318 



enclosing the bony part, being carried straight across the 

 tooth, they are continued in daedalean lines. One double 

 deeply undulating line of enamel forming the sides of one 

 wide and deeply indented compages of osseous matter ; filling 

 the space, which, in the teeth of the other species, would be 

 occupied by four or five plates. — PI. x. fig. 9. 



The specific difference in these teeth v/ill evidently ap- 

 pear, when it is considered that the undulating forms of the 

 plates must be accompanied by a very different arrangement 

 of the bony substance and enamel with respect to the crusta 

 petrosa ; and entirely prevent the separation into flat plates, 

 as in the teeth of the other fossil elephants. 



In another fossil tooth, I believe from Warwickshire, the 

 characters of another species appear. The sides of the lines 

 of enamel are smoother than in any of the other fossil teeth, 

 and the digitated parts of the plates reach to the surface 

 even in the anterior part of the tooth. But the most cha- 

 racteristic difference exists in the greater thickness and in 

 the less number of the plates of this species. 



The thickness of the plates may be taken at nearly 

 double that of the plates of fossil teeth in general ; and their 

 number must be proportionally fewer. In a fossil tooth 

 from Essex, of the length of eight inches and a half, are 

 twenty-two plates (PI. x. fig. 8) ; whilst in this tooth, which 

 is eight inches long, there are only thirteen plates, nine only 

 of which are seen on the triturating surface, which is of the 

 length of six inches, (PI. x. fig. 10.) But it is not merely 

 from the structure of the teeth that specific differences are 

 inferred between the recent and the fossil elephants ; Cuvier 

 having ascertained some determinate differences between 

 the skulls of the recent and the fossil species. He supposes 

 that the fossil remains are of a species differing more 

 widely from the Asiatic elephant (to which it ap- 

 proaches nearer than to the African), than the horse does 

 from the ass. 



