Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 57 



mastodon, with very numerous specimens of other parts of the head and 

 skeleton generally, though there is no perfect head. 



The most remarkable specimen is a head of an animal, which Mr. 

 Koch calls nondescript, and considers to have been from four to six times 

 the size of an elephant, though Dr. Horner esteems it extremely difficult 

 to establish this. In the present mode of exhibition, the head shows a 

 central oblong amorphous part, which measures six feet in length by two 

 or three in width. It is furnished with enormous tusks, eleven and three- 

 twelfths feet long from their roots, and nine or ten inches in diameter — 

 one foot and three inches of their length being inserted into the sockets. 

 These tusks are semicircular, and stand out horizontally, with the con- 

 cavity backwards. Thus placed, they are fifteen feet in a straight line, 

 from the tip of the one to the tip of the other. Notwithstanding they 

 were found in this position, very just doubts. Dr. Horner thinks, may be 

 entertained of its being the natural one, as, in a state of decay of the al- 

 veolus, they might readily gravitate outwards, so as to assume that direc- 

 tion, subsequent to the death of the animal. This specimen was in fact 

 very much decayed, when Mr. Koch found it, and appears to have been 

 fractured by rocks falling on it from the bluff above. The means taken 

 to preserve it, obscure the surface of the bones, as well as thsir configura- 

 tion, and in attaching the fragments together, some have been put very 

 much out of their position. For example, the glenoid cavity of the right 

 side is monstrously far from the hind tooth, and is laterally much beyond 

 its line : the intermaxillary bones are too long, and on comparing the po- 

 sition of the posterior molar teeth of the upper jaw with that of the lower, 

 the upper molar teeth are found to be ten inches or more in advance of 

 the lower, a relation so false and so unsuited to mastication, that it is not 

 at all probable nature formed them thus. The molar teeth are four in 

 number in each jaw — two on a side ; the posterior one is seven inches 

 long by four wide ; the anterior, four and a half inches long by four wide. 

 The conformation of the teeth is exactly that of the mastodon, and the 

 ridges and denticules are scarcely worn at all, a proof that the animal 

 was not old. The upper part of the cranium of this animal is defective. 

 The general configuration of the head is so amorphous, the fragments of 

 which it is composed have their position so imperfectly regulated, and the 

 whole surface is so coated with glue and paint, to preserve it, that an ex- 

 act examination was impracticable. Its length is so extraordinary, that 

 Dr. Horner considers it can scarcely be received as natural, and he is in- 

 clined to the opinion, from its dental system, that it belongs to the mas- 

 todon ; that by some accident the remains of two heads were found in 

 the same line ; that if there be but one, it has been much fractured, and 

 a large quantity of extraneous matter blended with it, which it is difficult 

 to distinguish. The latter conjecture. Dr. Horner thinks, is rendered 

 more probable by the admission of Mr. Koch, that these bones were ce- 



Vol. XL, No. 1.— Oct.-Dec. 1840. 8 



