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The Story of the Elephants: Ireland

Another crushing answer to the absurd explanations of Cuvier's countrymen was added by the sagacious Dean Buckland, who pointed out that in England, as on the Continent, the remains of elephants are accompanied by the bones of the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, animals which not even Roman armies could have subdued or tamed! Owen also adds that the bones of fossil elephants are found in Ireland, where Cæsar's army never set foot. It was in 1796 that Cuvier announced that the teeth and bones of the European fossil elephants were distinct in species from both the African and the Indian elephant, the only two living species (El. africanus and El. indicus). This fundamental fact opened out to him new views about the creation of the world and its inhabitants, and a rapid glance over other fossil bones in his collection showed him the truth and the value of this great idea (namely, the existence of extinct types), to which he consecrated the rest of his life. Thus palæontology may be said to have been founded on the Mammoth.