342 



flesh, nails, and veins, were all discoverable in it, in a petrified state*. 

 Even the accurate Walch refers to this specimen as a real petrifaction of 

 the ape f . 



I must here suggest to you the propriety of referring, previous to our 

 examination of these fossil remains, to the ingenious observations of Mr. 

 Home and of Mr. Corse, on the formation of the teeth of the elephant. 

 Philos. Trans. 1799. By an attention to these observations, we are of 

 course enabled to form a more correct judgment as to their fossil re- 

 mains. 



From the information thus gained we learn, that the bodies of which 

 we have just spoken, and which the older oryctologists considered as pe- 

 trified hands, were the separated plates of which the grinders are com- 

 posed : the more extended parts of these productions having been sup- 

 posed to be the fingers. The unorganized and looser substance of the 

 cortical crust disintegrates sooner than the two substances of which the 

 plates are formed ; hence, in most fossil teeth, this substance is in a very 

 loose state, and in some it has been quite removed, and has left the plates 

 entirely unconnected. 



It is but at a very late period that the specific differences of the teeth 

 of the East-Indian and African elephant have been attended to. These 

 differences consist in the form and number of the plates. In the East- 

 Indian, the two wide surfaces of the plates are flat, arid covered with 

 numerous rough longitudinal striae ; whilst, in the African, there is on 

 both of the wide surfaces an angular projection through their whole 

 length, and the striae are much less numerous. The masticating surface 

 shows that the transverse bands, which in the tooth of the East Indian 

 elephant are straight, and all through of an equal width, are, in the tooth 

 of the African, more in the form of a lozenge; or, much wider in the 

 middle than at their ends. From these lateral projections, the African 

 teeth must necessarily have much fewer plates than the East-Indian. 



* Rarior. Nat. et Ant. PI. in. Fig. 2. 



t Monumens des Catast. Tome n. Part 2, p. 150. 



