HYRACOIDEA AND PROBOSCIDEA. 385 



has been rendered a certainty by the discovery of the body 

 of more than one Mammoth embedded in the frozen soil of 

 Siberia. These specimens had been so perfectly preserved 

 that even microscopical sections of some of the tissues could 

 be made ; and in one case even the eyes were preserved. 

 Erom these specimens, we know that the body of the Mam- 

 moth was covered with a thick coat of reddish-brown wool, 

 some nine or ten inches long, interspersed with coarse black 

 hair more than a foot in length. The molars of the Mam- 

 moth are of the Eudephas type (fig. 663), and the tusks are 

 bent almost into a circle, and may be as much as twelve 

 feet in length. In size, the Mammoth considerably exceeded 

 the largest of the living Elephants, the skeleton being over 

 sixteen feet in length, exclusive of the tusks, and measuring 

 nine feet in height. 



Amongst other Elephants which occur in Post-Pliocene 

 deposits may be mentioned, as of special interest, the pigmy 

 Elephants of Malta. One of these — the Mephas Melitensis, 

 or so-called " Donkey-elephant " — was not more than four 

 and a half feet in height. The other-^the Elephas Falconeri 

 of Busk — was still smaller, its average height at the withers 

 not exceeding two and a half to three feet. 



The Mastodons in most respects closely resemble the true 

 Elephants, from which they are distinguished by their denti- 

 tion. As in the Elephants, the upper incisors grow from 

 permanent pulps, and constitute long tusks (fig. 668); but 

 in the majority of cases the Mastodons also possess lower 

 incisors as well. The two lower incisors, however, though 

 tusk-shaped, did not develop themselves to any extent, and 

 often disappeared in adult life. A more important distinc- 

 tion between the Elephants and Mastodons is that the 

 molar teeth of the latter are not only more numerous (as 

 regards the number present in the jaw at any given moment), 

 but have the peculiarity that their crowns are furnished with 

 nipple-shaped eminences or tubercles placed in pairs, form- 

 ing a number of transverse ridges (fig. 668, b). Each of 

 the three molars possesses a like or nearly like number of 

 these ridges, but this number varies in different species, and 

 is always much smaller than in the true Elephants. In 



VOL. II. 2 B 



