THE MALTESE FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. 39 
Now the youngest possible stage of dentition ascribable to fig. 12 is that where the 
penultimate is rapidly disappearing, and several ridges of the last milk-tooth are in full 
wear. This condition is closely represented in No. 2667, Royal College of Surgeons, 
showing the cranium of an Asiatic Elephant where the eight anterior ridges of the last 
milk-molar are in wear, with a fragment of the preceding still remaining. A condition 
similar to the last is further shown in the well-articutlaed skeleton No. 1602 in the 
University Museum, Oxford, to which I shall have occasion to allude frequently in the 
sequel. This specimen gives a height of 3 feet 8°5 inches at the shoulder. In the first 
the diasteme is 4°3 inches, and height of the alveolar border in front 3-8 inches, thus 
indicating a jaw of much larger dimensions than fig. 12. 
There is an interesting comparison to be drawn between the above and the fragment 
(No. 21310) of a lower ramus of the Elephas antiquus in the Palzontological collection, 
British Museum. The penultimate milk-molar is in full wear, holding eight ridges in 
a space of 2-7 inches; evidently the last milk-tooth was also invaded. The height of 
the ramus at the alveolar border in front of the former is 3°3 inches. From the front of 
the penultimate molar to the middle of the gutter 2:7 inches, height at the middle of 
the molar 2-9 inches, thickness at the same point 1-8, length of the cylindrical canal 
1-9, height of the alveolus of the three milk-molars 2°8. The diasteme is apparently 
not so perpendicular as in the fossil. 
Supposing Plate I. fig. 12 is of the same stage of growth, it represents a still more 
advanced stage of attrition, and therefore the ramus would be progressing in size; yet 
in depth and thickness of the jaw, length of diasteme and symphyslal gutter, the former 
is considerably the larger, but not more so than should obtain in two Elephants 
differing considerably in size. The comparison, however, does not make the owner of 
Plate I. fig. 12 a pygmy as compared with that of 21310, B.M. 
3. The left lower ramus No. 96 (Plate VI. fig. 4) has lost its condyle ; and the diasteme 
is broken off close to the front socket a, which is nearly 3 inches in length, with a 
septum, 6, 0-6 inch thick, dividing it from a posterior alveolus, ¢, about 3°6 inches in 
length. The greater portion of the coronoid is wanting; and the jaw in general has 
been considerably denuded; so that there are few reliable measurements obtainable. 
The contour of the lower border is decidedly like the African Elephant, and precisely 
like figs. 1 & 3, to which reference will be made presently. Whatever molars may have 
occupied the empty pits, it is clear, from the great thickness of the septum 6, that the 
posterior was in germ. ‘The breadth of the jaw, about the middle of the front alveolus, 
is 1-6 inch, thus greatly exceeding Plate II. fig. 2 ; indeed, as regards the dimensions of 
the alveoli, the ramus, Pl. VI. fig. 4, might have represented an advanced stage of growth 
to any of the foregoing, and such as would accommodate the last milk-molar of the 
smallest form in full wear with the first true molar not yet appearing above the jaw. 
In all points possible for accurate determination, the above and jaw No. 2668, Royal 
College of Surgeons, above noticed, come close. Here the penultimate is in full wear, 
