22 BRITISH AND EUROPEAN FOSSIL MASTODONS. 



formation, probably of the same age as the Simorre lacustrine 

 beds. The third specimen is a South American fragment, 

 brought to Europe by Humboldt, which has no connexion 

 with the European species : on this head all later palaeonto- 

 logists who have investigated the subject, without exception 

 (exclusive of mere compilers), are agreed ; among others, 

 Laurillard, ' who identifies it with M. Andium, as restricted 

 by him. The fourth specimen which Cuvier quotes is another 

 Simorre fossil. The sixth, a very important and character- 

 istic specimen, is from the same locality. Now, all these 

 Simorre specimens, with the exception of the third — which is 

 a premolar, and therefore a normal exception — are charac- 

 terized by having their crowns divided into three principal 

 ridges. ' It is therefore,' as we have elsewhere 2 stated, ' to 

 a species having the intermediate molars distinguished by a 

 ternary division of the crown (as in M. Ohioticus) that the 

 specific name of M. angustidens is strictly applicable, so far 

 as priority of description and reference to original types can 

 be taken as the guides to a decision on the point.' (See Plate 

 III. figs. 3 & 4.) 



Since the time of Cuvier, Simorre and Sansan have become 

 classical palseontological ground, through the important dis- 

 coveries made by M. Lartet of the first-announced fossil 

 monkey in Europe, of Macrotherium, Anisodon y &c. Among 

 others, a vast quantity of Mastodon remains have been met 

 with, including the whole dentition, from the young sucking- 

 calf up to the adult and old animals. A superb skeleton was 

 disinterred by Laurillard at Seissan, so complete in every 

 respect, that it has been set up in the Paris Museum, along- 

 side of the skeletons of the existing Lidian and African 

 Elephants. Two points, which have been invariably exhibited 

 by all these teeth, are of special importance in their bearing 

 upon the present question : the first is, that the intermediate 

 molars are constantly three-ridged, or, in other words, belong 

 to the Trilophodon type — no Tetralophodon molars having ever, 

 within the knowledge of M. Lartet, been discovered, either 

 at Simorre, Sansan, or Lombez; the second is, that they 

 entirely agree with the original Sirnorre types described by 

 Cuvier, upon which his M. angustidens is founded, and that 

 they are absolutely the narrowest of all known Mastodon 

 molars. Another remarkable character of the species is this — ■ 

 that, in harmony with the narrow teeth, the horizontal ramus 

 of the lower jaw is more compressed, and higher in relation 

 to the width, than in any other known Mastodon. This is 

 well shown in the Paris skeleton, and in numerous lower 



1 Dictionnaire Universal d'Histoire I 2 Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis, par. i. 

 Naturelle, torn. viii. p. 29. | (1846), p. 57. (See vol. i. p. 90.— Ed.) 



