ELEPHANTS. 



79 



been found on the Mediterranean coast and in Siberia ; and they are 

 met with in North America as well. In Scotland and in Ireland the 

 mammoth was apparently less plentiful, but its remains occur in these 

 countries, where, indeed, no other elephantine remains are found. It 

 may be added, that the molar teeth of the mammoth are by no means 

 unlike those of the Indian elephant in the arrangement and pattern 

 of its enamel plates. 



Another extinct elephant, equally famous with the mammoth, was 

 the Mastodon a name given to these animals in allusion to the 

 nipple-like projections seen on the surface of the molar teeth. Their 

 remains occur in Europe, Asia, and in North and South America. 

 In the morasses of Ohio and Kentucky, for example, whole skeletons 

 of these interesting elephants have been discovered. The length of 

 the mastodon in some cases exceeded 16 feet ; and the tusks have 

 been found to measure 12 feet in length. Over a dozen species of 

 mastodons have been described, but they agree in certain important 

 characters which serve to distinguish them from other elephants. 

 Thus, the roughened teeth appear to have been adapted for bruising 

 coarse herbs and leaves indeed, associated with mastodon remains 

 in America, collections of leaves have been found occupying the 

 situation in which the stomach of the animal would have been 

 situated, and thus indicating the dietary of these extinct giants. 

 Furthermore, a most important difference between the mastodons 

 and other elephants is found in the fact that these animals possessed 

 two tusks springing from the lower jaw, in addition to the tusks with 

 which, as in ordinary elephants, the upper jaw was provided. But it 

 would seem that these lower tusks never attained a large size, whilst 

 it is probable that they 

 fell out when the animal 

 attained the adult period 

 of its existence. 



More extraordinary 

 still, in respect of its 

 variations from the or- 

 dinary structure of the 

 elephants, was the Dei- 

 notherium (fig. 4), the 

 fossil remains of which 

 occur in Europe and in 

 India. The skull of a 

 deinotherium has been found to measure 4 feet in length, whilst a 

 thigh-bone was 5 feet 3 inches long. Thus, in so far as size is 

 concerned, the deinotherium may claim a foremost place amongst 

 its elephantine cousins. But various circumstances seem to suggest 

 that the latter animal departed from the elephant type in certain 



FIG. 4. RESTORATION OF DEINOTHERIVM. 



