240 PROBOSCIDIA. 



ward upon the grinding surface of the molar before they are 

 worn down to their common base ; they appear also in the 

 specimen to be more advanced than they really are, because 

 of the deficiency of the fore-part of the tooth, which has 

 been broken away. In my opinion this molar has the 

 characters of the thick-plated variety, simply exaggerated 

 from the accidents of age and attrition. It manifests the 

 more constant and characteristic modifications of the Ele- 

 phas primigenius in its relative breadth, and, notwithstand- 

 ing their thickness, in the number of the plates (nine), 

 which have been exposed by the act of mastication. I 

 have seen a very similar molar of the Mammoth from the 

 Norfolk freshwater deposits in the collection of Mr. Fitch 

 of Norwich. 



The abraded margins of the component plates of the 

 Mammoth's molars most commonly present a slight expan- 

 sion, often lozenge-shaped, at their centre ; they are divided 

 with more regularity, in general, than those in the Indian 

 Elephant, into three digital processes, the middle being 

 usually the broadest and thickest, and having its summit 

 originally sub-divided into three smaller digitations, as 

 is shown in the posterior plates of fig. 90. The greater 

 thickness of the middle division of the transverse plate 

 occasions the middle expansion of the margin of the plate, 

 when the three digitations are worn down to their common 

 base. Only in one small molar, from the brick-earth at 

 Grays, Essex, in the collection of Mr. Wickham Flower, 

 have I seen the median rhomboidal dilatation, extending, in 

 the abraded plates, so near the end of the section as to 

 approximate the characteristic shape of the plates of the 

 African Elephants molar ; from which, however, the fossil 

 was far removed by its thinner and more numerous plates. 

 The fictitious character of the Elepkas priscus of Goldfuss 



