230 PROBOSCIDIA. 
the first coarse crushing of the branches of a tree : the trans- 
verse enamel ridges of the succeeding part of the tooth divide 
the food into smaller fragments, and the posterior islands 
and tubercles of enamel pound it to the pulp fit for deglu- 
tition. The structure and progressive development of the 
tooth not only give to the Elephant’s grinder the advan- 
tage of the uneven surface which adapts the millstone for 
its office, but, at the same time, secure the constant pre- 
sence of the most efficient arrangement for the finer commi- . 
nution of the food, at the part of the mouth which is 
nearest the fauces. 
One cannot contemplate the more numerous lamelliform 
divisions and subcylindrical subdivisions of the crown of 
the Mammoth’s molar, and the resulting increase of the 
dense enamel that enters into the formation of the grinding 
surface, as compared with the teeth of the Indian and 
African Elephants, without connecting that specific difter- 
ence of structure with the coarser kind of vegetable food, 
on which the geographical position of the Mammoth in 
the temperate regions of the ancient world would most 
probably compel it to subsist.* 
VARIETIES.—QUESTION OF SPECIES. 
The varieties to which the grinders of the Elephant 
are subject in regard to the thickness and number of their 
plates, increase in the ratio of the average number of the 
plates which characterizes the molar teeth of the different 
species. Thus in the African Elephant, (fig. 88,) in which 
* The reader desirous of full information on the structure, growth, and succes- 
sion of the teeth of Elephants, is referred to Mr. Corse’s and Sir Everard Home’s 
Papers in the 69th Volume of the Philosophical Transactions, and to the ‘ Ossemens 
Fossiles’ of Cuyier, tom. i. p. 31, 
