TEETH OF THE ELEPHANT. 275 



which the last three may, by analogy, bo regarded as 

 answering to the true molars of other pachyderms. 



The incisors not only surpass other teeth in size, as 

 belonging to a quadruped so enormous, but they are the 

 largest of all teeth in proportion to the size of the body ; ; 

 representing, in a natural state, those monstrous tusks of | 

 the rodents, which are the result of accidental suppres- '' 

 sion of the wearing force of the opposite teeth. 



The tusks of the elephant consist chiefly of that modi- 

 fication of dentine that is called " ivory," and which shows, 

 on transverse fractures or sections, stride proceeding in 

 the arc of a circle from the centre to the circumference, 

 in opposite directions, and forming by their decussations 

 curvilinear lozenges. This character is peculiar to the 

 tusks of the proboscydian pachyderms. 



In the Indian elephant, the tusks are always short and 

 straight in the female, and less deeply implanted than in 

 the male; she thus retaining, as usual, more of the cha- 

 racters of the immature state. In the male, they have 

 been known to acquire a length of nine feet, with a basal 

 diameter of eight inches, and to weigh one hundred and 

 fifty pounds; but these dimensions are rare in the Asiatic 

 species. 



A mammoth's tusk has been dredged up off Dungeness 

 Avhich measured e^Sven feet in length.^ In several of 

 the instances of mammoth's tusks from British strata, the 

 ivory has been so little altered as to be fit for the pur- 

 poses of manufacture ; and the tusks of the mammoth, 

 which are still better preserved in the frozen drifts of 

 Siberia, have long been collected in great numbers as 

 articles of commerce. In the account of the mammoth's 



' Owea's "History of British Fossil Mammalia," 8yo. 18J;4, p. 214. 



