358 



From observations made on the several lower jaws which have been 

 found, it appears that the two first sorts of teeth may exist in the mouth 

 of the animal at the same time ; but that those of the latter sort follow the 

 others. M. Cuvier says, perhaps there may have been, in the infancy of 

 the animal, a tooth with four points, /which would be cast early. This he 

 was led to conjecture, from having been informed by M. de Beauvois, that, 

 in a jaw belonging to Dr. Barton, there appeared to be the marks of an 

 alveolus before the tooth with six points. There can be little doubt but 

 that the teeth succeeded to each other, as in the elephant : there never, 

 however, being more in the mouth, at once, than two, and at last only 

 one. 



For want of attending to this succession of the teeth, and supposing 

 many 'of these teeth to have existed in the mouth at the same time, very 

 erroneous conjectures have been formed respecting the size of this animal. 

 Thus Burton observes, that the square form of these enormous grinders 

 prove, that several were in the jaw at the same time ; Epoqucs de la 

 Nature, Notes justif. 9. But, if we suppose there were six, or even 

 four, on each side of each jaw, how enormous must that head have 

 been, which contained at least sixteen such teeth. Reckoning on these 

 fallacious grounds, he concludes, the animal must have far exceeded the 

 size of the largest elephants; whereas, we have no proof at present of 

 this animal reaching to twelve feet in height, whilst, agreeable to Buf- 

 fon's own account, the Asiatic elephants are sometimes fifteen or even 

 sixteen feet high. 



One of the back grinders of this animal, with five pair of points, and 

 an odd one at the end, is represented in the frontispiece to this volume. This 

 tooth is in remarkably fine preservation, and was tor several years a part 

 of the collection in this city, which was called Rackstrow's Museum. It 

 is seven inches and a half long, 1& inches in circumference round its 

 crown, and it weighs four pounds seven ounces. 



The remains of the under-jaw of this animal show us that, like the 

 elephant and morse, it had neither canine nor incisive teeth ; that it ter- 

 minated in the fore part, as in those animals, in a hollowed point, which was 



