260 Memoir upon living and fossil Elephants. 



productions which penetrate into all the intervals of the 

 small gelatinous walls I have described. These productions 

 adhere to the face of the capsule which answers to the 

 mouth and to the two lateral faces, hut they do not adhere 

 to its bottom, whence arise the small walls or gelatinous pro- 

 ductions. Consequentlv, we mav conceive a possible and 

 continunn? vacuum, although infinilely folded upon itself, 

 among all these sniall gelatinous walls (descendmg for the 

 upper teeth and ascending for the lower one^), and these 

 small membranous partitions (ascending in the upper teeth 

 and descending in the lower ones). 



It is in this conceivable vacuum that the matters deposit 

 themselves which are to form the teeth, viz, the substance 

 vulgarly called osseous, which will be transuded by the ge- 

 latinous productions coming from the bottom of the cap- 

 sule, and the enamel which will be deposited by the mem- 

 branous partitions, and in general by the whole internal sur- 

 jace of the capsule and of its productions, the base alone 

 excepted. 



We must, however, remark, that between this supposed 

 osseous substance and the enamel there is also a very fine 

 membrane which I think I have discovered. When there 

 is not as yet any part of the first substance transuded, this 

 membrane envelops immediately the small gelatinous wall, 

 and confines it more cfosely. 



Irr proportion as this small wall transudes this substance, 

 it retires inwards and removes itself from the membrane, 

 which serves it nevertheless always as a tunic, but it is a 

 tunic common to it and to the matter which has transuded 

 under it. 



The enamel of its side is deposited upon this tunic by the 

 productions of the internal surface of the capsule, and it 

 compresses it in such a manner against the internal or os- 

 seous substance, that the -latter separates from it; and this 

 tunic soon becomes imperceptible in the hardened portio^is 

 of the tooth, or at least it does not appear, except upon the 

 section, like a very slender grayish line, which separates the 

 enamel from the internal substance. But we then always 

 j.»c that it is the latter alone which attaches thcie hardened 



parts 



