CHAP. XXII. PROBOSCIDIANS. 437 



probabl}' a mere variety of one of the others, and Eleplias 

 priscus of Goldfuss, founded partly on specimens of the 

 African elephant, assumed by mistake to be fossil, and partly 

 on some aberz-ant forms of E. antiquus. 



The first effect of the intercalation of so many interme- 

 diate forms between the two most divergent types has been 

 to break down almost entirely the generic distinction between 

 Mastodon and Elephant. Dr. Falconer, indeed, observes that 

 Stegodon (one of several subgenera which he has founded) 

 constitutes an intermediate group, from which the other 

 species diverge through their dental characters, on the one 

 side into the Mastodons, and on the other into the 

 Elephants.* The next result is to diminish the distance 

 between the several members of each of these groups. 



Dr. Falconer has discovered that no less than four species 

 of elephant were formerly confounded together under the 

 title of Elephas primigenius, whence its supposed ubiquity in 

 post-pliocene times, or its wide range over half the habit- 

 able globe. But even w'hen this form has been thus re- 

 sti'icted in its specific characters, it has still its geographical 

 varieties; for the mammoth's teeth brought from America 

 may in znost instances, according to Dr. Falconer, be distin- 

 guished from those pi'oper to Europe. On this American 

 variety Dr. Leidy has conferred the name of E. Americanus. 

 Another race of the same mammoth (as determined by 

 Dr. Falconer) existed, as we have seen, before the glacial 

 period, or at the time when the buried forest of Cromer and 

 the Norfolk cliffs (see above, p. 216) was deposited ; and the 

 Swiss geologists have lately found remains of the mammoth 

 in their country, both in pre-glacial and post-glacial form- 

 ations. 



Since the publication of Dr. Falconer's monograph, two other 



-■Geological Quarterly Journal, vol. xiii. p. 314, 1857. 



