320 STRUCTURE AND ADAPTATION OF TEETH 



That wonderful organ, the proboscis, demands 

 a passing notice. From the shortness of the ani- 

 mal's neck, and the enormous weight of the tusks, 



Fig. 48. — Molar of African Elephattt, showing diffeient form of 

 dentinal plates. 



E. Enamd. D. Dentine. C. Cementum. 



the creature would find difficulty in cropping its 

 food were it not for the possession of this specially- 

 adapted organ, composed of multitudes of small 

 muscles (estimated by Baron Cuvier at forty 

 thousand), so variously interlaced as to bestow on 

 it the most complicated powers of mobility, in all 

 the varieties of extension and contraction. It 

 enables the animal at will, to exert the enormous 

 strength of a limb, or to execute the most delicate 

 feats of finger-like touch. Endowed with exquisite 

 sensibility combined with power, this organ, at 

 the will of the animal, will uproot a lofty tree, or 

 crop tender herbage ; will raise heavy cannon, or 

 pick up a pin ; and its great length supplies the 

 place of the long, flexible neck of the ruminants, 

 which would have been incompatible with the 

 support of the large head and weighty tusks. All 



