496 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. . 



Essex gives a length of nine feet ten inches along the outer curve, and 

 two feet five inches in circumference at the thickest part. Another 

 specimen weighed one hundred and sixty pounds ; and a dredged 

 specimen taken off Dungeness was eleven feet long. The mammoth's 

 tusks have long formed articles of commerce and barter in Siberia ; 

 the ivory, as Professor Owen remarks, being "so little altered as to 

 be fit for the purposes of manufacture." The mammoth's extensive 

 range forms not the least noteworthy point in its history. It certainly 

 roamed farther abroad, so far as we know, than any other elephantine 

 form. Its remains occur in Britain and in Europe generally ; they 

 have been found on the Mediterranean coast and in Siberia ; and they 

 are met with in North America as well. In Scotland and in Ireland 

 the mammoth was apparently less plentiful, but its remains occur in 

 these countries, where, indeed, no other elephantine remains are found. 

 It may be added that the molar teeth of the mammoth are by no 

 means unlike those of the Indian elephant in the arrangement and pat- 

 tern of its enamel plates. 



Another extinct elephant, equally famous with the mammoth, was 

 the Mastodon a name given to these animals in allusion to the nipple- 

 like projections seen on the surface of the molar teeth. Their remains 

 occur in Europe, Asia, and in North and South America. In the mo- 

 rasses of Ohio and Kentucky, for example, whole skeletons of these 

 interesting ele])hants have been discovered. The length of the mas- 

 todon in some cases exceeded sixteen feet ; and the tusks have been 

 found to measure twelve feet in length. Over a dozen species of mas- 

 todons have been described, but they agree in certain important char- 

 acters which serve to distinguish them from other elephants. Thus, 

 the roughened teeth appear to have been adapted for bruising coarse 

 herbs and leaves indeed, associated with mastodon remains in America 

 collections of leaves have been found occupying the situation in which 

 the stomach of the animal would have been situated, and thus indicat- 

 ing the dietary of these extinct giants. Furthermore, a most impor- 

 tant difference between the mastodons and other elephants is found in 

 the fact that these animals possessed two tusks springing from the 

 lower jaw, in addition to the tusks with which, as in ordinary ele- 

 phants, the upper jaw was provided. But it would seem that these 

 lower tusks never attained a large size, while it is probable that they 

 fell out when the animal attained the adult period of its existence. 



More extraordinary still, in respect of its variations from the ordi- 

 nary structure of the elephants, was the Dinotherium (Fig. 4), the 

 fossil remains of which occur in Europe and in India. The skull of 

 a dinotherium has been found to measure four feet in length, while 

 a thigh-bone was five feet three inches long. Thus, in so far as size 

 is concerned, the dinotherium may claim a foremost place among its 

 elephantine cousins. But various circumstances seem to suggest that 

 the latter animal departed from the elephant type in certain important 



