foundations of houses, and eat out the entire body of the frame, so as to leave only the outside shell and original shape of the timber. FOSSIL TEETH. M. HUMBOLDT, in his letters dated Lima, 1802, to C. Delambres, one of the perpetual secretaries of the National Institute, says, 'Besides the elephants' teeth which we sent to G. Cuvier, from the land of Santa Fe, one thousand three hundred and fifty toises in height, we have preserved for him others more beautiful: some of the carnivorous elephant, and others of a species a little different from those of Africa, brought from the valley of Timaney, the town of Iborra, and from Chili. Here, then, we have confirmed the existence of this carnivorous monster from the river Ohio, from fifty degrees northern latitude to thirty-five degrees south latitude. Near Santa Fe there are found, in the Campo de Gigante, at the height of one thousand three hundred and seventy toises, an immense number of fossil elephants' bones, both of the African species and of the carnivorous kind, discovered near the Ohio. We caused several to be dug up, and have sent some specimens of them to the National Institute. I much doubt whether any of these bones were ever before found at such a great height: since that time I have received two from a place of the Andes, situated about two degrees of latitude from Quito and Chili; so that I can prove the existence and destruction of these gigantic elephants, from the Ohio to the country of the Patagonians. SIBERIAN ELEPHANT. IN 1799, upon the shores of the Frozen Ocean, near the mouth of the river Lena, in Siberia, a Tongouse chief discovered, in the midst of a rock of ice, a substance which did not resemble the floating pieces of wood usually found there: he endeavored in vain to discover what it was at that time: about the close of the second summer the melting of the ice enabled him to know that it was a mammoth; but he could not succeed in obtaining the tusks of the animal until the end of the fifth year, when the ice which enclosed it having partly melted, the level became sloped, and this enormous mass, pushed forward by its own weight, fell over upon its side on a sand bank. In March, 1804, the chief Schoumachoff obtained the tusks and sold them for fifty roubles. In the summer of 1806, Michael Adams, a member of the Academy of St. Petersburg, visited the mammoth in company with the chief, and found it in a very mutilated state. The proprietor was content with the profit he had already derived from it, and the jackouts of the neighborhood tore off the flesh, with which they fed their dogs. Ferocious animals, white bears of the north pole, gluttons, wolves, and foxes, preyed upon it also, and their burrows were seen in the neighborhood. The skeleton, almost completely unfleshed, was entire, with the exception of one of the fore-feet. The spindyle, from the head to the os coccygis, a shoulderblade, the pelvis, and the remains of the three extremities, were still tightly attached by the ligaments of the joints, and by strips of skin on the exterior side of the carcass. The head was covered with a dry skin; one of the ears, well preserved, was furnished with a tuft of bristles. The eyes were also preserved, and the ball of the left eye could be distinguished. The tip of the under lip had been eaten away, and the upper part being destroyed, exhibited the teeth The brain was still in the cranium, but it appeared dry. The parts least damaged were a fore foot and a hind one, covered with skin, and having still the sole attached. According to the assertion of the chief, the animal had been so large and well-fed, that its belly hung down below the knee joints. This animal was a male, with a long mane at its neck; but it had no tail, and no trunk. The skin, three-fourths of which Mr Adams took with him, is a deep gray, and covered with a reddish hair, and black bristles, and was of such extraordinary weight, that ten persons moved it with difficulty. The entire carcass (the bones of which he collected on the spot, and the tusks he afterwards procured) is about nine feet high, and fourteen feet long, English measure, from the tip of the nose to the coccyx, without, however, comprehending the two horns or tusks, each of which is a toise and a half long, and both together weigh four hundred pounds. The head alone, weighs four hundred and sixty pounds. Mr. Adams collected from the sand bank more than forty pounds of the bristles, which the white bears might have trodden into the wet ground on devouring the flesh. Some of the hair was presented to the Museum of Natural History of Paris, and on examination, was found to consist of three distinct kinds; one of these is stiff black bristles two feet in length; another is thinner bristles of coarse flexible hair, of a reddish brown color, and the third is a coarse reddish brown wool, which grew among the roots of the long hair; affording, according to Cuvier, an undeniable proof that this animal has belonged to a race of elephants inhabiting a cold region. MILLDAMS PREVENT THE MULTIPLICATION OF FISHES. THE milldams and other artificial obstacles in rivers against the ascent of anadromous fishes have, in some places, entirely expelled them, and in others diminished their number. The salmon, if we may credit the account of Hudson's voyage, formerly visited Hudson river he is now an entire stranger, and he is retiring very rapidly from the Connecticut river, and from several streams that flow into the western lakes. The disappearance of fish for years, as, for instance, the lobster, during the revolutionary war, and sometimes the visits of strange fish, are circumstances deserving of observation. The best mode of multiplying and preserving shell-fish would be a subject useful to investigate, and why might we not increase our fresh water fish by importing the carp and tench for propagation, as was formerly done in Great Britain? THE mammoth of New York, although bearing some general resemblance to the elephant, differs from it in the general figure-in the tusks, formation of the head, prominence and pointedness of the back over the shoulders, its great descent thence to the hips, together with the comparative smallness of the body; there are proofs of greater activity also in the structure of the thigh bones, and the formation of the ribs, which are peculiar, and indicative of greater strength. It also differs in the magnitude of the spines of the back; the proportionate length of the processes from the spine of the scapula; the thickness and strength of all the bones, particularly of the limbs; the teeth, which are of the carnivorous kind; its under jaw, which is distinctly angular, instead of being semicircular, as in the elephant; besides several other striking distinc tions. There can be little doubt but that it is, therefore, at least, specifically distinct from the elephant. ORIGINAL MISCELLANY. NEW BOOKS, &c. THE MECHANIC,-a Journal of the useful Arts snd Sciences, edited by T. CLAXTON, GEO. W. LIGHT, and J. M. WIGHTMAN. If artizans in the United States, and particularly in New-England, do not sustain this valuable periodical, they do not deserve that honorable place in society, which men of understanding have assigned them. Knowledge is certainly power, but without that kind of practical common sense, and that condensation of analytical experience, which is presented from month to month in the publication before us, the mechanic will labor to disadvantage, because he cannot avail himself of the discoveries of others, and in the end, he will ascertain, but at a period altogether too late, that he has been wasting much of a precious life in preparing to accomplish what has already been done, but of which he was unfortunately totally ignorant. Every mechanic in the twenty-four states should become a subscriber. AMERICAN ANNALS OF EDUCATION AND INSTRUCTION,-edited by the Rev. William C. Woodbridge. Since the first appearance of the Annals, it has been considered a periòdical of a high order, by literary gentlemen in this country and Europe. Mr. Woodbridge possesses very rare qualifications for conducting the work, and most heartily do we desire to hear that its circulation has been widely extended in our own enterprizing country. THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS IN PHRENOLOGY, or that Science taught in imitation of John Bunyan; to be printed in three parts. Part I., by Uncle Toby. New London, published by Samuel Green. 'Away went Gilpin, neck or naught, away went hat and wig; And such appears to be the condition of our author. For insanity there would be some apology, but when, to all human appearance, a man in the full possession of thirty-two phrenological bumps, with malice pre pense, and without fear of the ghost of Uncle Toby before his eyes, writes twenty-three pages octavo, of such mysterious nonsense, and with such a title too, he must charitably be |