Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 56=63.= Geographical Limits of the Elephant and the Mammoth. 1781
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From the thirtieth degree of south latitude to the thirtieth of north are nearly the limits which nature has fixed for the existence and multiplication of the elephant known to us. Proceeding thence northwardly to thirty-six and a half degrees, we enter those assigned to the mammoth. The farther we advance north, the more their vestiges multiply, as far as the earth has been explored in that direction; and it is as probable as otherwise, that this progression continues to the pole itself, if land extends so far. The centre of the frozen zone, then, may be the acme of their vigor, as that of the torrid is of the elephant. Thus nature seems to have drawn a belt of separation between these two tremendous animals, whose breadth indeed is not precisely known, though at present we may suppose it to be about six and a half degrees of latitude; to have assigned to the elephant the regions south of these confines, and those north to the mammoth, founding the constitution of the one in her extreme of heat, and that of the other in the extreme of cold. When the Creator has therefore separated their nature as far as the extent of the scale of animal life allowed to this planet would permit, it seems perverse to declare it the same, from a partial resemblance of their tusks and bones. But to whatever animal we ascribe these remains, it is certain such a one has existed in America, and that it has been the largest of all terrestrial beings.
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