306 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEIHY 



objects of natural history. Professor Kaup, as soon as I called on him, 

 conducted me to the Castle, and, having exposed to view the objects of 

 my research, left me to examine them as long as I thought proper. 



" My attention was first directed to the Mastodon relics. Professor 

 Kaup had instituted a new species of Mastodon, under the name of M. 

 longirostris, thus separating it from M. angustidens, with which it had 

 formerly been confounded. The name longirostris is derived from 

 the length of its jaw compared with that of other Mastodons. Another 

 distinction is in the form of its teeth, the number of eminences on 

 most of them being greater than in other animals of the same family. 

 The number of teeth is also greater than in the M. giganteus, the 

 latter having twenty-four teeth, to which are added in the former two 

 germs in the upper, and possibly two in the lower jaw ; which last, 

 however, I believe, have not been ascertained. A very fine collection 

 of teeth, both in and out of place, serves to illustrate some of the most 

 important points of Mastodon odontology. 



" From the examination of these valuable fossils, my attention was 

 next attracted to one of the most remarkable relics of the ancient 

 world, the Dinotherium. This is thought to have been the largest of 

 terrestrial quadrupeds. The first remains of this animal were found in 

 France during the last century. Fragments of skeletons continued to 

 be discovered during the early period of the present, when, in 1829, 

 Professor Kaup obtained from the Eppelsheim deposit a sufficient 

 number of bones to satisfy him that this was a new genus, to which he 

 gave the name Dinotherium, from beivos, terrible, and 6-qp'iov, animal. 



" Before this time, it had been thought by some writers to belong to 

 a marine family, such as the Manatus or the Dugong, from the form of 

 the occipital condyle ; by others to the Pangolin, a kind of hedgehog, 

 from an ungual phalanx, now considered to have been the relic of 

 some other animal. And by Cuvier it was thought to be allied to the 

 Tapir, from the form of its pre-molar teeth ; the outer ridges of which 

 are united by a connecting wall, as in the corresponding teeth of the 

 Tapir. 



" A remarkable instance is afforded by the last circumstance of the 

 sagacity and science of this celebrated person, who, from so small a 

 piece of mechanism, could imagine the whole structure and habits of 

 the animal. Professors De Blainville and Kaup have justly remarked, 

 however, that the pretension of being able to construct a skeleton from 

 a single bone will not hold good in regard to the Dinotherium and 



