Great Mastodon. 349 



We shall now close our observations on the remains of the 

 Mastodon giganteum, by one more quotation from an au- 

 thority which our author appears to esteem as conclusive in 

 such matters ; we allude to Mr William Cowper of New York, 

 whom our author states " has been long engaged in the inves- 

 tigation of the history of the mastodon ; has visited Big-bone- 

 lick for the purpose of obtaining materials ; and who, upwards 

 of a year since, communicated to the Lyceum of Natural His- 

 tory of New York, some observations on the dentition of that 

 animal.*"* 



The conclusion to which Mr Cooper arrived after the 

 fullest and most complete investigation of the most extensive 

 collections of the mastodon bones, in this country, of the fa- 

 mous " Tetracaulodon"*' inclusive, will be found in the follow- 

 ing paragraph, and needs no comment : — 



" The ' TetracaulodorC of the late justly lamented Dr God- 

 man, appears to me, after a careful examination of his speci- 

 men, to be another young individual, also of the common mas- 

 todon, but older than mine. I have stated my reasons for this 

 opinion, in a paper on the dentary system of the mastodon, 

 which I read to the Lyceum of Natural History, in April 1830. 

 It appears, however, from recent observations, that the lower 

 tusks which I supposed all the species to have possessed in 

 their youth, were in some instances permanent during the ad- 

 vanced age of the animal. But whether this was a sexual cha- 

 racteristic, or merely an individual case of anomaly, of which I 

 have seen other curious examples, / cannot recognise more than 

 one species of' mastodon among the great quantity of their re- 

 mains found in the United States^ which have come under my 

 observation^ those just alluded to included^ — Vid. " Notices of 

 Big-bone-lick, by Wm. Cooper,'* Monthly Am. Joum. of Geo- 

 logy and Natural Science, conducted by G. W. Featherston- 

 haugh, vol. i. p. 158. 



Finally, in the original memoir, descriptive of this supposed 

 new genus, the author has himself expressed doubts of the va- 

 lidity of the characters on which it is proffered. He admits 

 that the specimens he has described are the remains of a young 



• Ut Supra, p. 336. 

 VOL. XVII. NO. XXXIV. OCTOBER 1834. A a 



