382 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



further remains. An exceptionally large number of remains 

 of extinct Proboscidea were found in Mexico at the time of 

 the digging of the canal to drain Lake Tezcoco near Mexico 

 City, and are preserved in the Instituto Geologico in that city. 



During his travels in the Brazilian province of Minas 

 Geraes in 1817, the French botanist, Auguste de St. Hilaire, 

 was shown, at Villa do Fanado, the tooth of a mastodon, 

 now in the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, which 

 was said to have been found in a saltpetre tract of the desert 

 region of the province. He recalls somewhat indistinctly 

 a statement that bones of unusual size had been unearthed 

 in this region.* 



That the peculiar form of the elephant's skull is due to an 

 evolutionary process connected with and conditioned by the 

 development of the trunk and the tusks, has already been 

 quite fully explained and illustrated in the present chapter. 

 To sustain the weight of this strange appendage and afford 

 the requisite leverage, the skull has gradually become short- 

 ened and its height increased. This characteristic form 

 lends to the elephant a certain appearance of dignity, and is 

 suggestive of a high degree of intelligence. However, the 

 animal's brain, though highly convoluted, is of relatively 

 small size, the thickness of the roof of the skull exceeding the 

 height of the brain case. The delicate prehensile power of 

 the trunk, so striking in view of its enormous strength, is due 

 to the fingerlike projections with which it terminates, these 

 constituting a notable element of distinction between the 

 Indian and the African types, but one such projection being 

 present in the case of the former, while the trunk of the 

 African elephant is provided with two of them.f 



The possible influence exerted by the elephant's pre- 



*Auguste de St. Hilaire, "Voyage dans les P^o^^Ilces de Rio de Janeiro et de Minas 

 Geraes," Paris, 1830, Vol. II, p. 314. 



tRichard S. Lull, Ph. D., "The Evolution of the Elephant," p. 31. Peabody Museum 

 of Natural History, Guide No. 2. Reprinted from Am. Jour. Sc. Vol. XXV, March, 1908, 



