Memoir vpon living and fossil Elephai'ti, 57 



No bone whatever, properly so called, ever splits in th s 

 jnaiiner. Sloaae, as I think, was the first who ni^de ihis 

 remark. 



Scratches, or any scars whatever, made on the ^iirface of 

 a tusk, are never filled up; ihey disappear only 111 prdpor- 

 tion as ihe tusk is worn do" n bv friction. 



It is true, we somptinus find balls in the heart oft' i ivory 

 without seeing the hole through which thev entered 



Our museum possesses an example of this, and vv' il ;J 

 several others scattered through various woiks*. 



Some have concluded that the track pur^u.tl iiv th? h, "5 

 must have been filled up even bv the juices or' the :u;k ; 1 

 by its organical force f ; or, as Haller expresses i', l,>\' ■: ki.. I 

 of stalactite J: hut it i-; easy to see, on the contrH'v, '.,.,{; 

 this hole is not filled up in this manner. I he v\hoii- -,: ilit; 

 ivory outside the ball js similar to the rest ; ibal onrl diilv 

 which immediately surrounds it is irregular ; tin.- bail must 

 have traversed the alveolus and the base, wlilie vet tli n of 

 the tusk of a voung elephan', and, must have been I nio-t-d 

 in the pulpy nucleus, still undt-veloped : it has b-jet^ after- 

 wards seized by the layers tiansuded by this nucleus, and 

 has there remained fixed. 



Camper has already exjilained it in this way. (Descrip, 

 Aiiat. cl'im EUphmit, p. 54.) 



We cannot, iherefore, deduce from this fact anv conse- 

 quence that can justify the uutriliou of ivory by intus-sus- 

 ception. 



For the same reason it proves nothing aa;ainst the opi- 

 nion of Duhaniel upon the formation of the bones by the 

 hardening of the successive layers of the periosltuai, al- 

 though Haller has drawn one of his principal argumtuis 

 from this. 



As to the diseases of ivory, those which belong to f! -j 

 alteration of it* texture proceed merely from a disease jn i : j 



• Elnmtnhach, Manuel d'Anat. Comp. p. -13. Gallandal, Memoircs <1 ; 

 I'Acad. de Harlem, ix. 352. Bowi, The«. Hovisn. p. I4j. Ct^mj)cr, Aa&i, 

 l^un Eleph. pi. xx. figs. 1 1 & 1 2. Halltr, Op. Min. ii. p. 551. 



f Hfiller, Phys. viii. p. 31^, 



pu!;-y 



