I have reason to believe, although the fact has not been authoritatively stated by naturalists, that the stomach of the elephant will be found to include a section analogous to that possessed by some of the ruminants, calculated to contain a supply of water as a provision against emergencies.  The fact of his being enabled to retain a quantity of water and discharge it at pleasure has been long known to every observer of the habits of the animal; but the proboscis has always been supposed to be “his water-reservoir,"[1] and the theory of an internal receptacle has not been discussed.  The truth is that the anatomy of the elephant is even yet but imperfectly understood[2], and, although some peculiarities of his stomach were observed at an early period, and even their configuration described, the function of the abnormal portion remained undetermined, and has been only recently conjectured.  An elephant which belonged to Louis XIV. died at Versailles in 1681 at the age of seventeen, and an account of its dissection was published in the Memoires pour servir a l’Histoire Naturelle, under the authority of the Academy of Sciences, in which the unusual appendages of the stomach are pointed out with sufficient particularity, but no suggestion is made as to their probable uses."[3]

[Footnote 1:  BRODERIP’S Zoological Recreations, p. 259.]

[Footnote 2:  For observing the osteology of the elephant, materials are of course abundant in the indestructible remains of the animal:  but the study of the intestines, and the dissection of the softer parts by comparative anatomists in Europe, have been up to the present time beset by difficulties.  These arise not alone from the rarity of subjects, but even in cases where elephants have died in these countries, decomposition interposes, and before the thorough examination of so vast a body can be satisfactorily completed, the great mass falls into putrefaction.

The principal English authorities are An Anatomical Account of the Elephant accidentally burnt in Dublin, by A. MOLYNEUX, A.D. 1696; which is probably a reprint of a letter on the same subject in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, addressed by A. Moulin, to Sir William Petty, Lond. 1682.  There are also some papers communicated to Sir Hans Sloane, and afterwards published in the Philosophical Transactions of the year 1710, by Dr. P. BLAIR, who had an opportunity of dissecting an elephant which died at Dundee in 1708.  The latter writer observes that, “notwithstanding the vast interest attaching to the elephant in all ages, yet has its body been hitherto very little subjected to anatomical, inquiries;” and he laments that the rapid decomposition of the carcase, and other causes, had interposed obstacles to the scrutiny of the subject he was so fortunate as to find access to.