242 i-HILOSOHHlCAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO]728. 



phant which died at London, where the uppermost coat, being very moist, 

 cracked on drying, and broke at the top. 



N** 750, is part of another dens exertus, which the Rev. Mr. Morton, in 

 his Natural History of Northamptonshire, gives the following account of: 

 " An extraordinary elephant's tooth, one of those which grow out of the upper 

 jaw, and which for their magnitude and length, have by some writers been ac- 

 counted horns, was lately taken out of the earth by digging in Bowdon-parva 

 Field. Even the native colour of it has been in great measure preserved ; 

 but it is become brittle with lying in the earth; and was broken into three or 

 four pieces transversely by the diggers in taking it up. The two larger pieces 

 of it were presented to me. One of them is somewhat above a yard; the other 

 is 1 feet in length ; but the whole tooth must needs have been at least 6 feet 

 long; the thickest part of the larger piece is l6 inches round. ^The tooth lay 

 buried above 5 feet deep in the earth. The strata, from the surface, down- 

 wards to the place where the tooth was lodged, were as follows: 1. The soil J 3 

 or 14 inches. 2. Loam, a foot and a half. 3. Large pebbles, with a small 

 mixture of earth among them, 2 feet and a half. 4. Blue clay. In the upper 

 part of this stratum the tooth was found." That part of this tooth, bears again 

 very visible marks, both of the calcination it underwent by lying in the earth, 

 and of its laminated structure. 



N° 1185, is the dens exertus, or tusk of an elephant, remarkable for its 

 large size, and for its being so very entire. It was found under ground in 

 Siberia, and was brought from thence by Mr. Bell, an ingenious surgeon. It 

 is very entire, of a brownish colour, and hollow at bottom, like other ele- 

 phants teeth, one of which it plainly appears to be. From the basis, measuring 

 along the outer circumference to the small end, it is 5 feet 7 inches long, 

 and along the inner circumference 4 feet 10 inches. Measuring from the inside 

 of the basis to the small end in a straight line, the distance is of 3 feet lO-i- 

 inches. At the basis, where thickest, it measures 18 inches round, and is 

 therefore 6 inches in diameter : it weighs 42 pounds. The like tusks, and 

 other bones of the elephant, are found in sundry parts of Siberia to a consider- 

 able quantity, and the tusks and teeth in particular, when less corrupted, are 

 used all over Russia for ivory. Henricus Wilhelmus Ludolfus, in the Appendix 

 to his Russian Grammar, mentions them among the minerals of Russia, by the 

 name of Mammotovoikost, and says, that the Russians believe them to be the 

 teeth and bones of an animal living under ground, larger than any one of those 

 above ground. They use it in physic, for the same purposes with the unicorn's 

 horn; and Ludolfus himself having been presented with a piece by one of his 

 friends, who said, he had it from a Russian of great quality, lately returned 



