234 PROBOSCIDIA. 



into one another, so far as the character of the grinding 

 teeth is concerned, to a degree to which the two existing 

 species of Elephant, the Indian and African, when compared 

 together, offer no analogy. 



Five or six molars of the Mammoth, and even a greater 

 number, if the peculiar changes superinduced by friction 

 on the grinding surface were not taken into account, might 

 be selected from the series to which I have alluded 

 as indications of so many distinct species of Mammoth : 

 such specimens have, in fact, been so interpreted by Park- 

 inson, and likewise by Fischer, Goldfuss, Nesti and Croizet, 

 cited in the Palaeologica of Hermann V. Meyer, as au- 

 thorities for eight distinct species of extinct Elephant. 



We must, however, enter more deeply into the con- 

 sideration of these varieties, before concluding that the 

 Mammoths which severally exemplify them in their molar 

 teeth were distinct species. In the first place, whatever 

 difference the molars of the Mammoth from British strata 

 may have presented in the number of their lamellar divisions, 

 they have corresponded in having a greater proportion of 

 these plates on the triturating surface, and likewise, with 

 two exceptions, in their greater proportional breadth, than 

 are found in the molars of the Asiatic Elephant. The first 

 exception here alluded to was from the diluvial gravel of 

 Staffordshire, and formed part of the collection of Mr. 

 Parkinson, the author of the ' Organic Remains ' ; the 

 second exception was from the brick-earth of Essex, and 

 is now in the collection of my friend Mr. Brown of Stan- 

 way ; this molar, though it combines the thicker plates 

 with the narrower form of the entire tooth characteristic 

 of the Indian Elephant, differs in the greater extent of 

 the grinding surface and the greater number of plates 

 entering into the composition of that surface. 



