

72 Description of the Bones of a new Fossil Animal 



maples and elms, as nearly as could be ascertained, from eighty 

 to one hundred years old. In the centre of the above named 

 deposit was a large spring, which appeared to rise from the bowels 

 of the earth, as it was never affected by the severest rain or the 



severest dro Light." 



Description. — Teeth: these consist of sixteen loose specimens, 

 together with eight others still remaining in their sockets, there 

 being two fragments of the inferior maxilla, one containing three 

 teeth, the other two, in situ ; also two fragments of the upper 

 maxilla, one with two, the other with one tooth, in situ. 



In form these organs bear a general, and in structure a close 

 resemblance to the teeth of the Megalonyx laqueatus, (vide 

 Medico-Physical Researches, p. 319,) a new species of fossil ani- 

 mal from the valley of the Mississippi, which I described in 

 1831.* In most of the specimeus now under consideration, the 

 teeth are marked on one or both sides by longitudinal deep 

 grooves, dividing the crown into two irregular shaped surfaces 

 slightly depressed in the centre ; vid. PI. I, figs. 1 and 3. Excep- 

 tions are found to this form of the teeth in some of the molars, 

 which are merely flattened cylinders, PI. I, fig. 7 ; also in the 

 anterior or tusk-like molars, which resemble elongated, gently 

 curved cylinders, slightly compressed on the inner surface of the 

 shaft, PI. I, fig. 5. These teeth, like those of the Bradypus, the 

 Megalonyx, &c. consist of concentric cylinders of bone, ivory, 

 and of pars petrosa. They are very irregular in relative size and 

 position in the jaws, their crowns being transverse, oblique, or 

 longitudinal, as regards their position in the alveoles; vid. PI. Ill, 

 figs. 1, 2 and 3. The jaws may have contained from six to 

 seven teeth in each side of each jaw, as one fragment of the 

 inferior maxilla, a portion of the anterior part four and a half 

 inches long, contains three teeth in situ, and which, from the 

 thickness of the bone, must have been more than double this 

 length ; PL III, fig. 1. These teeth are above three and a half 

 inches long, their crowns being one inch two tenths, by eight 

 tenths. They are generally more or less curved and project from 

 the base of the lower jaw upwards and forwards, this direction 

 being reversed in those of the upper jaw. The ultimate molar 



* Professor Owen has since proposed a new generic name for this fossil quadru- 

 ped, the Mylodon Harlani. See some further observations on this animal in Vol. 

 xliii, p. 141, of this Journal. 



