AMPHITHERIUM. 47 



talon at the hinder part of its base, and a more minute and 

 hardly recognizable one in front ; the base of the crown 

 is slightly tumid, and from it are continued, without the 

 intervention of a cervix, the two long slender almost 

 parallel or slightly diverging fangs. The remains of the 

 vertically split crown of the third premolar indicate the 

 same form as that of the fourth. Traces of the double 

 alveolus of the second premolar are preserved at the broken 

 anterior end of the fossil. The fractured crown of the 

 first true molar shews more distinct anterior and posterior 

 cusps, at the base of the large middle cusp. " The breadth 

 of the base of the crown is displayed by the fracture of the 

 third true molar, and refutes the notion of their being com- 

 pressed like the premolars. The fourth true molar gives a 

 view of the anterior, and of the large middle external cusp, 

 with part of the posterior external cusp. In the fifth 

 molar, the middle external cusp is nearly entire to its sharp 

 apex : part of the anterior cusp and the base of the 

 internal posterior cusp are preserved ; the thicker and 

 more complicated crowns of the molares veri, as compared 

 with the molares spurn, are unequivocally demonstrated in 

 all the last three molars. 



The fangs descend half-way or more towards the lower 

 margin of the ramus ; their chief constituent, (dentine,) 

 is clearly contrasted, by its texture and deeper colour, 

 with the surrounding bone, from which they are plainly 

 separated by a thin layer of a distinct coloured substance, 

 infiltrated, apparently from the matrix, into the sockets 

 of the teeth, like that in the vascular canals of the jaw. 

 The minute cylindrical remains of the pulp-cavity are 

 discernible in many of the exposed fangs. 



In one of the genera of Seals, (Stenorhynchus, F. Cuv.,) 

 all the molar teeth are compressed, and tricuspid or multi- 



