380 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



Remains of Mastodon andium have been found in a 

 sediment of argillaceous schist at the foot of the higher 

 of the two limestone elevations called Los Morros de San 

 Juan, near Villa de Cura, Venezuela. The discovery was 

 made in the course of excavations undertaken to enlarge the 

 hydro-sulphuric springs here, known and used from the 

 time of the Spanish Conquest, and still annually visited by 

 many bathers. The mastodon relics are now preserved in 

 the Museo Nacional of Caracas, and are as follows: one 

 molar tooth, one calcaneum, a femur, a fragment of a tibia, 

 one hopelessly fractured tusk, fragments of an omoplate, a 

 few ribs, and some smaller bones. The crown of the molar 

 is 13 cm. long and 8 cm. broad; it measures 35 cm. in circum- 

 ference at the base and has roots 9 cm. long; it may be re- 

 ferred to the genus Trilophodon, Falconer. Most of the 

 bones have a greenish-gray hue like that of the gravel 

 wherein they were deposited; only the larger bones, the tibia 

 and femur, are of darker shade, almost brown, and the 

 interior presents the whiteness of a new bone. The femur, 

 65 cm. long, and the tibia, are fairly well preserved, and are 

 solid as are those of the elephant. The tusk, originally 

 more than a metre long, has a circumference of 39 cm.; 

 unfortunately it is so extensively fractured that restoration 

 is impossible. As with elephant tusks, it is made up of 

 several concentric layers of ivory; but from having lain 

 buried for so many centuries in a deposit not containing 

 petrifying constituents, it has suffered from dry rot. The 

 general characteristics of the remains indicate that the 

 mastodon of San Juan was an adult animal some 3 metres 

 (nearly 10 ft.) in extreme length and having a height of 

 about 2i metres (8.2 ft.).* 



Fossil remains of proboscideans have been found in many 



*Communicated by SeQor Francisco de P. Alamo, naturalist, of Caracas, Venezuela, in 

 January, 1914. 



