CORYPHODON 323 



contemporary anatomists surmised that the writer had mis- 

 taken the fore for the back part of the jaw of his Coryphodon, 

 which, in that case, might only be the known Lophiodon. In 

 both instances the conclusions founded on the less obvious 

 characters have proved to be correct. And the writer would 

 remark that, in the course of his experience, he has often 

 found that the prominent appearances which first catch the 

 eye, and indicate a conformable conclusion, are deceptive ; and 

 that the less obtrusive phenomena which require searching 

 out, more frequently, when their full significance is reasoned 

 up to, guide to the right comprehension of the whole. It is 

 as if truth were whispered rather than outspoken b} T Nature. 



Truth, it is sometimes said, lies at the bottom of a well. 

 The first additional glimpse that the writer obtained of the 

 veritable nature of one of our most ancient tertiary Mammals 

 was derived from the inspection of a fossil tooth brought up 

 from a depth of 160 feet, out of the " plastic clay," during the 

 operations of sinking a well in the neighbourhood of Camber- 

 well, near London. It was a canine tooth,* belonging, from 

 its size (near 3 inches in length), to a large quadruped, and, 

 from the thickness and shortness of its conical crown, not to 

 a carnivorous but to a hoofed Mammal, most resembling in 

 shape, though not identical with, that of the crown of the 

 canine tooth of some large extinct tapiroid Mammals, which 

 Cuvier had referred to his genus Lophiodon, but which has 

 proved to belong to Coryphodon. 



The last lower molar of Lopliiodon has three lobes ; the 

 molar determined to be the ultimate one, in the fragment of 

 lower jaw above referred to, resembles that of the tapir in the 

 absence of a third or posterior lobe, but the posterior ridge or 

 part of the cingulum is less developed than in the tapir. It 

 presents two divisions in the form of transverse ridges or 

 eminences, the front ridge being the largest, and with its edge 

 * Hist, Brit. Foss. Mamm, p. 306, fig. 10. r >. 



