28 BRITISH AND EUROPEAN FOSSIL MASTODONS. 



mentions that, within the twelve months preceding September 

 1851, upwards of a dozen of Mastodon molars had been dis- 

 covered, in washing the Crag to get out the phosphatic 

 nodules. 1 Prof. Owen notices their occurrence in the Crag- 

 pits of Suffolk. 2 I am not aware tbat they have yet been 

 discovered in the Fluvio-marine Crag of Bridlington in 

 Yorkshire, nor in any of the freshwater deposits below the 

 Drift, where remains of Elephant and Hippopotamus are 

 more or less abundant. 



It is no part of the object of this communication to describe 

 the numerous remains of Mastodon from the Crag, that are 

 to be met with in different English collections. All that is 

 intended is to determine what the species really is, and only 

 such characteristic specimens will be referred to as exist 

 either in original or as casts, in public museums, or as have 

 been so accurately figured and described in works of authority 

 as to be susceptible of satisfactory identification. 



First, as regards the Molars. — The most perfect specimen 

 that has yet been discovered, is the famous Whitlingham 

 tooth, which forms the frontispiece of Mr. W. Smith's ' Strata 

 Identified,' and of which (reversed) a beautiful woodcut is 

 given in fig. 97 of the ' British Fossil Mammalia.' It is also 

 very carefully represented, unreversed, both as regards the 

 plan and profile views of the crown, in the ' Fauna Antiqua 

 Sivalensis' (Plate XXXVI. figs. 8 and 8 a). 3 It is the last true 

 molar (upper jaw, right side), being composed of five ridges, 

 with an anterior ' talon,' and a strong back ' talon.' The crown 

 is obscurely divided, longitudinally, by a shallow cleft along its 

 axis. Each ridge consists of about two pairs of thick, high, 

 conical mammillse, with very thick enamel. Deep clefts or 

 valleys intervene between these ridges; but the valleys, 

 instead of being transverse, are interrupted in the middle by 

 one or more large accessory conical mammillse, which are 

 interposed between the ridges, and alternate with the outer 

 and inner divisions. These mammillse are usually connected 

 with the inner division of each ridge in the upper jaw, and 

 Avith the outer division in the lower. They are much thicker 

 than in the other species of Mastodon which possess them, and 

 have a large conical core of ivory. The consequence of this 

 complex composition of the crown is that, when the ridges 

 have been worn down by continued grinding, they present a 

 great number of distinct alternate trefoil discs, surrounded by 

 a ring or belt of enamel, instead of the single or double trans- 

 verse disc exhibited by the Mastodon of Eppelsheim, M. 

 (Tetralophodori) longirostris, or by the M. (Trilophodon) 



1 Warren, 'On Mastodon qiganteus,' 2nd edit. p. 201. 2 Op. cit. p. 223. 



3 See vol. i. p. 468.— [Ed'.] 



