MASTODON LONGIROSTRIS AND M. ARVERNENSIS. 23 



jaws contained in the palaeontological gallery. M. Lartet 

 possesses, in his rich collection at Seissan, several lower jaws 

 exhibiting the same character. A nearly entire skeleton of 

 this species was discovered, in the latter part of 1855, in the 

 sandstone -qtiarry of Yeltheim, near Winterthur, in Canton 

 Zurich ; this I was enabled to examine minutely through 

 the kindness of M. Ziegler-Ernst of Winterthur. It is the 

 largest specimen of the species that I have anywhere seen. 

 The lower jaw, although in fragments, is nearly complete, 

 and shows the extreme compression of the horizontal ramus, 

 and its great depth. I found, by measurement with the 

 callipers, that this compression was even greater than is seen 

 in Dinotherium, while the lower jaws of most of the known 

 Mastodons and Elephants yield more or less of a circular 

 section. 1 This tenuity of form is carried on throughout the 

 skeleton in the Mastodon of Simorre. 



From these remarks it would appear sufficiently evident 

 that, whether we are guided by priority of description and 

 reference to the original specimens, or by the obvious signi- 

 fication of the term, the title of Mastodon angustidens is legi- 

 timately applicable to the Trilophodon of Simorre, and to no 

 other species ; for it is, par excellence, the ' Mastodonte a 

 dents etroites ' of Cuvier. The species, thus limited, has 

 nowhere been met with in the fossil state in England. 



Mastodon Arvernensis and M. longirostris. — Cuvier, as 

 already stated, included under the name of M. angustidens 

 other remains which do not belong to it. Upon this head 

 nearly all the French palaeontologists are agreed, although 

 at variance as to the details. Of the specimens figured in 

 the four plates devoted to ' Divers Mastodontes ' in the ' Os- 

 semens Fossiles,' all those from South America, amounting 

 to 10 in number, are by common consent referred to one or 

 two species peculiar to that country. Seven are referable to 

 the Mastodon of Simorre with narrow molars ; one to M. 

 Tapiroides ; five are doubtful, either from inexact know- 

 ledge as to their origin, or from their undecided characters ; 

 and aU the rest, being eleven in the aggregate, are from Italy, 

 with the exception of one specimen from Trevoux in France. 

 It is curious to observe the different views that have been 

 taken of them. De Blainville 2 limits the South American 

 remains to a single species, while Laurillard and Gervais 

 range them under two well-defined forms. De Blainville and 

 Owen agree with Cuvier in referring the so-called narrow- 

 toothed remains from Simorre, Italy, Auvergne, and Eppel- 

 sheim also, to a single species. Laurillard, devoted as he was 



1 See Appendix, p. 73.— [Ed.] 2 Osteograpliie : Des Elephants. 



