SCO 



PALEONTOLOGY 



place. Not more than three are in use at any period on one 

 side of either jaw ; all the molars, save the penultimate (fig. 

 115, m 2) are shed by the time the crown of the last molar 

 has cut the gum, and the dentition is finally reduced to m 3 

 on each side of both jaws, with commonly the loss of the 

 inferior tusks, as in the old Mastodon turiccncis, from the 

 tertiary deposits of the Po, described and figured by Sis- 

 monda.* 



The genus was represented by species ranging, in time, 

 from the miocene to the upper pliocene deposits, and in space, 

 cosmopolitan with tropical and temperate latitudes. The 

 transition from the mastodontal to the 'elephantine type of 

 dentition is very gradual. 



Genus Elephas, L. — The latest form of true elephant which 

 obtained its sustenance in temperate latitudes is that which 

 Blumenbach called primigenius, the " Mammoth " of the 

 Siberian collectors of its tusks (fig. 119). Its remains occur 

 chiefly, if not exclusively, in pleistocene deposits, and have 



even been found in tur- 

 bary near Holyhead. 

 Its grinders (fig. 116) 

 are broader, and have 

 narrower and more 

 numerous and close-set 

 transverse plates and 

 ridges, than in other 

 elephants. In the ex- 

 isting Indian species, 

 e. g., (fig. 117), the molars are relatively narrower, the plates 

 {d d) are less numerous, and their enamelled border (e c) is 

 festooned. In the African elephant (fig. 118) the plates are still 

 fewer, are relatively larger, and so expanded at the middle as to 

 present a lozenge shape. The Elephas prise us, Gdf.,of European 



* Osteografia di an Mastodontc Angustidente, 4to, Turin, 1851. 



Uppe 



Fig. 116. 

 grinder of the Mammoth [Elephas primi 

 genius). 



