Imagine that Progress has been created in the early nineteenth century. The correspondent of the Red Cross, paid as little as today, could do this interview:
Exclusive Interview with Mr. Knight Bredin director of the Veterinary School
Mr. Bredin what effect you made the discovery in August of fossil bones in common Red Cross?
It is with deep emotion that I find myself in the presence of these ancient witnesses of disasters and revolutions that changed the world, it is not without an indescribable melancholy on my back destination and the destination of mankind, I ask that these prestigious witnesses whose term frightens the imagination of a creature that was not even yesterday and tomorrow will be longer.
What can we take your comments?
Already, these immense deposits of belemnites, a echinites, ammonites, of encrinites, and many other marine animals that we see in our limestone rocks, show the observer warned on several occasions, the country inhabited today were covered in sea water; they teach him that there was a time when the earth was not adorned by plants, nor animated by sentient beings.
To return to the bones of elephants, which have found their summers?
These bones from mammals, it is not only elephants, were found in a garden that Mr. Kraulis, manufacturer and owner, has to Caluire, the limits of this county and Croix-Rousse in the angle formed between them, the path of the loop that leads to the Rhone and of the gate leading to the village Caluire at Margnole at Montessuy to Carette, etc..
Can you clarify for our readers ...?
This garden is located near the summit or ridge of the hill at the beginning of the slope that tilts toward the Rhone, that is to say on the slopes of the Croix-Rousse watching the Rhone The plains of Dauphine, the Alps, Mont Blanc ... It is therefore exposed to the southeast. Its gently sloping ground, is tilted from northwest to southeast, below the slope of the mountain becomes faster and drops into the valley deep enough that follows the path of the loop.
Under what circumstances this discovery?
Mr. Kraul was building a house in the upper part of the garden along the path of the grid. Pioneer masons, digging to 4 meters southeast of the building, a large pit from which they withdrew land red marl, which in our region, is used to build in pizai, found at 23 decimetres below the ground , bones very large they have not hesitated to look like from these ancient giants that are claimed to have once inhabited the earth.
And you do not believe in this assumption?
course not! We note that almost all European writers, even the most enlightened and less credulous, which preceded the last century, attributed to this ancient race of giants every bone whose size was greater than that of the strongest animals in our climates. During the reign of Louis XIII, was shown in Paris elephant bones found in Dauphine not far from the Rhone, which pretended to be the remains of Teutobochus, this king of the Cimbri who fought against Marcius! There are not 20 years we donated to the Veterinary School of the femur of an elephant, which had been cast these words: bone giant!
These bones, they all belong to one or elephants?
But no! I told you: some belong to an elephant, others horses, some with oxen.
Are there many?
For the elephant ago lower jaw armed with four molars, a lumbar vertebra, a huge spinous process belonging to the third dorsal vertebra, the first rib, both humerus, a femur head, the two guards and a large number of different fragments. I have described, measured and drawn with the bones of great detail. I also located the exact position on the ground of all these bones.
When it comes to elephant tusks ... we think
We did not find any defenses which it is nevertheless likely that the elephant was provided, but I hope that by digging deeper side of NO one will discover the bones, which, given their weight and the little area they represent, will not be driven into soft earth and light.
Finally Sir, our colleagues from the capital to discuss the question whether the fossil bones, belonging or not to one of the elephants of Hannibal. When do you think?
I do not think so. I am writing to show that these bones belonged to an elephant primogenius, prior to the time of Hannibal and it's a species that was already extinct before the Punic Wars.
Sources Historical Archives and Statistics Department of the Rhone 1825
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