324 PALEONTOLOGY 



most entire. From the outer end of each division a ridge is 

 continued obliquely forward, inward, and downward : the ante- 

 rior one extends to the antero-internal angle of the base of the 

 crown ; the posterior one terminates at the middle of the- inter- 

 space between the two chief divisions of the crown. The 

 trenchant summit of the anterior ridge is slightly concave 

 toward the fore part of the tooth, as in that of Lopldodon ; but 

 its outer and inner ends rise higher, and appear as more dis- 

 tinct cones or points ; whence the generic name of Corypliodon. 

 The posterior division is lower than the anterior one, and is 

 bicuspid ; the trenchant margin connecting the outer and inner 

 points does not extend across the crown parallel with the 

 anterior ridge, as in Tapirus and Lopliiodon, but bends back 

 so as to form an angle, the apex of which rises into a third 

 point. 



Some lophiodontoid fossils from the lignites of Soissons and 

 Laon, and from the plastic clay of Meudon in France, including 

 the upper molar tooth figured by Cuvier in the chapter of the 

 Osscmens Fossiles entitled " Animaux voisins de Tapirs," pi. vii., 

 fig. 6, belong to the genus Goryphodon. Cuvier compares this 

 tooth with one from Bastberg, which he figures in pi. vi., fig. 4, 

 and which is certainly the last upper molar of a true Lopliiodon, 

 and points out truly that the Soissons tooth differs in the ex- 

 ternal border passing into the posterior one, so that, instead of 

 being quadrangular, its crown is triangular ; but he explains 

 this difference on the hypothesis that the Bastberg tooth was 

 a penultimate molar. The reduction of the second or posterior 

 ridge to a semi-circular one, developed at its middle and hind- 

 most part into a prominent cone, so far agrees with the modi- 

 fication of the same pail of the last molar of the lower jaw of 

 the Coryphodon as to render it very probable that the last 

 upper molar from Soissons, figured by Cuvier in pi. vii., fig. 6, 

 above quoted, also belongs to the genus Coryphodon. Cuvier 

 states that the entire skeleton was found, indicative of an 



