Miscellanies. 1 67 



between six and seven hundred feet above the level of Lake Erie ; 

 its outlet, on which Jamestown stands, and where these teeth were 

 found, is about twenty miles from Lake Erie ; its waters unite with 

 Caunewauga Creek seven miles from the lake, and forty miles from 

 the lake unite with the Alleghany river at Warren, Pennsylvania." 



The two molar teeth together measure 2| inches in length, by 1 

 inch in breadth ; their depth from the top of the ridges to the bottom 

 of the prong, is from li to li inch. The jaw, and the parts of the 

 teeth included in it, are of a dark brown ; the exposed parts of the 

 teeth are mainly white, but on the ridges where they are worn down 

 by mastication, they are brown in the proper bony portion of the 

 tooth, and white in the enamel. The processes of the teeth were 

 evidently once very high and sharp, like those of the mastodon, and 

 they are still very prominent, although much worn down by grind- 

 ing J the surfaces exposed have a high polish, both in the brown 

 bone and in the white enamel. The teeth, although moveable in 

 their sockets, are perfect in their connexion with the jaw, and the en- 

 tire structure is apparent. 



The question being put to Prof. Knight, of the Medical Institution 

 of Yale College, whether it is possible that they might belong to the 

 young mastodon, although that idea was immediately abandoned as 

 untenable, the reasons assigned by Dr. Knight being instructive, we 

 take the liberty to annex them. 



" I have examined the fossil teeth which you gave me, and I am 

 satisfied that they cannot be the infant teeth of the mastodon : for the 

 following reasons : — 



" 1st. They are evidently the teeth of an adult, and probably an 

 old animal: I judge this to be so, not so much from the wear- 

 ing away of the crown, as from the entire and unperforated state of 

 the end of the root. In infant teeth, there is usually, perhaps always, 

 a deficiency at the extremity of the root, or at least a foramen of 

 some size for the entrance of the nutrient vessels. 



"2d. They are too small. I know of no instance in which there 

 is so great a difference in the size of the infant and adult teeth of an 

 animal, as there is between them and the known size of the adult 

 teeth of the mastodon. 



" 3d. A more conclusive reason is, that these are evidently gram- 

 inivorous teeth : while those of the mastodon are, in the arrangement 

 of the enamel, carnivorous. You will see that, in addition to the ex- 

 ternal covering of enamel, there are plates of enamel running from 



