fhould further appear, from Dr. Ingenhouz's train of experiments, that plants have the power of feparating phlogiston from common air, applying it to their nurture, and throwing out the pure or dephlogisticated refiduum, as excrementitious. Now allowing, what appears highly probable, that they have a fimilar power of decompofing fixed air, and of applying and rejecting its constituent parts, our method of conducting the experiments was not injurious to the procefs; whereas, when confined in clofe veffels, as by Dr. Prieftley, the plants would be fuffocated, in a manner reversed to what would happen to an animal. For as in that cafe, from a want of communication with the atmosphere, as néceffary to carry off the phlogifton thrown out from the lungs, (according to the beautiful theory of respiration, advanced and fo well fupported by Dr. Priestley) the animal must perifh; fo, in the other inftance the plant would die, if cut off from the air of the atmosphere, in fuch manner, that the pure air excreted by its veffels could not be conveyed from it. For, in thefe circumftances, this fluid, fo falutary to animal, but deftructive to vegetable, life, must be accumulated in the body of the plant, and, its functions being thus impeded, death is the neceffary confequence.

This reasoning feems to be confirmed by fome of the facts which you have communicated to me, from your Journal. For it appears, from

feveral

feveral of your experiments, that during feven hours of the day, viz. from 10, A. M. to 5, P. M. the plants, you employed, were exposed to varying proportions of fixed air, feldom exceeding the proportion of air, contained in the veffel, and never less than . But, from 5 o'clock in the evening till 10, the fucceeding day, the quantity of fixed air feems to have varied, from to of the whole air. Now a plant expofed to fuch diverfified proportions of air, paffing too in a ftream through the veffel, must be in a favourable state, both for exhalation, and confequently for the process of inhalation alfo.

I am, dear SIR,

With the most perfect regard,

Your faithful, affectionate Friend,

THOMAS HENRY.

MANCHESTER, May 12, 1784.

OBSERVATIONS

OBSERVATIONS on a THIGH BONE of UNCOMMON LENGTH. By C. WHITE, Efq. F. R. S. &c. Read November 10, 1784.

N different parts of Siberia, as well in the mountains as the valleys; likewife in Ruffia, Germany, Peru, the Brazils, and North America, on the banks of the Ohio near the river Mimme, feven hundred miles from the feacoaft, and five or fix feet beneath the furface of the earth, there have frequently been found, at various times, foffil tusks and bones of a very large fize, fomewhat refembling those of the elephant. In temperate climates, the tufks are foftened, and converted into foffil ivory; but in countries frequently frozen they are generally found very fresh. Many of them may be seen in the Imperial Cabinet at Petersburgh, in the British, Dr. Hunter's, and Sir Afhton Lever's Museums, and in that of the Royal Society. According to tradition, these were reported to be the tufks and bones of the Mammouth, an animal, which, if ever it exifted, is not now, that we know, any longer an inhabitant of any part of this globe. A defcription of the Mammouth

is given by Muller.* This animal, he lays, is four or five yards high, and about thirty feet long. His colour is greyifh.

His head is very

long, and his front very broad. On each fide, precifely under the eyes, there are two horns, which he can move and cross at pleasure. In walking he has the power of extending and contracting his body to a great degree. Ifbrandes Ides gives a fimilar account; but he is candid enough to acknowledge, that he never knew any person who had feen the Mammouth alive. Mr. Pennant, however, thinks it "more than

probable, that it ftill exifts in fome of those "remote parts of the vast new Continent, impe"netrated yet by Europeans. Providence," he adds, "maintains and continues every created "species; and we have as much affurance, that "no race of animals will any more ceafe while "the earth remaineth, than feed time and harvest, "cold and beat, fummer and winter, day and night."

Several eminent naturalifts of late years, as Sir Hans Sloane, † Gmelin, Daubenton, and Buffon, are of opinion that these prodigious bones and tusks are really the bones and tufks

* Moeurs & Ufages des Oftiaques dans le Recueil des Voyages au Nord.

+ Histoire de l'Acad. des Sciences Ann. 1717. p. 1.

† Relation d'un Voyage a Kamtfchatka par M. Gmelin en 1735-A Peterburgh-en langue Ruffe.

of

of elephants; and many modern philofophers have held the Mammouth to be as fabulous as the Centaur.

The great difference in fize they endeavour to account for, as arifing from difference in age, fex, and climate; and the cause of their being found in thofe northern parts of the world, where elephants are no longer natives, nor can even long exist, they prefume to have arifen from hence; that, in the great revolutions which have happened in the earth, the elephants, to avoid destruction, have left their native country, and difperfed themfelves wherever they could find fafety, Their lot has been different. Some in a longer, and others in a fhorter time after their death, have been tranfported to great distances by fome vaft inundations. Thofe, on the contrary, which furvived, and wandered far to the north, must neceffarily have fallen victims to the rigours of the climate. Others, without reaching to fo great a distance, might be drowned, or perish with fatigue.

In the year 1767, Dr. Hunter, with the affiftance of his brother, Mr. J. Hunter, had an opportunity of inveftigating more particularly this part of natural hiftory, and has evidently proved, that thefe foffil bones and tusks are not only larger than the generality of elephants, but that the tufks are more twisted, or have more of the spiral curve than elephants' teeth, and that

the