.afcribe it to [orne immenfe torrent. which, [weeping acrofs the defarts of Tartary, and the mountains of Altai, tranfported the productions of In.

dia

.. Pallas. ubi jllpra, P: 586. Alfo, Voyages de Pa}las4 tom. iv. p. Ijl.

HUTTONIAN THEORY.

473

dia to the plains of Siberia, and interred in the mud of the Lena the animals that had fed on tbe banks of the Barampooter or the Ganges? Were all other objections to fo extraordinary a fuppofition removed, the prefervation of the hide and mufcles of a dead animal, and the adhefion of the parts, while it was dragged for 2000 miles uver fame of the higbefl and moil rugged mountains in the world, is too abfurd to be for a moment admitted. Or [hall we fuppofe that this carcafe has been floated in by an inundation of the fea, from fome tropical country now fwallowed up, and of which the numerous iflands of tbe Indian Archipelago are the remains? The heat of a tropical climate, and the putrefcence naturally arifing from it, would [Don, independently of all other accidents, have ftripped the bones of their covering. Indeed this i'!ftantiiljingulariJ, as in every fenfe it may properly be called, feerns calculated for the exprefs purpofe of excluding every hypothefis but one from being employed to explain tbe origin of foflil bones. It not only excludes the two which have juil: been mentioned. but it excludes alfo that of BuffoD, viz. that there bones are the remains of animals which lived in Siberia when the arctic regions enjoyed a fine climat:,and a temperature like that which fouthern Afia now poffcifes. From the prefe~v~tion of the flefh and hide of this rninoceros, It IS plain, that when the body was buried in the

earth,

474 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE

earth, the climate was much tbe fame that it is now, and the cold fufficient to refifl the progrefs of putrefaction,

Pallas takes notice of the inconfiftency of the fiate of this fkeIeton, with the hypothefis of Buffon; but he does not obferve that the inconfiftency is equally great between it and his own hypothefis, the importation of the foffil bones by an inundation of the fea, and that fielli or mufcle rnuft have been entirely confumcd long before it could be carried by the waves to the parallel of 64°, from any climate which the rhinoceros at prefent inhabits.

416. The prefence of petrified marine objects in places where [orne of the foillI bones are found, is no proof that the latter have come from the tea, though it is produced as tuch both by Pallas himfelf, and afterwards by Kirwan. Thefe marine bodies are the Ihells and corals that have been parts of calcareous rocks, from which being detached by the ordinary progrefs of difintegration, they are now contained in the beds of [and or gravel 'where the animal remains are buried. They have nothing in common with thefe remains; they are real flones, and belong to another, and a far more remote epocha, Such objects being found in the fame place where the bones lie, argues only that the ftrata in the higher grounds, from which the gravel has come, are calcareous; and nothing can thew in a ftronger

light

HUTTONIAN THEORY.

475

jjght the neceffity of diflinguifhing the different condition of foilll bodies, united by the mere circumflance of contiguity, before we draw any inference as to their having a common origin. If the marine remains were in the fame condition with the bones; if they were in no refpeCl: mineralized; then the conclufion, that both had been imported by the fea, would have great probability; but without that, their prefent union muft be held as cafual, and can give no infight into the origin of either,

417.00 the whole, therefore, no conclufion remains, but that there bones have belonged to Ipecies of elephants, rhinoceros, &c. which inhabited the very countries where their remains are now buried. and which could endure the feverity of the Siberian climate. The rhinoceros of the Wilui certainly lived on the confines of the Polar circle, and was expofed to the fame cold while alive, by which, when dead, its body has been fo long, and Jo curioufly preferved-

There animals may a1[0 have lived occafionally farther to the fouth, among the valleys between the great ranges of mountains that bound Siberia on that fide. Foflil bones are but rarely found in thefe valleys, probably becaufe they have been wallied down from thence into the plains. We muLl: obferve, too, that thole animals may have migrated with the Ieafens, and by that means avoided the rig~rous

wwter

476 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE.

winter of the high latitudes. The dominion of man, by rendering fuch migration to the larger animals difficult or irnpoflible, rnufl have greatly changed the economy of all thofe tribes, and narrowed the circle of their enjoyments and exiftence. The heaps in which the foffil bones appear to be accumulated in particular places, efpeciaUy in North America, have a great appearance of being connected with the migrations of animals, and the accidents that might bring multitudes of them into the fame fpot.

What holds of Siberia and of North America, is applicable, a fortiori. to all the other places where animal remains are found in tbe fame condition. Thus we are carried back to a time when many larger Ipecies of animals, now entirely extinct, inhabited the earth, and when varieties of thofe that are at prefent confined to particular fituations, were, either by tbe liberty of migration, or by their natural conftitution, accommodated to all the diverfities of climate. This period, though beyond the limits of ordinary chronology. is pofterior to the great revolutions on the earth's furface, and the lateft among geological epochas,

NQTE